Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  “Feel like what?” she said, though she knew this to be useless fencing.

  “Oh, feel like what you felt when you said you were so glad the pater and mater were going to stop here. I don’t say that they noticed, but I did. I expect I’m quicker than them at feeling what you feel. What you said was right enough; it was just the way you said it.”

  He learned forward in his seat a little, looking her full in the face. And somehow the sight, of him and the proximity failed for once to make themselves felt. His presence did not mitigate what he said, or stamp it with the old magic.

  “I wish you would explain,” she said.

  “As if there was any need, darling,” he said. “As if you don’t understand as well as I do. You said you were delighted they were stopping, but only your voice said it. What’s wrong? There’s something up. And I thought we were having such jolly days together. Father and mother are enjoying it ever so much, and if they pretend they find it just a shade more delightful than they really do, why, it’s just to please you, and make you feel it’s a success that they do it. They settled to stop on, I believe, just for that.”

  This made matters no better. Dora felt she ought to be delighted they were doing so, and ought to be touched and pleased with the reason Claude had conjectured. But she was not: Venice, as a matter of fact, or rather these days of Venice, were being spoiled for her. She would as soon, as Claude had once said to her, though with inverted meaning, have spent them at Clapham Junction if the Osbornes were to be with her. It was a great pity that they should stop on, if their motive in doing so was to gratify her. She hoped it was not that.

  “Oh, I don’t think that is it, Claude,” she said. “Dad likes — likes the sun and the — oh, lots of things, Stucki’s sugar factory for instance, and your mother likes the pigeons and the shops. But it isn’t Venice they like.”

  “That’s just what I say,” said he, “they stop to make you think they do. They think the world of you, you know.”

  “Yes, the darlings,” said Dora quickly. “That — that makes it so pathetic.”

  “Pathetic? You mean that you don’t think so highly of them?”“

  Dora’s heart suddenly sank. She had not meant that: she had meant only that it was a pity they stayed in Venice to please her, when in reality she was not enjoying their stay. She knew well that they were out of place in Venice... it was hopeless to try to explain.

  But even if she had meant the other, it would have been a fatal error on Claude’s part to put it into words. He called this kind of frankness “getting at the bottom of the thing.” She felt he was certain to use that phrase now. He did so.

  “Let’s get at the bottom of it, dear,” he said, “and as we always do, I shall speak my mind, just like you. Perhaps it will sound harsh to you: I’m sorry if it does.”

  He leaned back again, but without looking at him she could see that he tilted his head back, and put his chin a little out, the identical gesture which before she had found so attractive, so fascinating, even. She had told him so, too, a hundred times: had said she loved a man to know his mind, to be firm and decided, especially with those he loved best. No doubt he remembered that at this moment: perhaps even he was doing it consciously or at least half-consciously, so as to present what he had to say in the most attractive guise. But, suddenly and disconcertingly, she found the gesture scarcely less than odious.

  “I think the pater’s been awfully good to you, dear,” he said. “He’s done a lot for you, given you all sorts of things you had no reason to expect. There’s this month in Venice, to go no further than that. Well, it will stand him in a pot of money, and it’s just because he doesn’t grudge you one penny of it that I think you ought to feel rather more cordial to him about their stopping. I don’t say that you behaved not cordially, because I think what you said was all right, and neither of them noticed that anything was awry, but you hadn’t got the right feelings to back up your tongue. Wait a moment.

  I’ve not finished; there’s something more yet, but I want to find words that won’t hurt you, and yet will express what I mean.”

  There was something in this that roused a certain sense in Dora that she knew had been often present in her mind, but which she hoped would always remain dormant. But now it began to awake; his words, kind as they were, implied an impossible attitude. He was judging, so it seemed to her, making himself jury and judge all rolled into one, and it was understood that she, put in the dock before him, would make no defence. He knew that he was right — that was what it came to — and was going to tell her, as kindly as possible, what was right. And on the instant she found herself refusing to be judged and condemned by his standards. He did not know what Venice meant to her, or how essentially his father’s attitude toward the things and the place that she loved jarred on her. And unfortunately the affair was typical of hundreds of other affairs. That Mr. Osborne had no artistic sense of any sort or kind did not matter, but what was beginning to matter was that Claude, who apparently could not see that the entire absence of it in a person with whom she was brought into day-long contact made something rather hard to bear, had put on his wig and was going to sum up on a matter about which he knew nothing. Her behaviour had never broken down; he had said that himself, and she believed it to be true; the matter was that he could not understand that she had to struggle against the disappointment of spoiled days, and was yet serenely confident that he had the complete data.

  “Don’t mind about hurting me,” she said quickly. “I want you to say exactly what you feel.”

  They had arrived at the water-gate of their home, without her noticing it, and Giovanni was already standing, hat in hand, to give her the support of his arm on to the steps, which were slippery with the receding tide. Claude was conscious of this first: he was quite conscious, also, of Dora’s tone.

  “Not before the servants,” he said. “Get out, dear, and take Giovanni’s arm. The steps are like ice!”

  Again Dora was in revolt: it seemed to her that he was advising her against a thing he might have done himself, but which she could not have dreamed of. She had been absorbed in this — this dispute was it? — had not noticed. He had noticed, and warned her against an impossible thing.

  Giovanni unlocked the door for them, received orders for the next day, and they went up the stairs together in silence. And as they went up all the womanhood in Dora — and there was much of it, and it was all sweet and good — rose, flooding for the time the bitter gray mud flats that had appeared. And at the top of the stairs she turned to him.

  “Oh, Claude,” she said, “we’re not quarrelling, are we?”

  “Takes two to make a quarrel,” he said, “and I’m not one. But I want to say something yet, and I think you’d better hear it. I ask you to, in fact.”

  She unpinned her hat, and led the way to the end of the big sala that overlooked the canal. She sat down in her accustomed chair, flinging the window open, for the night was very hot.

  “Say it then,” she said.

  Again Claude’s head went back: he felt perfectly certain he was right.

  “Well, it’s just this. You’ve told me not to choose my words, so I won’t bother to do so. You haven’t felt right toward the pater and mater all this time here. When he wanted to go and see a factory, you wondered at him — and, yes, you despised him a bit for it. When he admired some picture you didn’t think much of, you wondered again. Now, he never wondered at you. If you wanted to sit half an hour before some adoring Doge, he never wondered, any more than I wonder, for there are lots of people in the world, and they’ve got their different tastes and every right to them. But he only said to himself: ‘Gosh, there’s something there, and she’s right, only I don’t know what it is she’s looking at.’ He never thought you wanting in perception because you didn’t admire the iron in the fish market. He only thought to himself, ‘Let’s go and see something this afternoon that Dora does like.’ How often has he gone to the National Gallery in London? Nev
er, you bet: he doesn’t know a picture from a statue. And how often has he gone to look at some mouldy old Titian here, because you thought it worth a look? Well, isn’t that anything? It’s no use you and me not saying things straight out, and so I say it straight out. He’s been boring himself fit to burst over your Botticellis, and been trying to admire them, saying this was the biggest picture he’d ever seen, and this was the smallest. And yet dear old Dad wasn’t boring himself, because he was with you, and trying to take an interest in what you showed him. Well then, I ask you!”

  There, close in front of her, was the beautiful face, the beautiful mouth which she loved, saying things which, as far as they went, her essential nature entirely approved. But at the moment his beauty did not move her. And the account he had given was correct: she had been having on her nerves the fact that Mr. Osborne took more pleasure in the steamboats than in San Rocco, in the fish market than in the Frati. He might be right: she might be right, but in any case the attitudes were incompatible. And Claude at the moment clearly took up the attitude that was incompatible with hers. There was much more, too, he did not see: he did not see that indifference on Dora’s part did not destroy his father’s pleasure in the speed of the steamboats, whereas his artistic criticims blackened her pictures for her.

  And then, womanlike again, she knew only that Claude was her man, that he was beautiful, that he loved her...

  “I dare say I am quite wrong,” she said. “I dare say you are quite right. Shall we leave it, then, darling? I will try — I will try to do better. I am sorry.”

  “And there speaks my darling girl,” said Claude.

  CHAPTER VII.

  THE stay in Venice had naturally curtailed for Mrs. Osborne the weeks of her London season, but she had never intended to begin entertaining on the scale required by the prodigious success of the fancy-dress ball last year till after Whitsuntide. Before leaving town in May she had sent out all invitations for the larger functions (except those which her invited guests subsequently asked for on behalf of their friends, and which she always granted), and it was clear that the world in general was going to pass a good deal of its time at No. 92. Indeed, when she went through her engagement book on her return from Venice to Grote, hospitable though she was, and greatly enjoying the exercise of that admirable virtue, she was rather appalled at the magnitude of what she had undertaken. She was going to give three balls (real balls), three concerts, two big dinner parties every week, and a series of week-ends down at Grote, while on such other nights as she was not dining out herself there were a series of little parties. In addition Sheffield friends coming to stay with them for the insides of weeks to finish up with one of the Grote week-ends. These visits she looked forward to with peculiarly pleasant anticipations, for the dear soul could not but feel an intense and secret gratification at the thought of such local celebrities as Sir Thomas and the Prices seeing her and Mr. O. absolutely at the top of the tree, and entertaining princes and duchesses and what not just as they had entertained aldermen and manufacturers at Sheffield. Also there was a secret that Mr. Osborne had told her, which filled her with feelings that were almost too solemn to be glee. The secret was not to be talked about yet, but in private he no longer called her Mrs. O., but “my lady.” She hoped Sir Thomas would be with them when the honours were published, for secretly she still took her bearings, so to speak, by the stars as they appeared in Sheffield. There Sir Thomas Ewart, Bart., and Lady had been the very Pole-star to which quite important constellations reverently pointed. But now, as by some new and wonderful telescope, she saw herself and Mr. O. high above Sir Thomas. Why, even Per would be the Honourable Per, and Sir Thomas would have to say, “After you, Per, my boy.” She and Mr. O. had already had more than one broken night in thinking of a title which he could submit for approval. Mrs. Osborne was all for something old and territorial.

  “There’s Hurstmonceaux, my dear,” she said, “that ruined old castle which we drove over to see when you was down at Hastings with your attack of gout. I don’t doubt you could buy it for a song, and there you’ll be.”

  “And then next you’d be wanting me to do up the Castle and live in it,” said he. “Besides, it’s a regular stumper to say, and French at that. No, my dear, we must think of something more British than that; there’s plenty of good names without crossing the Channel, so to speak, for something to call yourself by. But it’s puzzling work, and new to me, to have to think of christening yourself afresh.”

  “Lor’, Mr. Osborne, you don’t mean to say that you’ve got to change your Christian name, too?”

  “No, no, my dear. There’s no Christian name to bother about; I don’t deal any more in Christian names —— not officially, anyhow.”

  He blew out the light.

  “Good night, my dear,” he said. “And God bless you.” It was all very well to say “Good night,” but Mrs. Osborne could no more sleep than she could think of a name. After an interval she heard Mr. Osborne turn himself ponderously round in his bed, and knew that he was awake too.

  “There’s some things called ‘Hundreds,’” she said. “I seem to remember that all England is cut up into Hundreds, which is a queer thing to think upon. It’ll be worth while seeing in what Hundred the East End of Sheffield lies.”

  “There’s something in that,” said Mr. Osborne, “and it would bring the business into it. Lor’, Mrs. Osborne, my lady, I’m glad I had nothing to say to a knighthood five years ago. I’d have been put on the shelf for good if I’d jumped at it. But not I! It’s this parliamentary business coming on top of all I did at Sheffield that has given the extra turn. And I’ve been liberal, I’m sure, to the party. What was the name of the street now where I built the church in Sheffield? I declare it’s gone out of my head. Thinking of new names drives the old ones out.”

  “Commercial Road, my dear,” said Mrs. Osborne, “for I thought of the name myself when you was building the street.”

  “Then we ain’t no further on yet. Grote, too; that’s not to be thought of, as it’s Lord Austell’s second title.”

  “After all, we only take the place on hire,” said Mrs. Osborne, “and it doesn’t bring the business in.”

  “That’s what beats me,” said Mr. Osborne. “How to bring the business in! Lord Hardware, Tinware; that would be a thing to laugh at.”

  The matter was still in debate on that morning when Mrs. Osborne went through her engagement book down at Grote and found so heavy a programme in front of her. And somehow to-day she did not feel markedly exhilarated by it. The journey back from Venice had tired her very much, and though she had felt sure that a good night’s rest coupled with a day or two of solid English food would set her up again, she still felt overdone and devitalized. She was disposed to attribute this in the main to the unnutritious character of Venetian diet, where, if you got a bit of veal for your dinner, that was as much butcher’s meat as you were likely to see; while, to make up, there would be nothing more than a slice of some unknown fish and the half of a chicken that was no bigger than a blackbird. As for a nice filet of beef or a choice leg of lamb, it was a thing unheard of. Yet she had not felt much inclined for the filet of beef when it was accessible again; it seemed to suit her as little as the rice and maccaroni had done. For the last week, too, she had had from time to time little attacks of internal pain. No doubt it was of no consequence, but it was a pain that she did not know and could not quite localize.

  Once or twice she had thought of consulting a doctor, a thing that Mr. Osborne had urged on her before the Venetian visit, but some vague and curious fear prevented her — the fear of being told that something was seriously wrong, and that she would have to give up their London programme which she had planned so delightedly. That was a thing not to be contemplated; the London plans were, to her mind, part of the immutable order of things, and it was therefore essentially important that Mr. Osborne should not guess that she was out of sorts, for she well knew, if he had so much as a guess of that, he would ha
ve carried her off, by force if necessary, and not let go of her till he had deposited her in some eminent consulting room, with specialists dangling at the end of the telephone. But she had never been lacking in spirit, and it would be a singular thing if she could not be genial and hearty to all the world for a few weeks more.

  But what she doubted was her power of getting through, the physical strain of it. She knew how tiring the standing about and the receiving was, and every day now she felt tired even before the fatigues of it had begun. If only she had a daughter, who could quite naturally take some of this off her hands, and let her sit down while the “company” were arriving. And then, an idea struck her.

  Dora and Claude were intending to occupy the flat in Mount Street till the end of the summer. After that they would come down to Grote, and soon, please God! the flat in Mount Street would be too small for them “and what would be theirs” — this elegant circumlocution was exactly the phrase that passed through Mrs. Osborne’s mind — and when they returned to London again in the autumn, it would be to a house of their own in Green Street with place for a nursery. This, however, they were only going to take at Michaelmas; but Dora had written to her mother-in-law this very morning (and her innocent letter suggested possibilities to Mrs. Osborne), saying that Mount Street really seemed to be hotter than Venice, and dreadfully stuffy, which Venice was not. What if Dora and Claude would come and live with them in Park Lane till the end of July? She remembered how Dora had acted hostess down at Grote in the winter, and they might play the game again. But this time there would be a real object to be served by it; Dora would help her in the entertaining, which prospectively, as she planned it, had seemed so delightful, but now appeared so difficult. It was an excellent idea, if only she could compass it.