Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  This meditation was always agreeable, for its origin, the cave out of which it so generously gushed was his strong and profound satisfaction with himself, and this gave a pleasant flavour to whatever he thought about. He had had a thoroughly creditable though uneventful career in the army, and on his retirement two years ago, found himself able to contemplate the past and await the future with British equanimity. Being unmarried and possessed of a comfortable competence, he could live for a couple of months in the year in furnished rooms close to his club in London, and for the other ten at this admirably conducted boarding-establishment, thus escaping all the responsibilities of house-keeping and of friendship. In London armchair acquaintances sufficed for social needs, they afforded him rubbers of bridge in the cardroom and ample opportunity to curse the weather and the Government in company with kindred spirits; for the rest of the day the perusal of the morning and the evening papers and an hour’s constitutional tramp round the park, fulfilled the wants of mind and body. At Wentworth similarly, his bicycle rides, his excellent meals, his comfortable bedroom supplied his physical wants and he had the additional mental satisfaction of being undisputed cock of the walk, whereas among the members at his club there was a sad tendency to think themselves as good as he. But here his tastes and his convenience were consulted before those of any other guest, cream was poured forth for the mollification of his tantrums and his wish was of the nature of law to the economies of the establishment. He was convinced that Mrs. Oxney had no greater pleasure in life than to please him, no greater cross to bear than the sense that all had not been as he would have had it; he regarded himself as being looked on with a pleasant mixture of awe and respectful affection. Every now and then, it is true, there appeared here some outsider who did not seem duly reverential, and at the present moment he had occasional doubts about the true state of Mrs. Holders’s sentiments with regard to him, but such possible exceptions were negligible and temporary. They came for their few weeks of cure and passed away again. He bore them no real ill will, and hoped they had profited by their stay. He and Miss Howard alone went on for ever; on the whole he was very much pleased with Miss Howard, and when, in his more romantic moments she appeared to unusual advantage as she sat in profile against a dark wall (a rather favourite position of hers) he wondered if he would be more comfortable with an establishment of his own, and a presentable middle-aged woman to look after him, and bear his name. Her occasional allusions to her little place in Kent were interesting. Indeed he really asked very little of life; only that he should be quite well, and ride a great many miles on his bicycle, and that Wentworth should unweariedly admire all he did, and sun itself in his approbation. Given that these modest requirements had been granted when, between half-past ten and eleven at night, he did a few energetic dumb-bell exercises before going to bed, he claimed nothing more of the morrow than that it should be like to-day; sufficient unto the day had been the good thereof. That something should have occurred like the felling of his favourite tree, or the unpunctuality of Miss Howard at lunch, which had caused a tantrum, would not prove to have spoiled the day; he was large-minded enough to take a broader view than that.

  Plans and retrospections eddied pleasantly round in his head, the volume of Macaulay’s Essays, already upside down, slipped from his hand, and he indulged as usual in half an hour’s nap, from which the sound of the dressing-gong and the entry of the maid with his hot water, roused him. Here was a fine opportunity to linger before making his toilet, in order to demonstrate to others what an inconvenient thing it was not to be punctual. But, being very hungry, he scorned so paltry a reprisal. He had not quite finished with his evening paper for there was a leader on the coal strike which a cursory glance had shewn him was written in a vein which he thoroughly approved, and he took it down with him to read it as he dined.

  Colonel Chase openly used spectacles for reading when he was alone, and furtively in company, slipping them off if he thought they would be noticed, for they were a little out of keeping with that standard of perfect health and vigour of which he was so striking an example. Still they were useful with small print (print was not what it used to be, or the electric light, probably owing to the coal strike, was not so luminous) and by propping his paper against his cruet he thought they would be unnoticed. Occasionally he glanced over the top of it at the new arrival of the afternoon, who sat at a table close in front of him. She was a good-looking woman of middle age, of healthy and attractive appearance, wearing a fixed bright smile for no particular reason. She was evidently on the best terms with life, and until Colonel Chase saw that at the conclusion of dinner she walked out with a pronounced limp, and leaned heavily on a stick, he had felt sure that she was no patient in search of health. The dining-room had cleared before he finished his glass of port, and when he went out, the guests with Mrs. Oxney and Mrs. Bertram, were sitting in the lounge. This was the usual procedure. They all sat talking there till he joined them and proposed the pastime which he preferred. Usually he liked playing bridge and a table was formed. Sometimes he challenged Mrs. Oxney to a game of chess which always ended in the capture of all her pieces (for he ran no risks,) and a brilliant check-mate. But before that there would generally be two or three guests trying to solve the cross-word puzzle in the evening paper, and though he invariably professed never to glance at a cross-word puzzle, his quiet work at it in his room before dinner often enabled him to help them with some wonderful extempore solutions. To-night, Miss Kemp, Mrs. Oxney and Mrs. Holders formed the cross-word group, and were sadly at loss for nearly everything. In a corner of the lounge, away from any possible draught, Mr. Kemp had successfully cornered the new bright smiling guest and was telling her all about Bath and Buxton and Harrogate and Aix. Mrs. Oxney, with apologies for interrupting Mr. Kemp’s conversation introduced Colonel Chase to her as Mrs. Bliss, a name which seemed to suit her excellently, and then claimed his assistance in the puzzle.

  “We shall get on better now that the Colonel will help us,” she said. “Such a difficult one to-night, Colonel.”

  Colonel Chase quite forgot that he had pencilled the greater part of this arduous puzzle into his evening paper, and put it carelessly down on the table by the particular armchair that was always reserved for him.

  “I’m sure if it’s difficult I shan’t be of much use to you,” he said. “I’ve no head for these things.”

  “Oh, but you’re wonderful,” said Mrs. Oxney, “a town in Morocco, six letters. How is one to know that if one’s never been there? Perhaps I’d better get an atlas.”

  “No, no, wait a minute,” said Colonel Chase. “Let’s do without an atlas if we can. Let me think now. Fez? No, that is too short. Now what is that other place? It’s on the tip of my tongue. Six letters, did you say? Ha! Tetuan! How will that suit you?”

  A chorus of praise went up and so did Mrs. Holders’s eyebrows.

  “And it fits unicorn,” cried Miss Kemp in ecstasy. “We should never have guessed Tetuan. Then thirteen down, the Latin for south-west wind, eight letters, and if Tetuan’s right, which it must be because of unicorn, there’s an ‘n’ for the fifth.”

  “Latin: come, come! I’ve forgotten all my Latin,” said this fatuous man. “If it was Hindustanee now. . . . But let me try to be a boy again. There’s Boreas, but that’s north wind I’m afraid, and too short for you. You’ve stumped me there. Wait a moment though: Ovid; something in Ovid. I’ve got it. Try ‘Favonius’. See if Favonius will help you.”

  Shrill sounded the chorus of praise, because Favonius fitted ‘vampire’ and ‘alpha’.

  “I knew you’d make short work of it, Colonel,” said Mrs. Oxney. “You’re a positive encyclopædia; that’s what I always say of you. And what’s a trigonometrical term of six letters with an ‘s’ for the third? You ought to go in for the prizes, indeed you ought, for you’d win every one.”

  “Upon my word, Mrs. Oxney, you want to know a lot to-night,” said he. “I must recollect my mathematics as well as my La
tin, and perhaps you’ll want Hebrew next. Trigonometry now: there’s equation, no, perhaps you’d call that algebra. But there’s tangent, only that’s got no ‘s’: there’s ‘sine’ . . . oh, put down ‘cosine’. Cosine’s right.”

  “Why, I never heard of such a thing,” said Mrs. Oxney. “How can I guess what I’ve never heard of? Cosine! Fancy?”

  A diabolical notion, worthy only of a low mind struck Tim Bullingdon. Colonel Chase had got up and was standing commandingly by the fire-place with his back half-turned. So Tim drew his copy of the evening paper from the table, and stealthily turned to the cross-word page, where he found the entire puzzle legibly pencilled in. Then he skilfully replaced the paper again, and pointing to it, winked at Mrs. Holders. That ingenious lady guessed his purport, and gave a little squeal of laughter which she converted into an unconvincing cough . . . So while Colonel Chase now feigned hesitation over ‘frieze’, ‘crampit’ and ‘piston’ Mr. Bullingdon dreamily but fluently supplied them all. These brilliant suggestions finished the puzzle and the Colonel after magnanimously complimenting him on his quickness, invited the three ladies of the group to play bridge with him in the smoking-room. Miss Howard in view of her improvisation at the entertainment next week betook herself to the piano in the drawing-room to fix in her mind a few fragments of extempore melody.

  Mr. Kemp meantime had been enjoying a splendid innings. He was accustomed to tell the long and tragic history of his left hip from March 3, 1920, to listeners, over whose eyes, as the sad epic proceeded, there often came a sort of glazed look. That, of course, never deterred him in any way from continuing but he told it much more vividly to-night, for this bright smiling Mrs. Bliss was full of attention and eager interest. She seemed intensely sympathetic, and, at the conclusion, when he had fully recounted the complete stiffening of that once mobile joint, she closed her eyes for a moment as if in prayer, and her mouth grew grave. Then her bright smile returned to it in full radiance, after this short eclipse.

  “I can’t tell you how sorry I am for you, dear Mr. Kemp,” she said. “So sorry, truly sorry.”

  “Very kind of you, I’m sure,” said he. “I feel that you are one of the few who realise what a martyrdom I have to go through. Most people have so little imagination. It has been a real pleasure talking to you, and to go back for a moment to that morning when first I found—”

  She leaned forward, smiling more than ever.

  “And shall I — may I tell you, why I am so sorry for you?” she asked.

  “Please do,” said Mr. Kemp. An explanation seemed rather unnecessary for it was clear that her kind and sympathetic nature accounted for that. But he was a little hoarse with talking so much, and he did not mind the interruption.

  The radiance of her smile was marvellous.

  “It will surprise you,” she said. “But the reason I’m so sorry for you is that you think your left hip is stiffened, and that you think you suffer all these agonies. It’s a huge mistake: there’s nothing whatever the matter with you, and you never have any pain at all. There isn’t such a thing as pain. All is harmony and you’re perfectly well.”

  Mr. Kemp could hardly believe his ears. This declaration sounded merely like a coarse and unmerited insult. And yet when he looked at that radiant smile and those sympathetic eyes, it was hard to believe that Mrs. Bliss intended it as such. He curbed the indignant exclamation that rose to his lips.

  “What do you mean?” he said. “I’ve just been telling you how I got worse and worse especially after that miscreant at Aix had been handling the joint.”

  “I know, and now I tell you that it’s all Error. Sin and illness and pain and death are all Error. Omnipotent Mind couldn’t have made them and therefore they don’t exist. Nothing has any real existence except love, health, harmony and happiness.”

  “But when I feel a sharp pain like a red-hot knitting-needle being thrust into my hip” — began Mr. Kemp.

  “Error. Omnipotent Mind governs all. All is mind, and there can be no sensation in matter.”

  “But, God bless my soul,” said Mr. Kemp.

  “He does,” said this astonishing lady. “Hold on to that thought and the body will utter no complaints. Dear Mr. Kemp, all belief in pain and sickness comes from Error. Therefore there is neither pain nor sickness: it is unreal and vanishes as soon as we realise its unreality. Hence all healing comes from Mind, and not from materia medica.”

  There was something challenging about so remarkable a statement. Mr. Kemp’s head was whirling slightly (but not aching) for Mrs. Bliss seemed to skip about so, but he pulled himself together, and tried, figuratively, to catch hold of her.

  “But you yourself,” he said. “Aren’t you limping very badly, and leaning on a stick? Indeed, I was going to ask you as soon as I had finished telling you about my hip, what form of rheumatism you are suffering from.”

  Again that radiant smile brightened.

  “I’m not suffering from any at all,” she said. “Error. It is only a false claim, which I am getting rid of by right thought.”

  “But why did you come to Bolton then,” he asked. “Can’t you think rightly at home? Haven’t you come here for treatment?”

  This question did not disconcert her in the slightest.

  “Yes, I’m going to have a course of baths,” she said, “but entirely for my dear husband’s sake, who is still in blindness. I have, out of love for him, consented to do that — bear ye one another’s burdens, you know — but what is curing me, oh, so rapidly, of this false claim of rheumatoid arthritis, as I think they call it, is my own demonstrating over it. All the way down in the train, I treated myself for it, and a friend in London is going to give me absent treatment for it from ten to-night till half-past.”

  “Absent treatment?” asked Mr. Kemp. “What’s that?”

  “She will just sit and realise that there is nothing the matter with me, because there can’t be anything the matter, since all is health and harmony.”

  “And will that make it any better?” asked Mr. Kemp.

  “It cannot possibly fail to do so. It is the only true healing.”

  “Then perhaps you won’t need your bath to-morrow,” said he.

  She gave the gayest of laughs.

  “Of course I shan’t need it, dear Mr. Kemp,” she said. “As I told you I am only taking the treatment for my dear husband’s sake. That is not really inconsistent. It is only like telling a fairy story to amuse some dear sweet child. Though such a story is not true, it does not mean one is telling lies. What is curing me is the absolute knowledge that Omnipotent Mind never made suffering and never meant us to suffer. Hence, if we think we suffer, it is all a delusion or Error. It can’t be real since Mind never made it.”

  “Dear me, it all sounds most interesting,” said Mr. Kemp. “I wonder if it would do me any good.”

  Mrs. Bliss got up rather too briskly, and the smile completely faded for a moment as a pang of imaginary pain shot through her knee. But almost instantly it reasserted itself.

  “There, do you see?” she said. “Surely that will convince you. Just for a moment, I allowed myself to entertain Error, but at once I denied Error, and what I thought was pain has gone. Of course there wasn’t any pain really. To-morrow I will lend you my precious, precious book, The Manual of Mental Science, which will prove to you that you can’t have pain. What a delicious refreshing talk we’ve had! Now I must be off, for my friend will be giving me absent treatment, and I must be with her in spirit.”

  Mrs. Bliss limped slowly but smilingly away and clinging on to the banisters which creaked beneath her solid grasp, and leaning heavily on her stick hauled herself upstairs. She paused at the top, panting a little.

  “Not a single touch of pain,” she said exultantly.

  Mr. Kemp was delighted to hear it, for she seemed barely able to get upstairs at all, but she must know best.

  Very serious and exciting bridge meantime had been proceeding in the smoking-room. The points could not be rui
nous to anybody, for as usual, they were threepence a hundred, and thus anyone who lost as much as a shilling, was heartily condoled with by the resulting capitalist. The game itself, with its subtleties and intricacies, furnished the excitement, and Colonel Chase, of course, was the final authority on all points of play, and instructed partner and adversaries alike with unstinted criticism.

  “A golden rule: to draw out trumps is a golden rule,” he was asserting. “They always used to say of me at the mess that I never left a trump in my opponent’s hands. You lost a trick or two in the last game, partner, by neglecting that, but then our opponents were indulgent to your fault, and let us off. If Mrs. Holders had led a club after you had played your king, she and Mrs. Oxney would have got a couple more tricks, and penalised us soundly.”

  Mrs. Holders was still feeling Bolshevistic.

  “But I hadn’t got a club, Colonel,” she said. (This was not true, but that made no difference.)

  “Ah no: you hadn’t,” said he. “What I should have said was if Mrs. Oxney had led a club. That’s what I meant.”

  “Yes, to be sure I ought to have,” said Mrs. Oxney, who never had a notion what her hand contained the moment she had got rid of it.

  “I think so: I think so,” said Colonel Chase. “Hammer away at a suit, establish it at all costs. It pays in the end. Now let’s have a look. Who dealt this?”