Part 8

We went to Bibury that evening, with an expert from one of the big furnishers, and early the next morning we were busy starting the work. Then we hurried back, with a full plan of house and garden, and began to compile catalogues of necessities. There are printed lists to be had from the big furnishers, and to these we added every kind of minute accessory. Ben wanted to leave no loophole for criticism whatever. Ten times in a night I would wake up and think of something that might be forgotten and jot it down; and if I woke up ten times, Ben probably woke up twenty, for this commission was her great chance.

I thought in this way of:

Nut-crackers Goloshes Pepper mill Pond's Extract Court Plaster Order for newspapers Garden seats Fishing tackle Cigars and cigarettes Lavender sachets Paper clips Notepaper die.

Ben was taking Mr. Barclay Corbet at his word and making her own taste control the whole scheme. This meant grey carpets and rose curtains, all of which had to be put in hand instantly. Then there were rush mattings and linos and rugs and blinds. Everything was new: there was no time to hunt for the old; but it was the best new, and we saw that every drawer opened easily. Fortunately two of the essentials of an American's house that take most time to supply--central heating and the telephone--were there already.

When it came to decorative inessentials we were cautious. Pictures, for example. It is very difficult to buy pictures for other people, as every one who has ever been in a hotel sitting-room will agree. Yet there were those great bare, white distempered walls.

The pictures being an acute problem, Ben, with deep cunning, left them to me.

"But I haven't seen your Barclay Corbet," I said. "A man can be anything in the world until you've seen him. How can I choose? Does he look like a hunting man?"

"No."

"That shuts out sets of coloured Alkens, which might be just the thing for such a place: Alken, Sartorius, Ben Marshall, all those fine old horsy fellows. Does he suggest exotic tastes?" I asked.

"No."

"That's puts a stopper on Japanese prints--as a rule such a safe line! And oil paintings would cost too much. And mezzotints of beautiful women, after Reynolds and Gainsborough, also dear, might not please him."

It was then that Mr. Harford came to the rescue. "If he likes Bibury so much," he said, "it follows that he must like Old England. I'll frame up a lot of our water-colours--De Wint, Birket Foster, William Callow, Tom Collier, David Cox, Varley--and if he likes them he can keep them, and if not I'll take them back. And now I come to think of it, he wanted to buy my dog, the swine! Called him a flea-trap! I've got some engravings of spaniels and setters after Stubbs--I'll hang those in the hall."

We settled the books in the same way. A certain number were decided upon without any question, such as the "Encyclopædia Britannica," Dickens and Thackeray, and then a mixed collection was put together by Mr. St. Quentin: to be retained or returned. All were supplied by that enterprising firm "The Booklovers' Rest" on the principle, as Ben said, of keeping Mr. Corbet in the family.

The few vases and bowls that were necessary were simpler: there are so many non-committal shapes and colours now.

Mr. Harford did not confine himself to supplying the pictures and books, but himself superintended their arrangement in the house, and when I went down to Bibury for a last look round two or three days before the time limit was up, in order to have the chance of supplying any last-minute deficiencies that might occur to any of us, I found that pleasant young gentleman among the people staying at the inn. Although a second-hand book seller, he seemed to have views on everything else too, together with a knack of getting things done, while in addition he found time to throw a fly now and then over the rapid waters of the Coln.

"Mr. Harford has been very kind," Ben said. "I'm sure he's needed in London, for Mr. St. Quentin has sent him several telegrams; but he wouldn't go back so long as there was any bother here."

We went over the house together, and it was undoubtedly an achievement. Between us we had, I believe, covered the ground; Mr. Harford, with diabolical thoroughness and perhaps a touch of malice, having actually provided the library with a cuspidor.

The time being ripe, Ben and I returned to London--Mr. Harford, having given in to his partner's S.O.S.'s the day before--for Ben preferred not to be present when her client arrived. She argued that a house may be described as more ready to live in if there is no one to welcome you but your own people. But she left a little note expressing her hope that she had succeeded in her task, and adding, "There is a corkscrew in every room."

XXXII

It was, I imagine, the presence of the cuspidor which tickled Mr. Barclay Corbet's fancy and provoked him to the series of telegrams which he despatched to Ben. They came at intervals for a day or so. I can remember a few, with the replies:

Corbet Bibury to Beckancal London: Please explain curious article by library fire-place.

Beckancal London to Corbet Bibury: Sorry if I have been over-zealous.

----

Corbet Bibury to Beckancal London: Do not seem to have any bellows.

Beckancal London to Corbet Bibury: Look in oak chest in hall.

----

Corbet Bibury to Beckancal London: Gardener clamouring for secateur.

Beckancal London to Corbet Bibury: In cupboard in summer-house.

----

Corbet Bibury to Beckancal London: Cannot find any shaving paper.

Beckancal London to Corbet Bibury: Tear up "Times."

And then came Mr. Barclay Corbet in person to express his absolute satisfaction and to make Ben and her staff a handsome present, and then to spend some hours downstairs in fixing up his shelves properly.

"Whoever thought I wanted an 'Encyclopædia Britannica,'" he said, "is the world's worst clairvoyant. What I want is the works of A. Trollope. They're good to read and they're good to send you to sleep."

XXXIII

Alicia, better dressed than usual, with a new vanity bag and a rather dashing hat, had been seated in Ben's room for many minutes before she could bring herself to be explicit and admit that she had received an offer of marriage. From a widower, a retired ironmaster, living at Hove. In one of the avenues, she added; with his sister: a horrid woman. They had met at a séance, for he, too, was interested in spiritualism and was in communication with his late wife. At least he had tried to be, but that lady had refused to be communicative because, she said, there was someone antipathetic to her in the room.

"You, I suppose," said Ben, in her blunt way.

"I don't know why you should say so," said Alicia, hurt.

"I don't see why she should rejoice in your presence, anyway," Ben replied. "It can't be much fun for dead wives, out of it for ever, watching their husbands preparing for a second marriage."

"That's just it," said Alicia, with a groan.

"What do you mean?" Ben asked.

"Nothing," said Alicia, and was silent for quite a long while.

"Do you want to marry him?" Ben asked.

"I don't dislike him," said Alicia, "but it is very sudden. I had never expected anything of the kind to happen, or indeed thought about it. As you know, I was anticipating a lonely life dedicated to the boys. And if it weren't for the boys I shouldn't consider it now, for an instant. But of course it would be good for them. He is so fond of them, and a man is a better influence than a weak, fond mother."

"So you will say yes?" said Ben.

"I don't know, oh, I don't know," said Alicia, dismally, with a glance at her pocket mirror. "You see," she added, "there's Bertrand. He ought to be told."

"I thought you said that he knew everything about you," said Ben.

"So I have thought," said Alicia. "But he ought to be told formally. And that can be done only through the medium, and I don't want her to know. I've never liked her, apart from her calling. Not a lady, by a long way. Not even the third drawer! But if Bertrand knew, wouldn't he have let me know? Some little message of encouragement? Surely! But no, nothing. I used to feel so certain of him, but now it's all changed. Do you think I'm becoming less psychic or that he's cross?"

"I hope you're becoming less psychic," said Ben. "You oughtn't to marry retired iron-masters and be psychic too. Bertrand was a very just man," she continued. "He couldn't be so unreasonable as to wish you to be deprived of the company and consolation of a second husband."

"I'm not sure," said Alicia. "I feel that he counts on me, and I may lose him if I marry again."

"I suppose, to a certain extent, you would," said Ben.

"You think so?" Alicia asked eagerly.

"Yes, I think you would," said Ben. "It's only natural. And I think if you married you would want to, too."

"Want to lose Bertrand?" Alicia asked in amazement.

"Yes. It would be very awkward to have both."

"I suppose it would," Alicia admitted.

"And besides," said Ben, "after all, you may have been mistaken about conversing with Bertrand at all. The whole thing may be an hallucination, proceeding from yourself. The wish the father to the thought, you know."

"Do you think so?" Alicia asked with some excitement. "Do you think I have imagined it all and Bertrand and I have had no communication?"

"I think it quite possible," said Ben. "You'll never be able to prove it, of course. Anyway, from what I remember of Bertrand, he would want you to be happy, and he would like his boys to be looked after."

"You think he would?" Alicia asked.

"I'm certain of it," said Ben.

"Then you would marry Mr. Redforth?"

"If I liked him sufficiently, and trusted him, yes," said Ben. "In any case I should not let the vague possibility of Bertrand's disapproval deprive me of the chance of new happiness."

"Ben, you're a darling!" said Alicia, kissing her impulsively. "I'll do it."

"And what about Mr. Redforth's sister?" Ben asked.

"Oh, she must make her own arrangements," said Alicia.

XXXIV

Walking in Kensington Gardens to-day whom should I meet but Ben's Uncle Paul, with his latest yacht on his arm; and he seemed almost to welcome the opportunity of sitting down for a while to chat. For we are not the most intimate of acquaintances; not because of any inherent antipathy, but because of an acute observer would probably detect in each of us a slight suspicion of the other--a tincture of jealousy--each of us wishing to be the nearest and dearest among Ben's middle-aged friends. Her capture of a young man we should accept not with joy but with resignation--for it would be according to nature--but we should hate to see her adding another friend of fifty to her retinue.

We began, as we usually do when we meet, by mentioning her. It is a sign that true intimacy is lacking when a third person is called in as an ice-pick. And how often it happens!

"Have you seen Ben lately?" I asked, hoping fervently that the advantage was with me.

"She came in to see me last evening," said Uncle Paul, with all his usual difficulty of utterance, and my heart fell. (But of course relatives don't count. Relatives are in the line of least resistance. The real test is when a stranger is made a friend of.)

"How do you feel about the business?" Uncle Paul asked. "Do you think it is really thriving? Do you think it is too great a strain?"

"I don't think so," I said. "And she does it so well; she's so happy doing it that a little strain wouldn't matter."

"I went into the book shop underneath the other day," said Uncle Paul, "all unbeknown to Ben, to have a look at those young men. I suppose you've seen them?"

I had seen them often, confound them! "Yes," I said, "once or twice."

"And how do they strike you?" Uncle Paul inquired. "Because you know, I suppose----" He stopped for a while. "Well, I wonder what you think of them," he said.

"I am sorry to say," I replied, "that I don't see anything very wrong with either."

He looked at me through his highly magnifying gold-rimmed glasses. Then he laughed.

"I felt a little like that myself," he said. "But we mustn't be dogs in the manger: old men like us."

(Not so old as that, all the same! He must speak for himself.)

"I could wish that the quiet one had more legs," said Uncle Paul. "But I suppose that his disability is all in his favour with such a born manager as Ben. Would he be your choice?"

"I don't know," I said. "I sometimes think I should prefer her to take the jolly one. And I like a man to be complete."

"The jolly one might get on her nerves after a while," said Uncle Paul. "High spirits and facetiousness can ruin a marriage almost as easily as egotism and irony."

"I don't think Harford's humour is as virulent as that," I said. "I saw a lot of him at Bibury. I thought his gaiety rather attractive. He has some brains, too. His principal fault--and I wish I could share it--is that he finds life an adventure and a joke. But he will be cured of such heresies as those all too soon. Nothing so enrages the Powers above as to see anyone down here daring to be like that. And they have all the weapons of chastisement and correction so handy!"

"Well, I shall put my money on the lame one," said Uncle Paul.

"But why should she marry either?" I asked. "She does not strike me as so inevitably a marrying girl."

"Geographical conditions largely," said Uncle Paul. "There they all are, so absolutely on the spot."

"I should have thought they would be jealous," I said.

"I've no doubt they are," said Uncle Paul, who seemed to me to know far too much for a stammering recluse given to Round Pond navigation. "And if one of them is not accepted, or both aren't refused, pretty soon, 'The Booklovers' Rest' will dissolve partnership."

"As bad as that?" I remarked.

"I think so," he said. "It's astonishing what a disturbing element in the lives of two young men one young woman can be."

"Yes," I said, "and it's more astonishing when it's such a sensible girl as Ben, who would not be bothered to make mischief with anyone, but merely wants to go her own way and be busy. But what does Nature care about 'The Becks and Calls'? Nature has only two ideas in her obstinate old head. One is that people should fall in love and become parents, and the other that they should grow old."

XXXV

"You may think us very foolish," said the tall man, as he seated himself.

"Or very greedy," said his wife.

"But we want some advice about food, and seeing your signboard, which reminded me of the inn my father used to keep in Helmsley," the man continued, "we thought we'd come in and ask. But," he said, "I never thought to find a beautiful young lady like you, miss. You are 'miss,' I take it?"

"Yes," said Ben, laughing.

"Somehow," said the tall man, "our difficulty is more one to put to an older woman. But it's like this. My wife and I are just back from New Zealand, where we've lived ever since I was twenty. I've done very well, and we're having a look round London. We're staying at the Hotel Splendid, you know. Everything bang up. Private suite. Gold clock under a glass shade."

"Which doesn't go," said his wife.

"Steam heat," he continued, "that dries up all my tobacco. Everything perfect, in fact. But we can't get the food we like. You see, miss, we're very simple folk, and we want the old-fashioned things. All the way home we have been thinking and talking about the things we would eat, and now that we're here we can't get them. They serve them, but they're not right. Sausages and mashed--I know just how they ought to taste; but at the 'Splendid' they taste of nothing. And lots of things I used to be so fond of at home they don't serve at all. I can't get a pork-pie--'porch-peen,' as we used to call it. When I asked the head waiter for cow's heel, I thought he'd throw a fit. Batter pudding, boiled onions, apple dumplings; it's no good, they can't make them to taste of anything, or they can't make them at all. They've got such a horror of the flavour of apple that they smother it with lemon and cloves. Now, miss, couldn't you tell us of some smaller places--we don't mind how small or how common--where we could get some of the old homely stuff? My poor wife here is wasting away."

"Oh, John, it's you that want them much more than I do," said his wife.

"I don't know much about food myself," said Ben, "but I've heard my father say that there are certain things that no restaurant can ever do as well as home cooks. He says that no restaurant can make bread sauce or horse-radish sauce properly. No restaurant can be trusted with mushrooms. My advice to you," she continued, "would be to cut out London altogether, unless you were set on it, and go either to a country inn or to a farm, where the milk isn't watered and the cream hasn't any boric acid, and the eggs are this morning's, and things taste as they should. London never gets anything really fresh. Why don't you go to your own Yorkshire?" she asked.

"We shall later," said the tall man. "But we want to see London first; and meanwhile we're starving."

"Then you must go into lodgings," said Ben, "where there is a good plain cook."

"John is so fond of the 'Splendid,'" said his wife. "He's always wanted to stay in that kind of hotel and waste his money on red carpets and sit in lounges and watch the actresses."

"Then stay at the 'Splendid,'" said Ben, "but eat at simpler places. It would be amusing to pay five pounds for a bed and five shillings for meals. The management ought to know about it--it might do them good. But wait a minute," she went on, "I've just thought of something."

She rang the bell and Dolly entered.

"We want your advice," she said. "Do you know of any eating-houses where old-fashioned food is well cooked and tastes like itself?"

"Plenty, miss," said Dolly. "There's a place in the Hampstead Road with a placard up that says 'Everything as Nice as Mother Makes It.'"

The New Zealander slapped his thigh. "Now you're talking!" he cried. "Does it really say that? That's what we're looking for: 'Everything as Nice as Mother Makes It'--my! but that's a great sentence; that's literature. Where is this place, boy?"

"In the Hampstead Road," said Dolly. "But there are others too, very likely. And I can tell them about sausages, too, miss, and tripe and onions. Famous places. And stewed eels, miss."

Ben shuddered.

"This is great!" said her client. "Now, look here, miss," he continued, "this seems to me to be a bright boy. Let us have him for a few days to show us round, and name your own price. He'll take us to the places we want to see, like the Tower and the Zoo and Westminster Abbey, and he'll show us where to eat."

"What do you say, Dolly?" Ben asked.

Dolly was obviously flattered; but he had the business at heart.

"I was wondering if I could be spared," he replied.

"Well, if you can be, what do you think your time is worth?" Ben inquired.

"Including fares," he said, after some thought, "and taking into consideration the distress and upheaval caused here by my absence, fifteen bob a day, exclusive of lunch."

"We'll pay that," said the New Zealander, cheerfully, and the bargain was struck. Dolly had become, for a week, a courier.

Later that same afternoon, Ben told me--it was one of her mixed-grill days, as she called them, when every one was odd--a plainly dressed young woman asked to see Miss Staveley on very pressing private business, and was admitted.

"You won't know me, miss," she said, "but my mother was your Jane."

"Jane?" replied Ben. "You don't mean Jane Bunce?"

"Yes," said the girl. "The one who was with the Colonel and his lady for so long and only left to be married."

"Of course," said Ben. "We are all very fond of her. I can remember her perfectly, although I was so small. I hope she is all right."

"Yes," said the girl. "But father----"

"Tell me," said Ben.

"It's like this," said the girl. "Father's been ill now for months and months, and somehow mother heard about you setting up here as a kind of advice-giver. And she said 'You go along to Miss Ben's and ask her. I'm sure she wouldn't object, for old sake's sake.'"

"Tell me," said Ben again.

"It's like this," the girl resumed. "Father's been ill for months and months, and you know what sick folks are, how they get their minds set on things? Well, he sits in a chair at the window watching the motor-cars go by. We're in Peckham, you know, and motor-cars go by all the time, and even more on Sundays, and--well, miss--he's never been in one in his life. In motor-buses, yes, but never in a car. Motor-buses don't count. They've got solid tyres; they're public. But a shiny private car with rubber tyres, all his own for the time being--he's never been in one of those; and he sits there at the window and it's his only wish. But you see, miss, he can't ever do it now, because he's that weak, and the doctor only gives him another two or three days."

"Well?" said Ben.

"Well," the girl went on, dabbing her eyes, "well, mother told me to come and ask you if you think it would be very wrong--too extravagant, I mean--if we were to give him a motor funeral? As a surprise, miss, of course? What do you think, miss? What may I tell mother?"

"Give her my love," said Ben, "and tell her most certainly to do it. And tell her to come and see me when the funeral's over."

XXXVI

"May I come in?" asked the bronzed, soldierly-looking man, as he opened the door of Ben's room, having brought his handsome face and easy charm to break down, with their usual success, Jan's opposition.

"My dear Cecil!" Ben exclaimed, rushing into her brother's arms, "what brings you here? I thought you were in Paris."

"So we were," he said, "but I had to leave in self-defence. Yvonne was ruining me. We were to have stayed there a month, but I should never have got away at all if I hadn't put out all my strength and insisted on coming now.

"The clothes that child buys!" he continued. "We're heading straight for Queer Street. I see that you solve domestic problems; well, if anyone ever asks you for advice as to marrying a foreigner, tell them not to. The answer is in the negative. Foreigners are all right in their place, but don't marry them."

"Poor Cecil!" said Ben.

"No, it isn't as bad as that," he said. "Yvonne and I get on very well. But she's a foreigner, and once a foreigner, always a foreigner. They never get to understand. I can't make her realize that I'm not rich. She thinks that all Englishmen must be rich. She has plenty of relations in the French Army--naturally--and they are poor enough, but an English officer must necessarily be wealthy. Nothing that I can say or do has any effect. I show her my accounts; but I might just as well be exhibiting a bridge score. She has no idea of money or figures whatever. And if by any chance a glimmering that I may be telling the truth enters her brain, she says 'Ah, but your father is rich. Some day he will die--he is an old man--and then you will be rich too.' They're so practical, the French. They go straight for what they want, and what she wants is her father-in-law's death. But, as a matter of fact, as I have told her, judging by the governor's general appearance to-day, he is far less likely to peg out than I am. He's as skittish as a two-year-old on stepmother's money; and he and Yvonne are as thick as thieves. They're at some function or other together to-day--Ranelagh, I believe. Thank God you can't buy clothes at Ranelagh!"

"No," said Ben, "but you can see them and get envious and plot terrific campaigns for to-morrow."

Cecil groaned.