The Greatest Works of E. F. Benson (Illustrated Edition). E. F. Benson
never was there news of that thrilling kind which since the summer had keyed existence up to so exciting a level. But it was interesting to see Major Benjy in his new motor, which he drove himself, and watch his hairbreadth escapes from collisions at sharp corners and to hear the appalling explosions of military language if any other vehicle came within a yard of his green bonnet.
'He seems to think,' said Diva to Mrs Bartlett, as they met on shopping errands one morning, 'that now he has got a motor nobody else may use the road at all.'
'A trumpery little car,' said Mrs Bartlett, 'I should have thought, with ten thousand pounds as good as in his pocket, he might have got himself something better.'
They were standing at the corner looking up towards Mallards, and Diva suddenly caught sight of a board on Major Benjy's house, announcing that it was for sale.
'Why, whatever's that?' she cried. 'That must have been put up only today. Good-morning, Mr Georgie. What about Major Benjy's house?'
Georgie still wore a broad black band on his sleeve.
'Yes, he told me yesterday that he was going to move into Mallards next week,' he said. 'And he's going to have a sale of his furniture almost immediately.'
'That won't be much to write home about,' said Diva scornfully. 'A few moth-eaten tiger-skins which he said he shot in India.'
'I think he wants some money,' said Georgie. 'He's bought a motor, you see, and he has to keep up Mallards as well as his own house.'
'I call that very rash,' said Mrs Bartlett. 'I call that counting your chickens before they're hatched. Oh dear me, what a thing to have said! Dreadful!'
Georgie tactfully covered this up by a change of subject.
'I've made up my mind,' he said, 'and I'm going to put up a cenotaph in the churchyard to dear Lucia and Elizabeth.'
'What? Both?' asked Diva.
'Yes, I've thought it carefully over, and it's going to be both.'
'Major Benjy ought to go halves with you then,' said Diva.
'Well, I told him I was intending to do it,' said Georgie, 'and he didn't catch on. He only said "Capital idea," and took some whisky and soda. So I shan't say any more. I would really just as soon do it all myself.'
'Well, I do think that's mean of him,' said Diva. 'He ought anyhow to bear some part of the expense, considering everything. Instead of which he buys a motor car which he can't drive. Go on about the cenotaph.'
'I saw it down at the stonemason's yard,' said Georgie, 'and that put the idea into my head. Beautiful white marble on the lines, though of course much smaller, of the one in London. It had been ordered, I found, as a tombstone, but then the man who ordered it went bankrupt, and it was on the stonemason's hands.'
'I've heard about it,' said Mrs Bartlett, in rather a superior voice. 'Kenneth told me you'd told him, and we both think that it's a lovely idea.'
'The stonemason ought to let you have it cheap then,' said Diva.
'It wasn't very cheap,' said Georgie, 'but I've bought it, and they'll put it in its place today, just outside the south transept, and the Padre is going to dedicate it. Then there's the inscription. I shall have in loving memory of them, by me, and a bit of the Padre's text at the memorial service. Just "In death they were not divided." '
'Quite right. Don't put in about the eagles and the lions,' said Diva.
'No, I thought I would leave that out. Though I like that part,' said Georgie for the sake of Mrs Bartlett.
'Talking of whisky,' said Diva, flying back, as her manner was, to a remote allusion, 'Major Benjy's finished all the pre-war whisky that Lucia gave him. At least I heard him ordering some more yesterday. Oh, and there's the notice of his sale. Old English furniture — yes, that may mean two things, and I know which of them it is. Valuable works of Art. Well I never! A print of the "Monarch of the Glen" and a photograph of the "Soul's Awakening". Rubbish! Fine tiger-skins! The skins may be all right, but they're bald.'
'My dear, how severe you are,' said Georgie. 'Now I must go and see how they're getting on with the inscription. Au reservoir.'
Diva nodded at Evie Bartlett.
'Nice to hear that again,' she said. 'I've not heard it — well, since.'
The cenotaph with its inscription in bold leaded letters to say that Georgie had erected it in memory of the two undivided ladies, roused much admiration, and a full-page reproduction of it appeared in the Parish Magazine for April, which appeared on the last day of March. The stone-cutter had slightly miscalculated the space at his disposal for the inscription, and the words 'Elizabeth Mapp' were considerably smaller than the words 'Emmeline Lucas' in order to get them into the line. Though Tilling said nothing about that, it was felt that the error was productive of a very suitable effect, if a symbolic meaning was interpreted into it. Georgie was considered to have done it very handsomely and to be behaving in a way that contrasted most favourably with the conduct of Major Benjy, for whereas Georgie was keeping up Grebe at great expense, and restoring, all at his own charge, the havoc the flood had wrought in the garden, Major Benjy, after unsuccessfully trying to let Mallards at ten guineas a week, had moved into the house, and, with a precipitation that was as rash as it was indelicate, was already negotiating about the disposal of his own, and was to have a sale of his furniture on April the first. He had bought a motor, he had replenished the cellars of Mallards with strong wines and more pre-war whisky, he was spending money like water and on the evening of this last day of March he gave a bridge-party in the garden-room.
Georgie and Diva and Mrs Padre were the guests at this party: there had been dinner first, a rich elaborate dinner, and bridge afterwards up till midnight. It had been an uncomfortable evening, and before it was over they all wished they had not come, for Major Benjy had alluded to it as a house-warming, which showed that either his memory was going, or that his was a very callous nature, for no one whose perceptions were not of the commonest could possibly have used that word so soon. He had spoken of his benefactress with fulsome warmth, but it was painfully evident from what source this posthumous affection sprang. He thought of having the garden-room redecorated, the house wanted brightening up a bit, he even offered each of them one of Miss Mapp's watercolour sketches, of which was a profusion on the walls, as a memento of their friend, God bless her . . . There he was straddling in the doorway with the air of a vulgar nouveau riche owner of an ancestral property, as they went their ways homeward into the night, and they heard him bolt and lock the door and put up the chain which Lucia in her tenancy had had repaired in order to keep out the uninvited and informal visits of Miss Mapp. 'It would serve him jolly well right,' thought Georgie, 'if she came back.'
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