Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  “I shall send for Miss Toots to talk to her,” said Lady Grantham. “Those people are much happier with their own class. They can talk about French exercises.”

  “I met Mrs. Henry Naseby the other day,” I said, “she is very charming, and she has caught the trick of the world. I advise you to take care.”

  Sir Robert’s party had begun to drift back towards the cedar, which, as he was careful to point out to them, was quite the finest tree of its sort in London, and had been planted by the first Lord Sandown, who, as all the world knew, and if they didn’t he told them, was the founder of the family, and had been ennobled in the reign of Charles I. By degrees the remainder of the guests began to move, and there were only three beside myself left on the lawn, when a footman came out followed by a woman whom I scarcely recognised.

  Mrs. Naseby was perhaps even more perfectly dressed than Lady Grantham herself, and that is saying a great deal. She walked as if she had been stared at all her life, and rather enjoyed it. I had only met her once since her marriage, and that several months ago, and though it was clear that she was learning the trick pretty quickly, I was not prepared for this transformation.

  She lounged up to the cedar where we were sitting, bowed to me as if she ought to remember me but just did not, with that sublime self-possession which I had always imagined a thing which some were born with, but to be as unattainable as the line of aristocratic ancestors with which it is usually coupled. Then apparently for the first time she caught sight of Lady Grantham, who did not offer to rise.

  “Ah, dear Lady Grantham,” she said, “I really did not see you before. You are so right to keep quiet, and not stand about in the way most of us think it necessary to do when we receive our friends. I know how trying a hostess’s duties are. And how do you do, Sir Robert. What a charming garden you have! I always tell everyone it is quite the best in London, and they always tell me that they knew that already.”

  Mrs. Naseby drew off a long glove meditatively.

  “I remember so well meeting you at my mother-in-law’s,” she continued, turning to Lady Grantham again, “but of course you would not remember me.”

  “No, one necessarily sees very little of the governess,” remarked Lady Grantham.

  It was quite clear that Mrs. Naseby remembered Lady Grantham, and I waited for more.

  “So dreadfully close, is it not, this afternoon,” she went on; “I was really afraid that I should not get here at all, but your beautiful garden is the only cool place I have been in for days. You are not thinking of selling it, I suppose, Sir Robert? I should simply make Harry buy it, if you were. How I shall survive to-night I really do not know. Prince Waldenech is dining with us, and we’ve got a party afterwards. So sorry I couldn’t include you at dinner, Lady Grantham, but you know what a polky little dining-room we have.”

  Henry Naseby had one of the largest houses in London, and a new and magnificent dining-room, which would hold eighty people comfortably, and Lady Grantham knew it, and Mrs. Naseby knew she knew it, and everybody else knew they both knew it.

  Mrs. Naseby waited for a moment with a true artistic instinct and then continued.

  “But I hope you can manage to look in on us afterwards. Do you know the Prince? Of course he is quite an old friend of ours.”

  Lady Grantham shut her book and cleared for action.

  “Is he really? I should not have thought you would have known him long.”

  Mrs. Naseby laughed.

  “Of course I cannot say that I am an old friend of his judging simply by the number of years I have known him. He is a compatriot of yours, is he not, Lady Grantham? You have known him twenty or thirty years? More than that I dare say. How I envy you! Such a charming man!”

  Lady Grantham had to explain herself. She did so with a direct lucidity which is all her own.

  “Your paths in life have not always been on the same level,” she said. “That was all I meant. But perhaps he came up to the nursery when your husband was still small enough to be in your charge and used to pat him on the head. Was he a troublesome little boy? I suppose he must have been. All little boys are troublesome it seems to me. I think we owe so much to our governesses who kindly take charge of them for us till they are old enough to go to school.”

  Mrs. Naseby received the thrust with perfect composure.

  “Yes, I think governesses are owed a great deal. You, dear Lady Grantham, can form no conception how odious small children, even the most delightful of their kind, can be. It’s true that Harry is in my charge now — I feel the responsibility very much. But as a matter of fact he takes care of me. It is so delightful to have a husband whose longer experience of the world saves one from all snares and pitfalls. It makes me feel quite a little girl again.”

  Lady Grantham knew perfectly well that Mrs. Naseby was her husband’s senior, and she was not the woman to scruple to say so.

  “Yes of course he has been in the world — his world, my world, longer than you. You would not have come out, would you, until you married? I quite envy you the freshness of your impressions; it must be so interesting to know that other side of life. I always make my maid gossip to me in the evening when she is doing my hair. But how very stupid, if you will excuse my saying so, of your mother-in-law. She assured me that you were older than he. No doubt she exaggerated, for she was speaking with some bitterness.”

  Mrs. Naseby laughed charmingly.

  “Really, Sir Robert, I am quite sorry for you. What an inquisition to have in the house! We are all so dreadfully afraid of Lady Grantham, you know. I shall have to warn the Prince against her. She will be saying all sorts of awful things to him, asking him his age and the Princess’ age, and he will scold me dreadfully for having asked her at all. You will come, won’t you, Lady Grantham? But wasn’t it rude of her? Really I quite long to be a governess again, in order to make you stand in the corner for being so rude.”

  Lady Grantham very seldom laughed, and laughter alone could have saved her. There are certain remarks which to ignore is to acknowledge.

  She sat quite still for a moment, and an angry flush rose to her face. Sir Robert who was always getting the worst of it with his wife entirely declined to come to her assistance. She turned to Norah.

  “Send for Miss Toots,” she said.

  Then to Mrs. Naseby —

  “I am sure you would like to see my governess. You can compare experiences. She is an excellent woman, and you probably have much more in common with her than you have with me.”

  “That is very likely,” said Mrs. Naseby. “I always tell everyone how kind you are, Lady Grantham, and how thoughtful for your guests; but, as you say, two Englishwomen must have much more to say to each other, than an Englishwoman and a foreigner. Do let Miss Toots come to us to-night. She is very pretty, I hear, and the dear Prince is a great admirer of English beauty.”

  Lady Grantham retreated in good order, but she distinctly retreated. I was delighted, and had a pitched battle with her on the next occasion that we met, and on parting wondered whether Mrs. Naseby would, for a consideration, give lessons in the noble art of self-defence.

  THE TRAGEDY OF A GREEN TOTEM

  TOTEMISM is a form of belief common to most savage nations. Like other primitive notions the principles of it are simple and intelligible. The totem is a tribal god who is embodied in an animal, a man, or sometimes a plant. He protects his tribe, and though naturally he may be of a venemous disposition, he will not hurt them. Thus a tribe whose totem is a snake, do not experience any ill effects when that particular snake bites them, in fact it is rather an honour than otherwise. Totems are regarded with great veneration, as being the embodiment of the god, and they are sometimes solemnly eaten, in order that their worshippers may share their attributes; a totem dog for instance will confer speed, a totem lion, courage. Difficulties, however, may arise in this connection, for if the totem is a very edible beast, his sacred character is somewhat inconvenient. The totem of an American Indian tribe i
s an ox, and its tribesmen are not vegetarians. So they kill their ox and get beef in the ordinary way; but they stuff the skin afterwards, and pretend that the ox is not dead, and then they all go to the stuffed ox, and say, “I’m sure I beg your pardon.” Thus they have beef for supper, without offending their god. The proceeding has the merit of ingenuity and simplicity. A tribe whose totem was a potato would live in a chronic state of apology.

  Savages and children have much in common. If all children were left without any religious instruction, I believe in a few generations the Totemistic age would return. Jack, for instance, had a series of totems, of which the greatest the last and the best was the Green Totem.

  The Green Totem was not green at all in its primitive state, being of a bright brick-red colour, but in its final, and as mythologists would say, its crystallised state — though it never was crystallised, except once, when it fell into a pond, and was frozen in for a fortnight, after which it was fished out in a sodden and not a crystallised state — it was bright pea green. During the period of crystallisation it was inaccessible, and though we could see it like a bee in amber, in the ice, yet when it got free again it was, as I say, sodden.

  But during the primitive or brick-red stage, it was not a totem at all, but either Mrs. Noah, or one of the Misses Noahs, or perhaps Noah himself, though I think he had a beard, or Shem, Ham or Japhet. I take it that it began to be a Totem at the moment when Jack partook of it, for it had been divine before, and at that moment it also ceased to be brick-red, and became pea green, because the brick-red was water colour. The pea green, as far as I know, was permanent.

  On the whole, then, the Green Totem is the least misleading title.

  I remember the passing of Mrs. Noah, Miss Noah, Shem, Ham or Japhet, into the Totem existence very well. It was during a painful scene one Sunday morning. Jack had been naughty, and had recorded a scornful vow to say his prayers to the moo-cow like the children of Israel. The book of Judges had a fascination for him, and he wanted to be Gibeon. There was a solemn pause after this regrettable statement, and Jack having delivered his ultimatum pulled one of the dramatis personae of the diluvian epoch out of the ark, and began to lick it. Hitherto that dramatis persona had been a Totem in all but the essential point I have alluded to above, and as soon as Jack partook of it, it ceased to be of the family of Noah and became the Green Totem. Its character as a Totem, I consider to have been definitely established after the lapse of an hour or two, when it became evident that the brick-red paint had not interfered with Jack’s internal economy; for the Totem, as I have explained, does not injure its worshippers.

  Jack always brought the Green Totem into my dressing-room in the morning, and for a time it eclipsed his desire to have razors. On one of these occasions its name was finally given it. Jack wished to call it Mrs. Noah, but I pointed out to him that he could not tell whether it was not one of the Misses Noah, or Shem, Ham or Japhet. He maintained that it was impossible that Shem, Ham or Japhet should dress in pea green because they were men, and that therefore the choice was limited to the women, and I retorted by saying, “How about Robin Hood?” That argument was of course unanswerable, but Jack turned the tables on me by asking what it’s name was, if it wasn’t Mrs. Noah. Naturally I replied, “the Green Totem,” or for the sake of brevity, “Totem.” Jack was only half satisfied.

  “Did I know for certain that Totem was one of Noah’s family names?”

  “Well, not exactly, but I thought that there were invincible objections to calling the individual by any other name, whereas there were positively none to calling it Totem;” and then we went down to breakfast, Jack, Green Totem, and myself.

  Totem lived mainly in Jack’s pocket, but it had a country house in the stem of a hollow oak tree in the garden, and we went to Totem’s “at homes,” and arranged its furniture, and turned its bedroom into its sitting-room, and its dining-room into its front hall, with a familiarity that I am afraid it must have considered bordered on impertinence.

  When we went to call on Totem, we used to discuss the state of the weather or the crops for a few minutes, and then one of us would notice that a blade of grass had begun to grow in the dining room, in a way that threatened to leave Totem no room to eat in. Now in the hall that would not matter; it would only be like the india rubber tree at home; so Totem was picked up and laid in its kitchen garden till the necessary change had been made. It is true that by the new arrangement the hall door led straight into the dining-room, and that you had to pass through that splendid apartment to get to the hall; but that was a less serious inconvenience than not having room to use your knife and fork; and in five minutes Totem held another “At Home,” and we shook our heads again over the rainy August, and the backward state of the wheat.

  Green Totem had a long and eventful career. Of course it started by being a full grown Totem, and could plunge into the wild vortex of life without any of the preliminary skirmishing of childhood and youth. It began by gaining signal victories over all the animals in its native ark, and though the brim of its hat, which was of the shape that appears to have been almost universal in diluvian times, got chipped and broken, being made of wood, which I maintain is not a suitable material to wear on the head when you are fighting lions who are constructed of the same vegetable substance, Totem’s spirit remained unbroken to the end. But though its hat, as I say, got chipped when it came in contact with the lions, for Totem’s method of attack was to butt them with its head — an invention, the merits of which, I submit, have been distinctly unappreciated — yet the legs of the lions got equally broken when they came into contact with the hat, and there were as many pin-legs when the campaigns were over as there were chips out of Totem’s hat. Totem always stood upon a small wooden disc, as befitted a god, and when that was broken it could not stand at all, as its feet were irregular in shape, and by no means subtended its centre of gravity. But Totem was terrible, even when it leaned against a tea-cup.

  I speak of Totem in the neuter gender, because it could not possibly be classed with things masculine or feminine. It went through its terrific encounters with the diluvian menagerie with a firmness of purpose which, though manly, is embodied in no man; it did the honours of its country house with a dignity unknown to duchesses, and its neuter characteristics were more strongly marked than either of these. Just as the masculine gender would be unsuitable to it when it was at home, and the feminine gender when it was fighting elephants and large white hens on the wilds of the Turkey carpet, so both masculine and feminine genders were glaringly inadequate to express Totem in repose, and it really seemed more suitable to talk of it as “they,” for it was a variety of distilled types embodied in one unique entity. Even in its country house Totem was he and she, for Jack and I took it in turns to be Totem, and unless we can interpret the rapid change of voice from a deepish bass to a shrill piping treble as being a mere mockery on Totem part, or a rapid succession of bronchial catarrhs, neither of which explanations seems to me at all tenable, we must, I think, allow the possibility of a plurality of persons in Totem.

  About a fortnight after Totem’s stand had come off, it began to get very much frayed about the feet; its heels disintegrated altogether, and the disease was spreading up the legs. It was obviously serious, and we resorted to drastic, but, I am glad to say, effectual remedies. The stumps were cut neatly off at the point where they joined its solid green ulster, two tin tacks were driven in, and Totem could stand again. This saved its life in at least two ways: in the first place it is clear that the disease would have spread, and ultimately undermined its constitution, and in the second place it saved Totem from drowning in a rather curious manner.

  One day Totem was sailing about in its yacht on a small pond near its country house. Like Ulysses, it was tied to the mast to prevent it falling overboard, but the cotton came undone, and Totem took the neatest little header into the water. Its specific gravity enabled it to float, but as it was circular, the chances were exactly even that its fac
e would be under water, and that it would drown in spite of its specific gravity. But its tin feet were of a denser specific gravity than the rest of its body, wherefore they inclined directly downwards, whereby the whole of Totem’s head was out of the water. Any immediate danger therefore was averted, but though we spent some time throwing sticks and stones at Totem, we did not succeed in getting it to land. However, if a wind sprang up in the night, we were sure to find it ashore in the morning.

  But no wind sprang up; on the contrary, it froze hard, and next morning Totem was still visible as far as its shoulders, but it was even more out of reach than ever, for the ice would not bear. We could just see its head appearing above the thinly frozen surface, and it talked to us for a few minutes. On the whole we decided that it looked pretty cheerful.

  The frost lasted two nights, and then snow fell; thick snow, covering everything up. This is important. The pond lay in a small hollow, and when the snow melted in the course of a few days, the water drained down on the ice, and covered it to the depth of about half an inch. Totem of course vanished entirely, but we settled that it had been so long in the water that it had probably become a sort of fish, and that the water did not matter to it any longer.

  Then the frost set in again; the water on the top of the old ice was entirely frozen up, and in a few days we were skating over Totem’s head. We could see it in the ice, as I mentioned before, like a bee in amber, and though we were so near, we were very far. Small oblations in the shape of minute pieces of cake were left for it, and as they had always vanished by next day it was clear that Totem was alive and well, and that there was no reason to be apprehensive, even on the ground of its starving to death. Totem obviously knew much that was not dreamed of in our philosophy.

  When the frost broke up, we found one morning a sodden stranded Totem on the edge of the pond. Evidently that exposure was the cause of its death, for it brought on a tendency to splinter all over its body. In its weak state, it was sheer madness to lie down on the gravel by the front door in a wheel rut. In a stronger condition, it might have escaped any fatal effects from a carriage wheel passing over it, at the expense of a little general tattooing of pebbles into the green ulster; indeed such a thing had happened before, but in its enfeebled condition, it was an inconceivable stupidity. But Totem was always headstrong.