Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  In his pretty drawing-room way Toby Comber was very artistic, and where many people would see only a flat green field or a level landscape, he caught a delicious glimpse of a picture of the Dutch school. He looked out from his railway carriage window on placid cows standing knee-deep in pasture, or chewing a lazy cud beneath the narrow noon-day shade of drowsy elms, with a good deal of appreciation. He cared little either for cows or elms, except in so far as they reminded him of pictures which he admired, and which he knew to be valuable, and in the beauty of a landscape he looked mainly for an illustration of a picture. Like a large number of the more artistic of his world, he had a genuine respect for any work of art that was valuable, especially if it was more valuable than it would naturally appear to someone who did not know. He had a real reverence for rare first editions, even though he cared not two straws for what the book was about, and though all subsequent editions were better printed, and mezzotints which he would not have given two thoughts to a few years ago had become admirable in his eyes simply because people had begun to collect them and to pay high prices for them.

  Hurry, so prominent and distressing a factor in our modern world, so subversive of true progress, is still unknown to cross-country lines, and they remain invincibly leisurely. By the map he had not many miles to go, but before his journey was half over he had enjoyed the sweets of his triumph over Toby and the quiet wayside pictures to the full, and his thoughts returned to their accustomed abiding-place, himself. He was a great admirer of personal beauty both in men and women; good looks always attracted him, and he was a devout admirer of his own. He was, so he considered, exceedingly nicely and suitably dressed for a hot August day. He wore a flannel suit of a yellowish-brown tinge, which matched divinely with the rich chestnut of his boots and the darker chestnut of his hair, and his tie was bandana, the prevailing tone of which was deep russet. He had been a little hurried over dressing this morning, and had not really had time to put a pin in it; but now there was ample leisure, and, opening his dressing-bag, he took out a looking-glass, which he propped on the seat opposite, and a little leather box in which he kept his pins and studs. He took off his straw hat and smoothed his hair once or twice with his hand, but, being still dissatisfied, got out a silver-handled brush, and drew it several times upwards across his front-hair, emphasizing that upward sweep in it which he admired so much. If he had had the choosing of his hair, he would not have given orders for a different shade, and for this reason he did not dye it, though people wronged him. Even natural advantages, if too marked, like Kit’s teeth, have their drawbacks. His eyebrows were much darker, almost black, and his brown eyes were really fine, large, and liquid. He wore no moustache, though till lately he had not done so; but young men of the age which he desired himself to be had ceased wearing them, and now a moustache meant you were born in the sixties.

  Then he smiled at himself, not because he was amused, but for professional reasons, noting two things, the first (with great satisfaction) being the whiteness and regularity of his teeth, the second (with misgiving) the regions round the eye. By daylight it was impossible not to notice that the outer corners were marked — disfigured almost — by two lines, hideously styled crow’s-feet, and there were certainly other lines below the eye. However, Kit had told him that massage had been tried with success for that, and he intended to see about it when he got back to town.

  After another lingering look, he put the glass down and unlocked his leather jewel-case. In it were pins of all kinds, made with screw heads, so that they could serve indiscriminately as studs, and he turned them over. There was a beautiful ruby set in tiny brilliants, which he saw at once was the proper colour for the tone of his dress. He had worn it as a solitaire the evening before, and he unscrewed it, and replaced the back of the stud with a pin. But then he stopped. Not long ago Kit had given him a charming turquoise of the vieille roche, a piece of noon-day sky, and incapable of turning green. It would be suitable to wear that when he met her, but unfortunately it did not go at all well with his clothes. However, sentimental considerations prevailed, and he put the ruby back, pinned the turquoise into his tie, and looked at himself again.

  “It is rather an experiment,” he said half aloud.

  He had telegraphed to the Aldeburgh Arms for three rooms, two bedrooms and a sitting room, and, arriving there, he found they had been given him en suite, the sitting-room in the middle. He felt bound to ask whether these were the only rooms to be had, and finding there were no others, he was powerless to alter the arrangement.

  Kit would not arrive for two hours yet, and he set his valet to work at once to make the sitting-room habitable. The Saxe figures he took out himself, and gave a hand to the draping of embroideries; but the man had a great deal of taste, and he left him before long to his own ideas. After giving orders that masses of flowers should be sent up, and some plants for the fireplace, he went out to stroll by the beach till Kit’s train arrived. There was a fresh breeze off the sea, and he put a light dust-cloak over his arm, in case he should feel chilly.

  Kit’s train arrived punctually, and she in the highest spirits. She laughed till she cried over the immaculate Toby turned missionary, and it was with difficulty that Ted persuaded her not to write him a line.

  “Think of his face,” she cried, “if I just send a note!— ‘Dear Toby: How does Stanborough suit you and your fiancée? I meant to come there, as you know, but only yesterday evening I decided to come to Aldeburgh instead. Oddly enough, Ted Comber arrived here to-day. It was so pleasant (and quite unexpected) meeting him, and we shall have the greatest fun. He has been at Stanborough, he tells me, and had a long talk with you only yesterday. He is so fond of you.’ — Oh, Ted, think of his face!”

  There was very little that was genuine about Ted except his teeth and the colour of his hair, but his voice had the true ring of sincerity when he thought of Toby’s face.

  “Oh, that would spoil it all!” he cried. “Toby must never know — at least, not for a long time. He would certainly come here, too. How tiresome that would be! And I should quite lose my temper with him.”

  Kit laughed.

  “I know; that is just it,” she said. “It would be so amusing. I love seeing scenes, and I should like to see you really angry, Ted. What do you do?”

  “Well, you will soon know, if you write to Toby,” he said. “Kit, you simply mustn’t. No, I won’t say that, or else you will. But please don’t.”

  Kit laughed again.

  “Well, I won’t to-night, at any rate,” she said. “But I shall keep it as a hold over you, so you must behave nicely. Oh, Ted, how pretty you have made your room! And tea is ready; I am so hungry. Really, it is quite too funny about Toby.”

  She sat down and poured out tea; then, looking up as she handed him his cup, saw he was looking at her.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “When did I not behave nicely to you?” he said.

  “Oh, a thousand times — yesterday, to-day, now, even,” she said, “in expecting me to be sentimental. How can a woman who is just dying for her tea be sentimental?”

  She looked at him a moment with her head on one side.

  “Yes, you look quite nice to-day,” she said, “and, really, I am awfully pleased to be with you. But what evil genius prompted you to put a turquoise in a russet tie?”

  Ted threw up his hands in half-mock despair.

  “I knew it was wrong,” he said. “But don’t you see?”

  Kit looked at it a moment.

  “I remember now — I gave it you,” she said. “Really, I think that is the greatest compliment you ever paid me, spoiling your scheme of dress. Sugar? Yes, you take two lumps, I know.”

  Ted laughed.

  “It was an experiment, I felt,” he said. “But I did right.”

  Kit was silent a moment, for she had just taken a large bite out of new-made bun.

  “I think it will be the greatest fun down here,” she said. “Poor dear Toby could not have pla
yed into our hands more beautifully. The poor child was quite right, and most thoughtful. Stanborough is certainly too much du monde — of the wrong sort, that is to say — in August. He drove us to Aldeburgh. It is on his head. And he actually threatened to telegraph to Jack. I wonder if he would have carried it out. Personally, I don’t think he would; but, anyhow, it is all for the best. He couldn’t have suited us better. Dear boy, how nice to have such a careful little brother-in-law!”

  “He threatened me,” said Ted plaintively, “in a loud, angry voice, with ‘My name is Massingbird,’ and all the rest of it. I told him that to telegraph meant there was a reason for telegraphing, and he had none. Besides, we did not want Jack. He was not part of the plan.”

  “Jack’s nose has grown since he became a financier,” remarked Kit. “That is the worst of becoming anything. If you become a pianist, your hair grows. If you become a philanthropist, your front-teeth grow. I never intend to become anything, not even a good woman,” she said with emphasis.

  “I hope not,” remarked Ted.

  “Oh, how I hate people who are in earnest about things!” said Kit in a sort of frenzy. “I mean I hate people being in earnest about the things they ought to be in earnest about. One should only take seriously things like one’s hair and games and dress. For sheer social hopelessness give me a politician or a divine. Ted, promise me you will never become a divine.”

  “Not to-day, at any rate,” said Ted; “but I shall keep it as a hold over you.”

  Kit laughed uproariously, and got up.

  “I’ve finished for what I have received,” she said, “and so we’ll go out. Have you got a spade for me to dig in the sand with as I wade? Oh, there’s the bezique-box. I think we’ll play bezique instead. Is there a café or anything of the sort, where there will be a band. Bezique goes so well to a Strauss valse.”

  “There is a draper’s shop and a church,” said Ted. “That is all.”

  But after a couple of games the splendour of the evening weaned them from their cards. It had been a very hot day, but not long before sunset a cool wind was borne out of the sea, and they strolled out. Sunset was imminent in the west, and the land enmeshed in a web of gold. High in the zenith floated a few flushed feathers of cloud, and the sea was level and waveless — a polished surface of reflected brightness. The tide was on the ebb, and the smooth sand, wet from its retreat, was a mirror of the sky, a strip framed in the sea, and the high-water mark. Southward the land trended away in headland behind folded headland to an infinite distance of hazy and conjectured distances. The unbreathed air, a traveller over a hundred horizons of sea, was cool and tonic, and the whisper of the ripples crisp within the ear. And Kit with her childlike impressionableness, which was at once her danger and her charm, caught surely at the spirit of the free large spaces. She had taken off her hat, and walked firm and lithe along the shining ripple-fringed beaches, each footstep crushing for a moment the moisture out of the sand in a circle round her tread, and breathing deep, with open mouth, of the vivifying air. Like a chameleon she took instinctively the colour of her surroundings, and just now she was steeped in open air, freedom, and the great plains of sea and sky. She always gulped things down, camels and needles alike, thirsty of full sensations.

  “Really, one’s whole life is a series of mistakes, Ted,” she said, “except in a few short moments like these. Why do we go to that rabbit-warren of a London, and live in little smoky boxes, when there is an empty sea-beach, and a great sea-wind within a few hours of us? Oh! I wish I was a fisherman, or a day labourer, or a gallon of sea-water, to stop in the open always.”

  Ted laughed.

  “And if to-morrow is wet or cold, you will say, ‘Why did we come to this God-forsaken German Ocean, when we could have stopped in our nice comfortable houses?’”

  “I know I shall; and the worst of me is that I shall feel just as keenly as I feel this now. Jack called me a parasite once; he said I always found food in whatever I happened to be on. I dare say he is right. Oh, look at that bit of red seaweed on the sand! It looks as if it had been set, as one used to set butterflies; every little fibre is spread out separately. But if I pick it up, it will be just a stringy pulp. There are a great many morals to be drawn from that, and one is, ‘Don’t meddle.’”

  “What a lesson for Tobys!” laughed Ted.

  The sun set, and with the fading of the light they turned. Moment by moment the colours paled, and the evening iridescences turned gray and cold. Kit put on her hat; there was a chill in the air, and they walked faster. By the time they reached the hotel it was nearly dark, and the shining window-squares looked inviting and comfortable, and Kit mentally revoked her desire to be a gallon of sea-water. It was already time to dress for dinner, and they went up to the sitting-room together. Their bedrooms were on opposite sides of it, both communicating with it and with the passage outside, and as they dressed they talked loudly and cheerfully to each other through doors ajar, their conversation being punctuated by sounds of the sponge. Ted was ready first, but a few moments afterwards Kit came out of her room, and went downstairs with him, still in a fever of high spirits, but with all the cool sanity of the great expanses driven out of her worthless little soul, and dressed in red.

  They had a table to themselves in a corner of the plushy dining-room, where they could talk unheard and observe unobserved. Lord Comber, who always took the precaution of carrying wine with him when he was at hotels, had some excellent champagne, of which Kit drank her share, and their talk rose in crescendo with more frequent bursts of laughter as dinner went on. Toby again demanded their amused comments.

  “Oh, if he could see us thus!” said Kit; and the idea was immensely entertaining, viewed in the light of dinner and wine.

  Then followed a résumé of all the things which had not happened since the two had met, and which, even if they had, should never have been repeated. The world in which they lived is not noted for charitable impulses or moments of compassion, and that which should have called out pity, or if not pity, at least, have been accorded silence, was the occasion of great laughter. Kit, among her many gifts, was an excellent mimic; and Jack’s shrug of the shoulders, when she really had her boxes packed to go to Aldeburgh vice Stanborough, was inimitable. But, as she said, she was no longer married to a man, but a company. Jack was no longer Jack, but a mixture of Alington, deep levels, and cyanide process. Then Mrs. Murchison came under review, and Kit improvised a really first-rate soliloquy.

  But eventually the hush that comes with ice overtook them, and it was to break an appreciable silence that Ted spoke.

  “How they stare at one!” he said. “Haven’t the people who stay at this hotel ever seen people before? You would think we were woaded early Britons. Really, it is much better than Stanborough; there were all sorts of people there one knew. I am glad we came — and you, Kit?”

  He looked up, and caught her eye for a moment.

  “I also,” she said. “But, Ted, I very nearly did not come. I could not conceive what your telegram meant; but I trusted you, you see; I assumed that your excellent reasons were excellent. And when I knew what they were, I was justified, and you too. They were more than excellent; they were funny.”

  Ted laughed.

  “They really were,” he said. “But I don’t know what I should have done if I had found a telegram here from you saying you were not coming.”

  “Did you think I should throw you over?” she asked.

  He paused before replying, and looked up at the long table where the most of the people in the hotel were sitting.

  “There is a man with a face like what you see in a spoon sitting there,” he said. “No, I did not.”

  Kit followed his glance.

  “Yes, I see him,” she said, “and his mouth opens sideways. But how modest of you! What reason had you to think that?”

  Ted felt his heart thump with a sudden riotous movement. He took up his glass to finish his champagne, and noticed that his hand shook a
little. He drank the wine at a gulp.

  “Because I think you like me a little, Kit,” he replied.

  He had never spoken to her quite like that before, though, for that matter, he might have used the identical words to her a score of times; never before had she given him exactly that sort of opportunity. But the presence of so many people close at hand of so utterly different a society to theirs that they might have been Red Indians, gave both him and her a strangely isolated feeling, as if they had been alone on a desert island. Both knew also that he by proposing, she by acceding to this visit to Aldeburgh, had taken another step in intimacy towards each other.

  But without a pause Kit replied; and in spite of her reply, so far from disavowing it, she felt a sudden inward leap of exultation, and he, in spite of the lightness of her reply, was confirmed.

  “Oh, Ted, don’t be serious!” she said. “It is such bad manners. Think of Toby; think of the man with the spoon-face.”