Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  During that recital of this adorable news Mr. Kemp had negotiated the descent of the stairs, and now stood staring at Colonel Chase as if he had risen from the dead.

  “You, Colonel?” he said. “And your cold quite gone? Vanished in the night with no medicines? Miraculous.”

  “You may well say miraculous, sir,” said the Colonel. “Not a spoonful of Amble’s rubbish, and here I am, jolly as a sandboy, and hungry as a hunter. Ah, here’s Mrs. Bliss. Good morning, Mrs. Bliss. Delightful morning, and me quite well again. Most remarkable thing.”

  Mrs. Bliss couldn’t smile any more, for she always smiled to her full capacity.

  “So glad, Colonel,” she said. “But I’m not the least surprised. I knew for certain that you would be quite well this morning. Didn’t I tell you so, Mr. Kemp?”

  “I wish you’d told me too,” said Colonel Chase, “and I shouldn’t have felt so down and out as I did last night. Ha! Breakfast gong. There’s music for a hungry man.”

  He headed the procession to the dining-room, leaving Mrs. Bliss and Mr. Kemp to limp after him.

  “But amazing,” said Mr. Kemp. “To think that we did that! There must be something in it.”

  “Something in it?” said Mrs. Bliss. “There’s everything in it, dear Mr. Kemp. And not amazing at all. Omnipotent Mind. It couldn’t be otherwise. Error gone.”

  “But you treated me,” said he, “and I’m sure I treated myself half the night, for I slept very poorly. Why am I as bad as ever this morning? Not a sign of improvement.”

  This was quite easy to explain. Mr. Kemp’s erroneous rheumatism was of long standing: Error was deep rooted in him. But Colonel Chase had only been in error for a few hours, and that foolish mistake of his could be annihilated at once. The explanation did not however, fully satisfy Mr. Kemp, for he argued that since rheumatism was (ex hypothesi) absolutely non-existent the painful illusion ought to vanish as easily as a cold, when once you turned Mind on to it. But the manifest healing of Colonel Chase had made a great impression on him and he was fully determined to persevere till his rheumatic error followed Colonel Chase’s error of catarrh into its native nothingness.

  Before the ambulance-waggon from the baths came round, Wentworth was buzzing with excitement and the only person who had not been told that Colonel Chase had been cured by Mind and Mrs. Bliss (and possibly Mr. Kemp and Florence,) was Colonel Chase himself, for Mrs. Oxney and Mrs. Bertram were sadly afraid that if he was informed that his healing was spiritual, he might fly into so savage a tantrum at such an idea, that rage would entirely cancel the spiritual benefit, and perhaps his cold might return again worse than ever. It was indeed a great relief when soon after breakfast he set off on his bicycle to see what could be done in the way of setting up a new record, and so everybody could have a nice gossip about it all before going down to the baths. Mrs. Bliss assured them that the cure was entirely the effect of Mind, and had really nothing to do with her, but naturally nobody believed that.

  “To be sure it’s most remarkable,” said Mrs. Oxney, “and if you can drive a cold away like that I don’t see what you can’t do. But I shouldn’t like to tell the Colonel how it happened, for you can’t be certain how he’ll take a bit of news like that. At the same time I feel you ought to have the credit of it, for nothing will make me believe that his cold went away of its own accord. And neither quinine nor thermogene did he use — lumbago too — for when he came down this morning with his cold quite gone there was the parcel on the table.”

  Mrs. Bliss gave a happy little sigh.

  “Yes, I’m glad his materia medica didn’t arrive last night,” she said, “or all you dear faithless people would have thought that material remedies had cured him, whereas there is no power in material at all. Indeed, I have no doubt that if he had taken his quinine relying on it, he would have been worse than ever.”

  “We have had an escape then,” said Mrs. Bertram. “But can’t medicines help at all? I should have thought a little medicine and some Mind with it, might do wonders. After all, you’re taking the baths yourself, and massage as well.”

  The idea that Mrs. Bliss was taking the baths entirely for her husband’s sake, and not for their remedial qualities, somehow seemed difficult for her audience to comprehend, though it was so patently clear and logical to herself. As for massage, that was officially called ‘mere manipulation’, and even the faithful allowed broken legs to be set and put in splints, for that was ‘mere manipulation’ too. The power of Mind, she explained would undoubtedly set a broken leg, but a surgeon saved time and trouble. Mind by itself restored everyone to perfect harmony, health and prosperity. All went well in every way with those who relied on Mind.

  Miss Howard had been running through her improvisation before this illuminating discussion began. It was most annoying to have again forgotten the passage of octaves which led back into the few bars of Chopin’s waltz and she shuddered to think what would happen if a similar lapse of memory occurred when she was on the platform. Would everyone sit there for ever, waiting, eternally waiting for what never came?

  “But does that apply to everything?” she asked. “If you rely on Mind, does everything go right?”

  Mrs. Bliss was getting worked up now.

  “Yes, everything,” she said, “for Mind is universal and omnipotent. All is mind and mind is all. The proposition is proved by the rule of inversion. Invert it, and it remains equally true. Hence Evil is nothing and nothing is evil.”

  “Cats eat mice, therefore mice—” began Mrs. Holders. But the flippancy was cut short by Miss Howard, who, though a little dazed, stuck to her point.

  “Quite so, I see,” she said. “But what I want to ask is that if there was something one had undertaken to do not for oneself, but for others, would reliance on Mind make you do it beautifully?”

  “Yes, dear girl, of course,” said Mrs. Bliss. “Mind denies evil, illness, failure. Whatever you want must come to you, if only you rely on Mind.”

  “Dear me, how comfortable it sounds,” said Mrs. Oxney. “If only Colonel Chase relied on Mind, perhaps he would find his pedometer. He’s gone along the road where he must have lost it, to look for it and to make it a new record. Couldn’t you rely on Mind, Mrs. Bliss, and discover it for him?”

  Mrs. Bliss was observed to close her eyes for a few seconds. That was remarked afterwards. Simultaneously a series of hoots from the bus indicated that it had been waiting a long time already, and they all hurried away at their various paces. . . .

  Colonel Chase had left the unopened packet from the perfidious Amble to be returned with the withering message that it had arrived too late, and Mrs. Bliss, delighted to purge Wentworth of any fragment of materia medica, took charge of it. She found that she had a few minutes to spare before her bath, and since, on the one hand Mind assured her that she was quite well and not at all lame, and her doctor that gentle walking was good for the supposedly affected joints, she limped away to Mr. Amble’s shop, to leave the packet there. She was looking, not in scorn, but with indulgent pity at the army of futile bottles and inefficacious drugs that were deployed in his windows, when her attention was attracted to a notice that was affixed there. What met her eye was this:

  Found

  A plated pedometer.

  Apply Within.

  She opened the door and a tingling alarm-bell continuously rang in the parlour behind the shop, as if she was a thief intent on pilfering materia medica. It ceased as Mr. Amble emerged.

  “I have brought back a packet you sent up to Colonel Chase at Wentworth,” she said. “It only arrived this morning and as he is now quite well, he would be greatly obliged if you would take your goods back.”

  Now though Mr. Amble had felt justly incensed at Colonel Chase’s very intemperate remarks through the telephone last night, he had been rather sorry that he had rivalled him with tart replies and so sudden a cutting off of his communications, for the Colonel was constantly getting sticking-plaster and soap and bicycle oil and
lozenges at his shop, and Mr. Amble would regret losing his valuable patronage. Also the petitioner was a lady of smiling and benevolent address, and she limped heavily, and so was another likely customer.

  “Certainly, madam,” said he with great suavity. “Anything to oblige Colonel Chase and yourself.”

  “So good of you,” said Mrs. Bliss. “And I saw something about a pedometer in your window. Colonel Chase lost his pedometer yesterday in the road. I wonder if I might take it up to Wentworth, where I am staying, and see if it is his.”

  Mr. Amble hastened to produce it.

  “I’ll wager it is the Colonel’s,” he said, “for if Colonel Chase lost a pedometer on the road yesterday, and my lad found one on the road yesterday, no doubt, they, so to speak, are the ones. Often have I heard it ticking as he’s walked about my shop, an old instrument, but I daresay useful still. And is there anything more I can supply you with madam?”

  “Nothing thank you. So much obliged — Mr. Amble isn’t it? — and how pleased Colonel Chase will be?”

  She paused, and a playful innocent idea gleamed in her brain. She made the sweetest face at Mr. Amble, coaxing and child-like, with her head a little on one side, and her chin a little raised, and a really wonderful smile.

  “And may the pedometer be a secret between you and me, Mr. Amble?” she said. “I want to make a mysterious surprise about it. Oh, such fun, but nobody else must know.”

  Mr. Amble thought this was a very pleasant, though an unusual sort of lady and, completely mystified, agreed. The prospect of regaining the Colonel’s custom by taking back the goods was reward enough for him, and he did not even dream of suggesting the repayment of his disbursement of sixpence on the honest lad. So Mrs. Bliss went back to the baths with the pedometer ticking jerkily in her bag as she hobbled along.

  Miss Howard had not come down by the bus, but had waited up at Wentworth to have a turn at the elusive passage of octaves which had bothered her earlier. While there were so many of those who would listen in a few days to her improvisation, sitting in the lounge, she had been playing very gently with the soft pedal down, for she did not want the extempore to become too familiar before its birth. But now the patients had gone brine-wards and Mrs. Oxney had gone to the chicken-run and Mrs. Bertram to the linen-closet, and there was no reason any more for these surreptitious tinklings. She remembered that Mrs. Bliss had said that any kind deed undertaken for the sake of others would be prosperously performed, if reliance was placed on Mind, and so now, before she began, she told Mind that she was playing in aid of the Children’s Hospital, and had complete confidence in its Omnipotence. Then with the freedom of the loud pedal she concentrated on her work, and lo, the stream of octaves flowed along like torrents in spring. Of course it was easier to play when unshackled by the fear of being overheard, but never had she known so flashing an ease of execution, or so perfect a transition into the Chopin waltz. Then she tried the chorale, the last line of which had escaped her at her last attempt and now without the slightest conscious effort on her part it streamed solemnly from her finger tips. ‘Most wonderful’, thought Miss Howard, as, rather awestruck at her own brilliance, she closed the lid of the piano. “I couldn’t remember either of those bits just before and now, relying on Mind, I feel I can never forget them. There must be something in it.”

  She had to go down to the baths to measure up the Green Salon, and see how many pictures would be needed, to try genteelly to beat Mr. Bower down over the price of framing them and to arrange for the typewriting of the catalogue. She would much have preferred printing but the cost of printing was frankly prohibitive; this seemed to have something to do with the coal strike, but the connection was difficult to understand. She tripped lightly down the hill to the imagined accompaniment of those agile octaves, and arrived at the door of the establishment at the very moment when Mrs. Bliss was entering on her return from Mr. Amble’s. She came up behind her without being seen, and noticing that Mrs. Bliss ticked as she moved, wondered if this was a symptom of arthritis. Colonel Chase ticked too, but that was his pedometer, and, alas, it was sadly to be feared that his ticking days were over. Then she said ‘Bo!’ playfully, and Mrs. Bliss turning briskly round emitted a perfect tattoo of ticks. They seemed to come from her bag or thereabouts rather than her hip, but noises were always hard to localise.

  “Sweet girl!” said Mrs. Bliss. “What a mischievous child you are to startle me like that. Have you come to see about your dear exhibition?”

  “Yes,” said Miss Howard, “and oh, I must tell you . . . I could not recollect, in that passage of my improvisation — I mean I could not remember something I wanted to recollect, when I was practising earlier in the morning, and I just closed my eyes and relied on Mind, because I was going to play in aid of the Children’s Hospital next week, and everything I had forgotten came back to me at once. Wasn’t that extraordinary?”

  Mrs. Bliss laughed her happy laugh, but kept her bag still.

  “Not in the least extraordinary,” she said. “It would have been extraordinary, impossible in fact, if you hadn’t recollected every note of your delicious tunes.”

  “But it was wonderful, wasn’t it?” asked Miss Howard.

  “Yes, indeed, little one,” said Miss Bliss tenderly. “All is wonderful in Mind: wonderful and loving and perfect. Dear me; it is after eleven I see and I must hurry for my dear husband’s sake or I shall have to shorten my bath. Au revoir, dear! In a day or two I shall be climbing step-ladders and helping you arrange your sweet pictures.”

  The Green Salon looked quite cheerful on this sunny morning, in spite of the uncleaned skylight, the slight odour of rotten eggs which hung about the baths establishment and the bare deal floor, and these slight drawbacks would presently be remedied, for Mr. Bower had promised that the skylight should be resplendent before the day of the opening, Mrs. Oxney had promised a nice piece of carpet for the floor, and Mr. Amble could be trusted to have some sort of aromatic riband in stock which smouldered persistently and would soon overcome the less agreeable aroma. Miss Howard measured up the walls and decided that forty-five sketches properly spaced would be as many as the Green Salon would hold without skying or earthing any of them, and having successfully reduced Mr. Bowen’s estimate for framing, tripped into Mr. Amble’s to consult him about the fumigatory. It was always pleasant to exchange a few words with that noted conversationalist, and Miss Howard told him that Colonel Chase’s cold for which she had ordered remedies yesterday had happily disappeared.

  “Yes, I was sorry to have vexed the Colonel last night about the delivery of his order,” said Mr. Amble, “but I trust that’s put right, Miss, for I’ve taken the goods back and very glad to do so. A most agreeable and affable lady called here this morning about it, and we soon settled that. Not a lady that I’ve seen here before, but from Wentworth, as she told me, and walking, you may say dot and go one, as I could see.”

  “Yes, that must have been Mrs. Bliss,” said Miss Howard. “Such a favourite already with us all.”

  She considered whether she should tell Mr. Amble about the affable lady’s treatment of Colonel Chase’s cold, but decided that it would be a want of tact to do so. Mental healing was certainly in competition with Mr. Amble’s business. Wiser not.

  “We were all so glad that the Colonel’s cold got better,” she said, “for he lost his pedometer yesterday and between the two he was a good deal worried.”

  Mr. Amble remembered that the affair of the pedometer was a secret between him and the smiling lady, and behaved like a man of honour. He had already removed the notice about it in his window.

  “Dear me, he wouldn’t like that,” he said. “But who knows, Miss, that it mayn’t be found one of these days, and that we shall hear it ticking away again?”

  There was something reserved and oracular about this sentiment, and Miss Howard received the distinct impression that Mr. Amble knew something about the pedometer. Yet, what could he have known, for surely, he would have thrown
any light that he possessed, however small and glimmering, upon the loss, now that he had been told of it? Miss Howard often had these strange sudden impressions, for she was what is called ‘very intuitive’. Usually they came to nothing, and she forgot them: occasionally they came to something, and then she remembered them. Descending to business, she told Mr. Amble her errand, and he strongly recommended a fragrant riband called Souvenir d’Orient, which he lit and which immediately filled the shop with a swoony Arabian odour of musk, opoponax and incense, against which the rotten eggs would have no chance at all.

  The bus had got back to Wentworth and the patients dispersed to their rooms to rest before Miss Howard had finished her jobs. She went out into the garden with her painting apparatus to touch up one of the sketches she had chosen for exhibition, called “Splendid Noon,” which seemed to stand in need of a little more splendour, and worked away at the sharpening of the shadows till the first gong told her that lunch was imminent. Colonel Chase had come in from his bicycling in the highest spirits, and she had to guess how many miles he had been since breakfast. Remembering that his record for a morning ride (based upon the conjectural record when that pedometer got out of order) was thirty-five miles, and seeing his elation, she guessed thirty-six, and clapped her hands with admiration when she heard he had been thirty-seven.

  “Not so bad for a man who thought he would be spending the day in bed,” he said, “and I daresay I shall go out again for a short spin this afternoon.”

  “Oh, you mustn’t overdo it,” said she. “I think I should be content if I were you. But you haven’t found your pedometer?”

  His face hardly fell at all, so gratifying to himself and others was the new record.

  “No, to break my record and find my pedometer would be too much of a red-letter day,” he said. “I’m afraid I shall have to order another.”