Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  Alfred stood and looked about him for a moment or two when he came into this very suitably furnished hall, and observed with some silent amusement that Roland Ward’s label was still attached to one of the stag’s heads. This he did not remove; indeed, with the end of his stick he poked it into a rather more prominent position. Then he passed on into the dining room.

  The two portraits were already hung, for Mr. Osborne had seen at once where they should go, above the new mahogany sideboard which was like that in the hall, and was, in fact, as Mrs. Osborne said, “its fellow.” The windows took up the long side opposite to them, and on the other two were some half dozen portraits, which Alfred had in vain tried to buy before now, but had found to his chagrin that they were inalienable. There was a Reynolds there, a Gainsborough, a couple of Romneys, and all had about them that indefinable air of race and breeding which the old English masters, lucky perhaps in their sitters, or at any rate in their own quality of vision, render so superbly. Till this evening the third wall had been empty; now Mr and Mrs. Osborne, she in all her jewels, he with the telephone and ledger, shone there.

  Alfred glanced round the room, but his eye came back to these two portraits. Sabincourt, that superb modem artist, had done the sitters justice, justice so rough that it might be taken for revenge. Mrs. Osborne sat full face, her white hair gathered beneath the all-round tiara of diamonds that she felt to be so heavy. Close round her neck was the Land’s End necklace, but a rope of pearls reached to her waist and was fastened there by an immense ruby. Her large pillowy arms were bare to the shoulder; in one hand she held the Perigaud fan, but it was so grasped that the rings on the hand that held it as well as the bracelets were in evidence. The other lay negligently, knuckles upwards, on the carved arms of her chair. Her face wore an expression of fatuous content, and it was extremely like her, cruelly like her. And Edward had fared as well (or as badly) at the eminent hands of the artist. A vulgar kindly face peered into his ledger, and as his wife said, you could almost hear the telephone bell ring.

  Alfred seemed fascinated by the sight of the portraits, or rather by the sight of them in contrast with the others. He turned on the electric light which was attached to their frames, and drawing a chair from a table, sat down to observe them. Then he suddenly broke into a spasm of noisless laughter, and slapped his thin thigh with his withered little hand.

  After a while he rose.

  “But I’ll get Sabincourt to paint one of Claude,” he said to himself, “and then ask any of these dealer-fools if it’s a West or an Osborne, bless his handsome face.”

  Dinner that night was an extremely lengthy affair, but “informal-like, quite a family party,” as Mrs. Osborne explained to several of her guests, as she informed them whom they were to take in or be taken in by. May Thurston was furnished with the most complete explanation.

  “I thought we’d all be comfortable and not stuck up, Lady Th — Lady May, now that we’ve left London behind us,” she said, “and though I’m well aware, my dear, that Sir Thomas ought to take you in, by reason of your rank, since Mr. O. takes in Lady Austell, and the Earl me, I thought you’d not be ill-pleased if I passed you off with your young man, same as I’ve treated Lady Dora in sending her in with Claude. And so all you young people will be together, and a merry time you’ll have, I’ll be bound. Ah, there is Sir Thomas; I must explain to him.”

  Sir Thomas cared little for precedence, but much for his dinner and more for his wine. He was considered quite a courtier in manner at Sheffield, and bowed to Mrs. Osborne on the conclusion of her explanation.

  “When Mr. Osborne has the ordering of the wines, and Mrs. Osborne the commanding of the victuals,” he said handsomely, “he would be a man what’s hard to please if he wasn’t very well content. And to take in Mrs. Percy is an opportunity, I may say, of studying refinement and culture that doesn’t often—” Here Mrs.

  Percy herself entered the room, close to where they were standing, and he broke off, conscious of some slight relief, for he was one of those people who can very easily get into a long sentence, but find it hard to rescue themselves from being strangled by it when once there. “But speak of an angel,” he added, “and there comes a fluttering of wings.”

  Thereafter the “gathering of the clans,” as Mr. Osborne usually expressed the assembly of guests for dinner, came thick, but before they were gathered a deafening gong announced that dinner was gathered too. Austell, with his weak pale face, came last but one, and finally his mother made her slow and impressive entry. She looked like an elderly dethroned princess, come back after exile to the native country where she no longer ruled, and stretched out both hands to Mrs. Osborne, whom she had not seen since her arrival.

  “Dear Mrs. Osborne,” she said. “How glad I am! Quite charming. A family party!”

  “Clans all gathered now, Mrs. O.,” said her husband. “Let’s have a bit of dinner.”

  The dinner was served throughout on silver; a grove of wine glasses stood at the right hand of each guest. In deference to Alfred’s lumbago all windows were closed, and the atmosphere soon became very warm and comfortable indeed. An immense glass chandelier hanging above the table, and studded with electric lights, was the chief author of illumination, but clumps of other lights were on the walls, and each picture had its separate lamp. Sir Thomas’s courtier-like speeches soon ceased, and he was content to eat and listen to the cultured conversation that flowed from Mrs. Per’s lips, while his face gradually deepened in colour to a healthy crimson and his capacity for bowing must certainly have ceased also. He asked the butler, whom he called “waiter,” which was the year of each particular vintage that was so lavishly pressed upon him, and occasionally, after sipping it, interrupted the welling of the cool springs of culture to look codfish-like up the table toward Mr. Osborne, and say, “Capital ninety-two, this.” And then Mrs. Per would begin again. Her talk was like the flowing of a syphon; it stopped so long only as you put your finger on the end of it, but the finger removed, it continued, uninterrupted, pellucid, without haste or pause. She was the daughter of a most respectable solicitor in Sheffield, whose father and grandfather had been equally highly thought of, and Per openly acknowledged that some of the most chaste designs in the famous ornamental tinware were the fruits of her pencil. But with the modesty of true genius she seldom spoke of drawing, though she was so much wrapped up in art, but discussed its kindred manifestations, and in particular the drama.

  She gave a sweet little laugh.

  “Oh, Sir Thomas, you flatter me,” she said in response to some gross and preposterous compliment about her age, while he was waiting for a second helping of broiled ham, to which Mrs. Osborne had successfully tempted him. “Indeed, you flatter me. I am quite old enough to remember Irving’s ‘Hamlet.’ What an inspired performance! It made me quite ill, from nervous exhaustion, for a week. I had a silly little schoolgirl ‘Hamlet’ of my own — yes, I will allow I was at school, though nearly on the point of leaving, and I assure you Irving’s ‘Hamlet’ killed it, annihilated it, made it — is it naughty of me?

  —— made it stillborn. It was as if it had never lived. How noble looking he was!”

  Sir Thomas raised his eyes towards Mrs. Osborne. “Best peach-fed ham I ever came across,” he said. “Wonderful man, wasn’t he, Mrs. Percy? Great artist, eh?” Dora from opposite had heard the end of this.

  “Claude, dear,” she said, “who is that nice fat man? I never saw anybody like his dinner so much. What an angel! It is funny to me, you know, coming back here and finding you of all people in that heavenly car, ready to drive me up from the station. We didn’t go quite the shortest way, did we? Last time I was here there was only our old pony-trap to take me and my luggage, so I had to walk. And do you know, Mrs. Osborne has put me in my own room.”

  Claude turned towards her. In spite of the awful heat caused by the shut windows and the rich exhalation of roast meats, he was still perfectly cool.

  “I did that pretty well then?” he
said. “Do you remember my asking you about the house, and where your room was, and all that? So you never guessed why I asked? It was just that you might have your old room again. Such a business as there was with the mater. She said you ought to be on the first landing, where those big handsome rooms are. But I said ‘No.’ Give Dora the room on the second floor beyond the old school room, and you won’t hear any complaints.”

  “Ah, that makes it even nicer to know that you did it,” said she.

  The conversation round the table for the moment had risen to a roar. Mrs. Osborne was tempting Alderman Price to the sorbet he had refused; Mrs. Per had got on to “The Bells,” which she allowed (incorrectly) that she had not seen; Mr. Osborne was shouting the year of the liqueur brandy which went with the ice to Sir Thomas; and May and Mr. Franklin were wrangling at the tops of their voices over some question of whether a certain dance had been on Tuesday or Wednesday. Lady Austell only looked slightly aloof, and followed the direction of her son’s eyes which were fixed, as by enchantment, on the picture of his hostess. And the crowd and the noise seemed to make a silence and isolation for the two lovers.

  “But it was a business getting my way,” he said. “I never should have but that I was always the mater’s favourite.”

  Dora heard the words and something suddenly jarred. Somehow he should not have put it like that; he thought of himself, he took credit — And then before this rather disconcerting little moment succeeded in disturbing her, she looked at him again. There was the cool strong face, the smouldering eyes, that upward tilt of the chin, each inimitable, each Claude and no other.

  “Favourite?” she said. “Do you expect me to be surprised?”

  Quails, out of season, but probably delicious, had come and gone, and with the iced fruit salad that followed port was handed round. And with that first glass of port Mr. Osborne rose to his feet.

  “Now it’s the first glass of good old port from Oporto, Sir Thomas,” he said, “and I ask the company to drink a health, not of this happy couple nor of that, as we well might do, God bless you my dears, but to someone else. Toasts I know are in general given after the dinner is over, and I hope Mrs. O. has got a savoury for you yet, and a peach or two. But it’s been my custom to propose a health with the first glass of port, such as I see now in my hand.”

  Sir Thomas gave a choked laugh.

  “Wish all toasts were drunk in such a glass of port, Osborne,” he said.

  “Very kind, I’m sure, but silence for the chair, Sir Thomas. This is the first little dinner as we’ve had here, and may there be many to follow it, with all present as I see now. Ladies and gentlemen, who has had the privilege of entertaining you? Why Mrs. Osborne! Maria, my dear, your health and happiness, and no speech required. God bless you, Mrs. O.”

  It was a complete surprise to Mrs. Osborne, and for one moment she felt so shy and confused she hardly knew which way to look. Then she knew, and with her kind blue eyes brimming she smiled at her husband. Everyone drank something, Sir Thomas his complete glass with a hoarse murmur of “no heel-taps”; Mrs. Per a little sip of water (being a teetotaller) with her little finger in exclusive elevation; Lady Austell something at random out of the seven glasses at her right hand, which had all been filled at different periods of dinner without her observing. And Dora, radiant, turned to Claude.

  “Old darlings,” she said enthusiastically, and resumed her conversation with Mr. Franklin on her right, But Claude was not quite pleased with this heartfelt interjection. It was affectionate, loving even, but something more was due to the son of the house. The interjection ought to have been a little more formal and appreciative. It should have saluted the importance and opulence of his parents as well as their kindliness. After all, who had done the house up, and made it habitable?

  And then instantaneously this criticism expunged itself from his mind. Dora always said the thing that was uppermost in her mind and “old darlings” was a very good thing to be uppermost.

  Harry Franklin and Claude found themselves side by side when, not so very long afterward, the ladies left the room, and Mr. Osborne, glass in hand, went round the table and sat between Austell and Sir Thomas. The others, with the exception of Alfred, who did not stir, but continued sitting where he was at the end of the room far away from door and window, closed up also, and another decanter of the’40 port was brought.

  “And when you’ve given me news of that, Lord Austell and Sir Thomas,” said Mr. Osborne genially, “I warrant there’ll be another to come up from my cellar without leaving it empty neither.”

  The prospect seemed to invigorate Sir Thomas, and he emptied and filled his glass. Austell meantime was taken to task by his host for not doing the same, but was courteously firm in his refusal, in spite of Mr. Osborne’s assurance that you could bring up a child on this port without its knowing the meaning of a headache. Harry Franklin and Claude also were not doing their duty, so Mr. Osborne reminded them, but the rest were sufficiently stalwart to satisfy him.

  “And the Navron quartette are playing afterward, are they not?” asked Harry. “May told me so.”

  Claude frowned slightly.

  “Yes, but when they’ll be able to begin, I don’t know,” he said. “When the pater gets somebody to appreciate his port you can’t tell when anything else will begin except another bottle. What I want is a cigarette, and a talk to Dora.”

  “I’ve got some,” said Harry innocently, producing his case, and taking one himself. He lit it.

  “I say, you’d better wait,” Claude began, when the hoarse voice of Sir Thomas interrupted him. “It’s dishonour to the wine,” he said. “Mr. Osborne, sir, your wine is being dishonoured by that young gentleman opposite.” Harry did not catch the meaning of this at once, and was “put at his ease again” by Mr. Osborne before he knew that he was not there already.

  “You’re all right, Mr. Franklin,” said his host, “though in general we don’t smoke till the wine has finished going round. But if my guests mayn’t do what they like in my house, I’d sooner not have my friends round my table at all. Drink your wine, Sir Thomas, and let those smoke who choose.”

  The second bottle, which was not to leave Mr. Osborne’s cellar denuded, had appeared before this, and the indignant drinker cooled down over it. A faint little squeak of laughter was heard from Alfred, who had sent for his plaid again, and till now had sat perfectly silent, emptying and filling his glass as many times as possible. At this point he produced a large cigar and lit it himself.

  “I disagree with Sir Thomas,” he said. “Good tobacco and good wine go very well together, very well indeed,” and he embarked on the nauseating combination. It was now half-past ten, and a message came in from the drawingroom as to whether the gentlemen would take their coffee in the dining room or have it with the music. This caused a break-up, the three young men, Austell, Claude, and Franklin going out, leaving the rest at the table.

  “Those young fellows will please the ladies more than we old fogies would, hey, Sir Thomas?” said Mr. Osborne. “We’ll follow them by-and-by. It’s not every day that one meets one’s old friends, and has a glass of good wine together. Per, my boy, I hope you’re taking care of yourself.”

  Per was doing this very adequately. He was a fat, white young man of nearly thirty, with an immensely high forehead from which the tide of hair had already receded far. He wore pince-nez and a large diamond ring, and looked rather older than he was and considerably stouter than he should have been. “Thank you, yes, dad,” he said. “I’m going strong.”

  This furnished Sir Thomas, whose indignation over the cigarette had not quite yet subsided, with a text.

  “Yes, my boy,” he said, “and long will you, when you’re not afraid of your dinner and your glass of wine. Half the young fellows I see now drink barley water to their dinner, and some of them don’t eat hardly no meat, and that’s why we’re losing the trade of the world as well as all the boat races and what not. In my day we ate our beef and drank our wi
ne, and so did our fathers before us, and I never heard that we lost many boat races then.”

  Sir Thomas did not say whether he personally had ever won any, nor did Percy give testimony to the value of generous diet by the enumeration of any athletic feats of his own. A little shrill laugh again came from the other end of the table, but Sir Thomas did not hear it.

  “Look at those three young fellows who went out — no offence to you, Mr. Osborne,” he continued. “Why, there wasn’t a spare ounce of flesh on any of their bones, and that means no stamina. They’d shut up like a pocket knife if it came to a tussle, and I doubt if their bones are much more than grizzle with the messes they eat, and that not enough of them. No, give me a lad who eats his steak and drinks his bottle of wine, and I’ll tell you whom to back in business or across country.”

  “Well, there’s sense in a steak to my thinking,” said Mr. Osborne, “and to be sure our fathers ate their beef and drank their beer or their port more free than the young fellows do now. But I’d be sorry to put my money against Claude if it came to a run or a cricket match. He’s a wiry young fellow, though he’s not such a hand at his dinner as is Percy.”

  The cackle from the end of the table grew louder, but no voice followed. Alfred was one of those to whom his own sense of humour is sufficient in itself. Without a word he got up and shuffled, still wearing his overshoes, out of the door.