by E. F. Benson
He leaned with his elbows on the chimney-piece, and must have been drowned in meditation for some quarter of an hour, for as the intense preoccupation of it began to leave him, some church clock, which had struck soon after he turned up the light which illuminated the cupboard in the panel, boomed out the hour. It was as if a stone had been dropped into the tranquil pool of the night, and the ripples of it flowing out concentrically spread up the river in solemn and sonorous vibrations. At that moment the thick, calm note was pierced by shriller noises, getting gradually louder, and presently a couple of cyclists sped along the Embankment whistling and calling to the sparse loiterers on benches and pavement to take cover. Coming just then, the interruption to Bernard was violent, and with a sense of exasperation he closed the panel and rang the bell communicating with his valet’s room, and told him to tell the others, in case they had not heard the warning, that the whistles had gone, for by experience he had learned that the ladies of his household felt more comfortable if they sat very close to each other on the kitchen-stairs, or put their shawls over their heads and drank cocoa. For himself, he was content to know on the authority of an expert, that it mattered singularly little whether you went to the garret or sat in the coal-cellar, since if your house was so unfortunate as to receive a direct hit, you need not worry any more about the matter; while if a bomb was dropped near your house, the chief fear was from the glass of your windows being blown inwards and flying across the room like a thousand razors. Prudence therefore inculcated that you might as well draw the curtains and open the windows. This Bernard did, and taking up the book which he had been reading before he went down to the office, he sat to wait for the development of events. He had a considerable touch of the fatalist about him, and if it was written in the book of destiny that a piece of German explosive was to terminate his existence, it was no use bothering about the matter, while if it was not so written, there was even less sense in agitation.
There were footsteps on the stairs outside, as his household assembled below, and dead silence succeeded. But incontrovertible though his reasoning was, he found that he could not act up to it to the extent of being as much interested in his book as he was this morning. The notion that at any time during this next hour or two there was a chance, negligibly small indeed, that he would be blown to atoms, decidedly formed a film between his brain and Pater’s “Studies of the Renaissance.” He was not conscious of any physical fear, but he could not quite free himself from speculating as to what would happen next, if a bomb hit and shattered him and his house. What would happen to his symbol (as safe as anywhere behind the panel) if that occurred, and, what was more important, what fulfilment would await his interpretation of the symbol? Or was he at this moment living through a sort of foreshadowing parable? Just now, in the depth of the tranquil night, he had been contemplating his symbol, and his contemplation had been broken into by this warning of wild destruction on the wing. Was that a symbol too?
He threw his book on to the table, and, getting up, took a pack of cards out of a drawer. His surface-self would not allow him to attend to what he read, and half-disgusted at himself for his surrender to it, he occupied himself with laying out a Patience by way of a narcotic to its fretful nerves. But chiefly he was conscious of irritation at this waiting: if the Gothas were coming, then let them be quick, instead of keeping him dangling here.... You laid out three rows of six, face-downwards, or was it four rows?... Had the night turned chilly? It seemed warm enough when he came in. Or was his body frightened in this suspense of waiting?
Then at last, from far away to the east, came the first audible news of the raid, and he said to himself with a certain queer sense of relief, “Ah! Here they are!” Distant as yet, but thick and heavy, not like some faint noise close at hand, but like some solid noise far away, came the remote couplings of the guns on the outer defences of the town. Three or four spoke together, then there was silence again, succeeded by a more continuous mutter. The reports grew louder, and now and again Bernard could hear the whine of a shell. Then came a far more resonant explosion, and the sash of his window rattled. As that passed, he could hear that there were guns in action away to the south.
The tumult grew in leaping crescendo, and obeying an irresistible impulse of exhilarated curiosity, Bernard went downstairs and, extinguishing the light in the hall, stepped out into the road. Both to south and east the flashes of the guns were frequent now, and the snarl of the shells as loud as rockets near at hand. Every few moments a star-shell went up bursting high in the zenith, and making pale for a second or two the bright shining of the moon that was wheeling westwards half-way down the sky, and now between the reports he could hear the drone of aerial engines, a hard, rhythmical beat like the pulse of a train labouring uphill. Then came another bomb explosion considerably louder, and Bernard went back into his house. Just as he got back to his room, some gun near at hand across the river came into action with a sharp bark, succeeded by the noise as of tom linen, as the shell screamed along its course.
The drone of the Gotha sounded very clear and sharp through the open windows, but presently it sank to a mere buzzing. Next moment the noise of it grew suddenly loud again, but did not come in through the window, but down the chimney. Bernard found himself drawing the inevitable conclusion that it must therefore be almost overhead. He had taken up his Patience cards again, though he did not sit down, and found himself dealing them out in due order. He had come to that point in his game, as he well knew, when he had to deal them face upwards waiting for certain cards, but he no longer took any notice of what the cards were. Instead, his mind was contemplating a perfectly sound mathematical conclusion, and he said to himself, “If that machine is absolutely overhead at this minute, and if at this minute it drops a bomb, it will come to earth a few hundred yards further on, and not fall on my house.... Seven of diamonds, six of clubs... “ for he took cognizance of the cards again. All the time the guns just across the river were fiercely firing.
He had just drawn another card to deal out, when it was jerked as by some external agency from his fingers, for an explosion overwhelming and appalling caused the whole house to shake from garret to basement. There was a crash of broken glass from the room behind where he sat, the thud of some shattered window-frame, and for the moment he thought that the house must have been hit. It seemed as if almost complete silence succeeded, for after that the guns which just now had barked so sharply were dwindled in comparison to a mere whimper. Then, as his stunned ear focussed itself again, he noticed that the drone of the engines overhead was barely audible. Soon after came a couple more bomb explosions: then the guns near at hand ceased firing altogether, and the tumult died away in the east, till only the outer defences, as at the beginning of the raid, coughed and remotely muttered.
Bernard made a tour of inspection to see what damage had been done. In one room at the back the window had been so completely shattered that the floor was thick with mere pass dust: in another the windows were but cracked, in another no damage whatever had been done. As he came downstairs again, the “All Clear” was given, and he encountered a haggard household tottering to bed. His cheerful allusion to a lucky escape produced only the faintest of smiles. When they had retired, he went once more back to his sitting-room, and drew back the panel. There was the symbol, calm and mysteriously smiling; outside, as he drew up the blinds, the tranquil dove-colour of dawn was mingling with the faded moonlight.
CHAPTER III
IN his telegram to his mother regretting that owing to stress of work he was obliged to postpone his visit to Merriby till the next day, Bernard had not mentioned at what hour he would arrive, and found when he got to the Pump Hotel about three o’clock that his mother and sister were both out. The management hazarded the conjecture that they were playing golf, since the professional had occupied the box seat of their carriage, but if his lordship was not disposed to hunt them down on the links, there was a very superb lawn-tennis tournament in progress that day on t
he ground not a quarter of a mile distant, where he might feel disposed to divert himself. The route was exceedingly simple: he would pass Mr. Courthope’s house on his left, and if he would be so good as to take the turning immediately afterwards he would find himself absolutely at the gate of the ground. Mr. Courthope’s house? Ah, his lordship must be a stranger to Merriby. If he would turn to the right immediately on emerging from the hotel, and pursue the course of the High Street, Mr. Courthope’s house, “Chez-moi,” would present itself immediately after passing over the river.
It was as good to put in an hour in this way as in any other, and Bernard, following these directions, found the bridge over the river without difficulty, and there, just beyond were two green gates, one with “In” painted on it, the other with “Out,” and “Chez-moi” in a fantastic black-letter type on each. He vaguely wondered whether the great Mr. Courthope of Merriby was any relative or connection of the equally famous Mrs. Courthope of London. Yet so curiously circumscribed were the settlements of people in even quite little islands, that no doubt Mrs. Courthope was just as unknown a quantity (or quality) in Merriby as was Mr. Courthope of “Chez-moi” in London. Perhaps his mother or sister knew the local magnate.
Bernard’s five-shilling ticket of admission stated that tea was included, and, since at the moment of his entrance a match had just come to an end amid great applause, he went into an enclosure set out with quantities of small tea-tables to atone to himself for having had no lunch. The victorious couple, receiving congratulations, were there, and his attention was riveted on the man, who presumably had wafted his partner into port. His face resembled a spurious Vandyck: he was a middle-aged bel-homme with grey moustache and imperial, and his clothes and his manner were those of some farcical troubadour. He had black velveteen knickerbockers and green stockings: over his pale pink shirt with a flowing tie he had just resumed a bright-coloured blazer, and as he bowed to his admiring friends he kept taking off a broad-brimmed sombrero hat, which he perched again rakishly on the side of his head. In answer to some amiable remark by his partner, he even twanged his racket in the manner of a guitar, and audibly sang the first line of the Toreador’s song out of Carmen.
The tea-tables round Bernard had grown populous with little groups, and presently he observed that the Toreador was making a systematic round of them, with little appropriate speeches. Soon he saw Bernard sitting alone, and advancing to his table took a vacant chair beside him.
“Let me share your table for a minute,” he said in his intoxicated voice. “Just down from London, perhaps? I see they had a raid last night. I’ve missed them all, worse luck: been too busy down here. They seem to upset people’s nerves. Down here alone? You must let me introduce you to some people.”
“Thanks: my mother and sister are down here,” said Bernard. “Won’t you have a cup of tea?”
“Ha! Other people’s sisters are more in the line of a young man like you, I should say. No tea, thanks. My partner and I have to play in the final immediately, and there’s a stiff job in front of us, I can tell you. There’s Major Dent and his wife against us: R. R. I call him — Regular Renshaw — though to be sure you’re too young to remember the Renshaws. But when he and your humble servant are opposed to each other, it’s a question of who will be knocked out first. You’re not in khaki, I notice. How’s that? Ah! Excuse me! I see my partner beckoning to me. We shall meet again, I hope: delighted to be of any service to you. You had better secure a seat at the central court pretty quickly, if you want to see anything of the match.”
He drew a large silver box from his pocket and paused a moment yet while he struck a spark into a wick and lit a cigarette. Then he saluted in a territorial kind of fashion, and marched away with short military steps to his partner.
Bernard pulled himself out of the stupefied amazement into which this monologue had cast him, and proceeded swiftly to the central court. There was the great Major Dent and his small mouse-like wife, and presently the Vandyck and his partner joined them. The latter was a gaunt, kippered woman, fierce and angular, who incontinently drove Vandyck out of the court altogether, and let him have very few chances of engaging the Regular Renshaw. She herself stood at the back of the court and covered the ground with her long, thin legs in a manner marvellous to behold. If her partner attempted to take a ball that was possibly within her reach, she hoarsely shouted “Mine,” while if any ball was clearly impossible for her to get to, she shouted “Yours.” Did Major Dent venture to come near the net, she drove at him with such prodigious velocity about the level of his stomach that all he could do was to duck and bellow “Yours” to his wife if the deadly projectile seemed likely to drop in the court. Once he did not duck quite quickly enough, and the ball licked off his straw hat, on which the striker grimly observed “Bull’s eye, Major.” From incidental conversation round him, Bernard arrived at the fact that this catapult-woman’s name was Mrs. Muskett, which was strangely suitable.
It was clear that Mrs. Muskett’s barbarous methods were something new to Merriby, and as her swift returns and deadly services whizzed by Bernard’s nose (for he had secured a seat close to the net), he gathered also that it was a great shame not to let Mr. Philip play more. The name was a distinct disappointment to Bernard: he had cherished a wild hope that this was none other than Mr. Courthope of “Chez-moi.” But, after all, the rose smelt as sweet by any other name. Then in the second set, with the low sun behind her, Mrs. Muskett unmasked her full batteries. She ran up to the net and relentlessly volleyed all that came within reach of her great arm, and if a smash was impossible she lobbed them so high that her opponents, dazzled by gazing so long at the sun, saw nothing but green blobs in front of them when the ball descended again. She was tall, and took balls that seemed safely soaring over her head, but never if she could help it did she shout “Yours!” Major Dent had become but a mouse, like his wife, and crept miserably about the back line, hoping to get one game, which he quite failed to do. Then, too soon for Bernard, Mrs. Muskett threw her racket in the air and warmly congratulated her partner on his magnificent exhibition. While the play lasted he had indeed been a miracle of self-effacement, but now, as by a released spring, he sprang on to his throne again.
“Hope I did not give you too much to do, Mrs. Muskett,” he said. “Anyhow, our tactics were pretty successful. We got their measure between us, and you backed me up splendidly!”
Bernard found, on his return to the Pump Hotel, that his sister had come in, though his mother was still hopelessly lingering on the golf-links, and rapturously ascertained that the unique Mr. Philip was no other than the unique Mr. Courthope of “Chez-moi,” while the supplementary intelligence that Mrs. Courthope of London was his wife gilded the news with a touch of absolute perfection. “That completes everything,” he said, “and I don’t know when I have been so happy. And Mrs. Courthope found life with him impossible, was that it? It is the only thing she has found to be impossible. But after seeing him, I am not surprised. He surely must be the archetype, as Plato says, of the bounder. All bounders must be faint copies of him, adumbrations, reflections. And you know him, Violet?”
“Of course. I am in and out of his house all day. I am devoted to Celia, his daughter. And you must come there to-night, Bernard. Mr. Courthope has asked you to his party. Mother is going to dine there, and you and I are bidden for afterwards. Soirée d’ennui, he calls it.”
“He would,” said Bernard enthusiastically. “But I don’t think I can go.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, just the notion that seems to you so old-fashioned. One hasn’t got any business to accept hospitality except for reasons of liking your host. But it’s wonderfully tempting.”
Violet knew her brother too well to play to him on the string of Celia, and at the moment like a dea ex machina there drew up at the hotel door the motor containing Mrs. Courthope and Princess Lutloff. She at once reinforced her husband’s invitation with her own, delivered in a gush of various topics.
“Eighteen years!” she continued. “There is something so beautiful in the lapse of time. We are all older and more tiresome and a little deaf. The grave now! How pleasant not to make any efforts. But a bath first, and then dinner with Philip. I shall call him Philip first, and after an hour or two say ‘Phil’ again. Of course I shall kiss him. Not as if we were divorced. Something so tragic about that; all is over. But Merriby! Such a low death-rate. Of course Celia can’t be more than twenty. Pearls! I shall give her some pearls if I like her. Olga, I know you want to go to your room. And we all meet again so soon that there’s no sadness. Why do you look puzzled, Lord Matcham? I always think of you as Bernard. Where are our maids, Olga? Or our luggage? Or anything? The American check-system now.”
