Works of E F Benson Read online

  As he sat at ease after the labours of the day he wondered how the coming of Olga Bracely to Riseholme would affect the economy of the place. It was impossible to think of her with her beauty, her charm, her fame, her personality as taking any second place in its life. Unless she was really meaning to use Riseholme as a retreat, to take no part in its life at all, it was hard to see what part she would take except the first part. One who by her arrival at Lucia’s ever-memorable party had converted it in a moment from the most dire of Scrubs (in a psychical sense) to the Hightumest gathering ever known could not lay aside her distinction and pre-eminence. Never had Lucia “scored” so amazingly as over Olga’s late appearance, which had the effect of bringing back all her departed guests with the compulsion of a magnet over iron-filings, and sending up the whole party like a rocket into the zenith of social success. All Riseholme knew that Olga had come (after playing croquet with Georgie the entire afternoon) and had given them free gratis and for nothing, such a treat as only the wealthiest could obtain with the most staggering fees. Lady Ambermere alone, driving back to The Hall with Pug and poor Miss Lyall, was the only person who had not shared in that, and she knew all about it next day, for Georgie had driven out on purpose to tell her, and met Lucia coming away. How, then, would the advent of Olga affect Riseholme’s social working generally, and how would it affect Lucia in particular? And what would Lucia say when she knew on whose behalf Georgie was so busy with plumbers and painters, and with buying so many of the desirable treasures in the Ambermere Arms?

  Frankly he could not answer these conundrums: they presupposed inconceivable situations, which yet, though inconceivable, were shortly coming to pass, for Olga’s advent might be expected before October, that season of tea-parties that ushered in the multifarious gaieties of the winter. Would Olga form part of the moonlit circle to whom Lucia played the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata, and give a long sigh at the end like the rest of them? And would Lucia when they had all recovered a little from the invariable emotion go to her and say, “Olga mia, just a little bit out of the Valkyrie? It would be so pleasant.” Somehow Georgie, with all his imagination, could not picture such a scene. And would Olga take the part of second citizenness or something of the sort when Lucia played Portia? Would Olga join the elementary class of Yoga, and be instructed by Lucia in her Teacher’s Robe? Would she sing treble in the Christmas Carols, while Lucia beat time, and said in syllables dictated by the rhythm, “Trebles a little flat! My poor ears!”? Georgie could not imagine any of these things, and yet, unless Olga took no part in the social life of Riseholme at all (and that was equally inconceivable) what was the alternative? True, she had said that she was coming here because it was so ideally lazy a backwater, but Georgie did not take that seriously. She would soon see what Riseholme was when its life poured down in spate, whirling her punt along with it.

  And finally, what would happen to him, when Olga was set as a shining star in this firmament? Already he revolved about her, he was aware, like some eager delighted little moon, drawn away from the orbit where it had encircled so contentedly by the more potent planet. And the measure of his detachment from that old orbit might be judged precisely by the fact that the process of detachment which was already taking place was marked by no sense of the pull of opposing forces at all. The great new star sailing into the heavens had just picked him up by force of its superior power of attraction, even as by its momentary conjunction with Lucia at the garden-party it had raised her to a magnitude she had never possessed before. That magnitude was still Lucia’s, and no doubt would be until the great star appeared again. Then without effort its shining must surely eclipse every other illumination, just as without effort it must surely attract all the little moons to itself. Or would Lucia manage somehow or other, either by sheer force of will, by desperate and hostile endeavour, or, on the other hand, by some supreme tact and cleverness to harness the great star to her own chariot? He thought the desperate and hostile endeavour was more in keeping with Lucia’s methods, and this quiet evening hour represented itself to him as the lull before the storm.

  The actual quiet of the moment was suddenly broken into. His front-door banged, and the house was filled with running footsteps and screams of laughter. But it was not uncommon for Hermy and Ursy to make this sort of entrance, and at the moment Georgie had not the slightest idea of how much further-reaching was the disturbance of the tranquillity. He but drew a couple of long breaths, said “Om” once or twice, and was quite prepared to find his deeper calm unshattered.

  Hermy and Ursy ran down the steps into the garden where he sat still yelling with laughter, and still Georgie’s imagination went no further than to suppose that one of them had laid a stymie for the other at their golf, or driven a ball out of bounds or done some other of these things that appeared to make the game so diverting to them.

  “Georgie, you’ll never guess!” cried Hermy.

  “The Guru: the Om, of high caste and extraordinary sanctity,” cried Ursy.

  “The Brahmin from Benares,” shrieked Hermy.

  “The great Teacher! Who do you think he is?” said Ursy. “We never seen him before—”

  “But we recognised him at once—”

  “He recognised us, too, and didn’t he run?—”

  “Into The Hurst and shut the door—”

  Georgie’s deeper calm suddenly quivered like a jelly.

  “My dears, you needn’t howl so, or talk quite so loud,” he said. “All Riseholme will hear you. Tell me without shouting who it was you thought you recognised.”

  “There’s no think about it,” said Hermy. “It was one of the cooks from the Calcutta Restaurant in Bedford Street—”

  “Where we often have lunch,” said Ursy. “He makes the most delicious curries.”

  “Especially when he’s a little tipsy,” said Hermy.

  “And is about as much a Brahmin as I am.”

  “And always said he came from Madras.”

  “We always tip him to make the curry himself, so he isn’t quite ignorant about money.”

  “O Lord!” said Hermy, wiping her eyes. “If it isn’t the limit!”

  “And to think of Mrs Lucas and Colonel Boucher and you and Mrs Quantock, and Piggy and all the rest of them sitting round a cook,” said Ursy, “and drinking in his wisdom. Mr Quantock was on the right track after all when he wanted to engage him.”

  Georgie with a fallen heart had first to satisfy himself that this was not one of his sisters’ jokes, and then tried to raise his fallen heart by remembering that the Guru had often spoken of the dignity of simple manual work, but somehow it was a blow, if Hermy and Ursy were right, to know that this was a tipsy contriver of curry. There was nothing in the simple manual office of curry-making that could possibly tarnish sanctity, but the amazing tissue of falsehoods with which the Guru had modestly masked his innocent calling was not so markedly in the spirit of the Guides, as retailed by him. It was of the first importance, however, to be assured that his sisters had not at present communicated their upsetting discovery to anybody but himself, and after that to get their promise that they would not do so.

  This was not quite so easy, for Hermy and Ursy had projected a round of visits after dinner to every member of the classes with the exception of Lucia, who should wake up next morning to find herself the only illusioned person in the place.

  “She wouldn’t like that, you know,” said Hermy with brisk malice. “We thought it would serve her out for never asking us to her house again after her foolish old garden-party.”

  “My dear, you never wanted to go,” said Georgie.

  “I know we didn’t, but we rather wanted to tell her we didn’t want to go. She wasn’t nice. Oh, I don’t think we can give up telling everybody. It has made such sillies of you all. I think he’s a real sport.”

  “So do I,” said Ursy. “We shall soon have him back at his curry-oven again. What a laugh we shall have with him.”

  They subsided fo
r just as long as it took Foljambe to come out of the house, inform them that it was a quarter of an hour to dinner-time, and return again. They all rose obediently.

  “Well, we’ll talk about it at dinner-time,” said Georgie diplomatically. “And I’ll just go down to the cellar first to see if I can find something you like.”

  “Good old Georgie,” said Hermy. “But if you’re going to bribe us, you must bribe us well.”

  “We’ll see,” said he.

  Georgie was quite right to be careful over his Veuve Clicquot, especially since it was a bottle of that admirable beverage that Hermy and Ursy had looted from his cellar on the night of their burglarious entry. He remembered that well, though he had — chiefly from the desire to keep things pleasant about his hair — joined in “the fun,” and had even produced another half-bottle. But tonight, even more than then, there was need for the abolition of all petty economies, for the situation would be absolutely intolerable if Hermy and Ursy spread about Riseholme the fact that the introducers and innermost circle of Yoga philosophers had sat at the feet of no Gamaliel at all, but at those of a curry-cook from some low restaurant. Indeed he brought up a second bottle tonight with a view if Hermy and Ursy were not softened by the first to administer that also. They would then hardly be in a condition to be taken seriously if they still insisted on making a house-to-house visit in Riseholme, and tearing the veil from off the features of the Guru. Georgie was far too upright of purpose to dream of making his sisters drunk, but he was willing to make great sacrifices in order to render them kind. What the inner circle would do about this cook he had no idea; he must talk to Lucia about it, before the advanced class tomorrow morning. But anything was better than letting Hermy and Ursy loose in Riseholme with their rude laughs and discreditable exposures. This evening safely over, he could discuss with Lucia what was to be done, for Hermy and Ursy would have vanished at cock-crow as they were going in for some golf-competition at a safe distance. Lucia might recommend doing nothing at all, and wish to continue enlightening studies as if nothing had happened. But Georgie felt that the romance would have evaporated from the classes as regards himself. Or again they might have to get rid of the Guru somehow. He only felt quite sure that Lucia would agree with him that Daisy Quantock must not be told. She with her thwarted ambitions of being the prime dispenser of Guruism to Riseholme might easily “turn nasty” and let it be widely known that she and Robert had seen through that fraud long ago, and had considered whether they should not offer the Guru the situation of cook in their household, for which he was so much better qualified. She might even add that his leanings towards her pretty housemaid had alone dissuaded her.

  The evening went off with a success more brilliant than Georgie had anticipated, and it was quite unnecessary to open the second bottle of champagne. Hermy and Ursy, perhaps under the influence of the first, perhaps from innate good-nature, perhaps because they were starting so very early next morning, and wanted to be driven into Brinton, instead of taking a slower and earlier train at this station, readily gave up their project of informing the whole of Riseholme of their discovery, and went to bed as soon as they had rooked their brother of eleven shillings at cut-throat bridge. They continued to say, “I’ll play the Guru,” whenever they had to play a knave, but Georgie found it quite easy to laugh at that, so long as the humour of it did not spread. He even himself said, “I’ll Guru you, then,” when he took a trick with the Knave of Trumps.

  The agitation and uncertainty caused him not to sleep very well, and in addition there was a good deal of disturbance in the house, for his sisters had still all their packing in front of them when they went to bed and the doze that preceded sleep was often broken by the sound of the banging of luggage, the clash of golf-clubs and steps on the stairs as they made ready for their departure.

  But after a while these disturbances ceased, and it was out of a deep sleep that he awoke with the sense that some noise had awakened him. Apparently they had not finished yet, for there was surely some faint stir of movement somewhere. Anyhow they respected his legitimate desire for quiet, for the noise, whatever it was, was extremely stealthy and subdued. He thought of his absurd lark about burglars on the night of their arrival, and smiled at the notion. His toupet was in a drawer close to his bed, but he had no substantial impulse to put it on, and make sure that the noise was not anything other than his sisters’ preparations for their early start. For himself, he would have had everything packed and corded long before dinner, if he was to start next day, except just a suit case that would hold the apparatus of immediate necessities, but then dear Hermy and Ursy were so ramshackle in their ways. Some time he would have bells put on all the shutters as he had determined to do a month ago, and then no sort of noise would disturb him any more….

  The Yoga-class next morning was (unusually) to assemble at ten, since Peppino, who would not miss it for anything, was going to have a day’s fishing in the happy stream that flowed into the Avon, and he wanted to be off by eleven. Peppino had made great progress lately and had certain curious dizzy symptoms when he meditated which were highly satisfactory.

  Georgie breakfasted with his sisters at eight (they had enticed the motor out of him to convey them to Brinton) and when they were gone, Foljambe informed him that the housemaid had a sore throat, and had not “done” the drawing-room. Foljambe herself would “do” it, when she had cleaned the “young ladies’” rooms (there was a hint of scorn in this) upstairs, and so Georgie sat on the window seat of the dining-room, and thought how pleasant peace and quietness were. But just when it was time to start for The Hurst in order to talk over the disclosures of the night before with Lucia before the class, and perhaps to frame some secretive policy which would obviate further exposure, he remembered that he had left his cigarette-case (the pretty straw one with the turquoise in the corner) in the drawing-room and went to find it. The window was open, and apparently Foljambe had just come in to let fresh air into the atmosphere which Hermy and Ursy had so uninterruptedly contaminated last night with their “fags” as they called them, but his cigarette-case was not on the table where he thought he had left it. He looked round, and then stood rooted to the spot.

  His glass-case of treasures was not only open but empty. Gone was the Louis XVI snuff-box, gone was the miniature of Karl Huth, gone the piece of Bow China, and gone the Faberge cigarette case. Only the Queen Anne toy-porringer was there, and in the absence of the others, it looked to him, as no doubt it had looked to the burglar, indescribably insignificant.

  Georgie gave a little low wailing cry, but did not tear his hair for obvious reasons. Then he rang the bell three times in swift succession, which was the signal to Foljambe that even if she was in her bath, she must come at once. In she came with one of Hermy’s horrid woolen jerseys that had been left behind, in her hand.

  “Yes, sir, what is it?” she asked, in an agitated manner, for never could she remember Georgie having rung the bell three times except once when a fish-bone had stuck in his throat, and once again when a note had announced to him that Piggy was going to call and hoped to find him alone. For answer Georgie pointed to the rifled treasure-case. “Gone! Burgled!” he said. “Oh, my God!”

  At that supreme moment the telephone bell sounded.

  “See what it is,” he said to Foljambe, and put the Queen Anne toy-porringer in his pocket.

  She came hurrying back.

  “Mrs Lucas wants you to come around at once,” she said.

  “I can’t,” said Georgie. “I must stop here and send for the police. Nothing must be moved,” and he hastily replaced the toy-porringer on the exact circle of pressed velvet where it had stood before.

  “Yes, sir,” said Foljambe, but in another moment she returned.

  “She would be very much obliged if you would come at once,” she said. “There’s been a robbery in the house.”

  “Well, tell her there’s been one in mine,” said Georgie irritably. Then good-nature mixed with furious cur
iosity came to his aid.

  “Wait here, then, Foljambe, on this very spot,” he said, “and see that nobody touches anything. I shall probably ring up the police from The Hurst. Admit them.”

  In his agitation he put on his hat, instead of going bareheaded and was received by Lucia, who had clearly been looking out of the music-room window, at the door. She wore her Teacher’s Robe.

  “Georgie,” she said, quite forgetting to speak Italian in her greeting, “someone broke into Philip’s safe last night, and took a hundred pounds in bank-notes. He had put them there only yesterday in order to pay in cash for that cob. And my Roman pearls.”

  Georgie felt a certain pride of achievement.

  “I’ve been burgled, too,” he said. “My Louis XVI snuff-box is worth more than that, and there’s the piece of Bow china, and the cigarette-case, and the Karl Huth as well.”

  “My dear! Come inside,” said she. “It’s a gang. And I was feeling so peaceful and exalted. It will make a terrible atmosphere in the house. My Guru will be profoundly affected. An atmosphere where thieves have been will stifle him. He has often told me how he cannot stop in a house where there have been wicked emotions at play. I must keep it from him. I cannot lose him.”

  Lucia had sunk down on a spacious Elizabethan settle in the hall. The humorous spider mocked them from the window, the humorous stone fruit from the plate beside the pot-pourri bowl. Even as she repeated, “I cannot lose him,” again, a tremendous rap came on the front door, and Georgie, at a sign from his queen, admitted Mrs Quantock.

  “Robert and I have been burgled,” she said. “Four silver spoons — thank God, most of our things are plate — eight silver forks and a Georgian tankard. I could have spared all but the last.”