An Act in a Backwater

by E. F. Benson

It was the habit of Mrs. Raymond to retire early, and on the entry of the tray with whisky and soda at ten o’clock she usually went to bed, leaving her husband to console himself for her absence by a drink of that invigorating mixture, another cigar, and his own thoughts. These latter were as straightforward as himself, and he usually ran over in his mind his gains and losses at whist, and, twirling his mustache, lived over again the moments in which he had assumed an interesting appearance. It must be understood that we are following the Colonel into the innermost sanctum of his being, and are recording what he scarcely recorded consciously himself. Probably he did not know how much he was absorbed in these two subjects, but the truth of the matter is he thought about little else except them and the aristocracy. To-night, however, the aristocracy held a dominating place in his reflections, and the quality of his meditations was not agreeable. That in-a-propos remark of his wife, in fact, returned again and again to his mind, and he could not help thinking that if Arthur Avesham came to live in Wroxton his habitual conversation about his noble relative, Arthur’s father, would have to be curtailed or, still worse, corrected.

CHAPTER II

In spite of the Colonel’s settled belief to the contrary, it was perfectly true that, only a few months before his noble relative’s death, Lord Avesham had bought for Arthur, his second and youngest son, a share in Dalton’s brewery in Wroxton, and he was to enter it the following September. Arthur had only just left Oxford, where he had shown an almost remarkable distaste for study and indoor pursuits, and a notable tendency not to get through examinations, and he had welcomed the brewing prospect with alacrity. The diplomatic service, for which he had been intended, had been closed to him through a couple of complete and graceful failures to compete successfully with other candidates, and he had dreaded that the gradual closing of other careers would eventually land him, as it had landed so many others at that terrific faute de mieux, the bar. But he was a very long way from being stupid, or, rather, his stupidity was of most limited range—of the range, in fact, which only comprises dates, idioms, and fractions, a small part of life. But when this is joined to an incapacity for continued application amounting almost to paralysis, parents and guardians would be wise to reconcile themselves to the fact that those they love will never distinguish themselves in examinations. As long, however, as that immemorial fiction is held up before the young that the object of education is to enable them to rise triumphant over examinations, so long dateless and unidiomatic children will continue to feel that they are disappointing their parents.

Arthur had felt this at times acutely, but he had accepted the inevitable with such success that Lord Avesham had written him down indifferent as well as stupid, and what was in him only great sweetness of disposition was credited as insouciance. This, too, he bore with equanimity.

Harry, his elder brother, his sister Jeannie, and himself had come down to Morton with their mother’s sister, Miss Fortescue, for the funeral of Lord Avesham, and were going to stop there for the present. Family councils had to be held about the disposition of affairs, and one was in progress on a morning in July about a fortnight after Lord Avesham’s death. They were certainly a remarkably handsome family, and it was to be conjectured that their good looks were a heritage—perhaps the most valuable he had bequeathed them—from their father, for the most that could be said about Miss Fortescue was that she had a very intellectual expression. Harry was sitting at a desk with some papers before him, and Miss Fortescue was sitting opposite him. Jeannie lounged in the window-seat, and Arthur was resting in a chair so long and low that all that could be seen of him was one knee and a great length of shin. The position of his head was vaguely indicated by a series of smoke-rings which floated upward at regular intervals. There had been silence for a few moments. Miss Fortescue’s baritone voice broke it.

“Well, what does the black sheep say?” she demanded.

There was a pause in the smoke-rings, and a voice asked:

“Do you mean me, Aunt Em?”

“Yes, dear. Whom else?”

“I thought you must mean me, but it was best to ask,” said the voice. “I’m not a black sheep, though; I’m only a sheep.”