An Autumn Sowing

by E. F. Benson

‘You’ll find him in bed when you get home,’ he said.

‘Oh, thank you so much. I am so grateful.’

‘You needn’t be. I told him he wanted to make me pay a big doctor’s bill for him instead of his paying a little one. He deserved that for being so idiotic as to come out. Read the letter, please, which we stopped in the middle of.’

All day the work went forward as usual: there was a heavy budget to answer, and it was not till nearly six that Norah had her letters ready for his signature. He made no payment to her for such over-time work, for the balance was more often on the other side, and she got away before her time. As he passed her back the last of the batch, he said,—

‘You are coming to the library this evening, are you not?’

‘I had meant to, if it is convenient to you.’

‘Perfectly. Perhaps you would leave a line on the table to say how your brother is. I don’t suppose I shall see you to-night.’

Mrs Keeling’s party that night, which sat down very punctually at half-past seven, and would disperse at half-past ten, was of the only-a-few-friends nature. Julia Fyson, Alice’s bosom friend, whom she had begun to dislike very cordially, was there, with her father and mother, the former, small and depressed, the latter, large and full-blooded and of a thoroughly poisonous nature. The four Keelings were there, and the extremely ladylike young woman whom Hugh had lately led to the altar. She was a shade too lady-like, if anything, and never forgot to separate her little finger from the others when she was holding a cup or glass. They were ten in all, Mr Silverdale and Dr Inglis completing the number. As was usual at the table of that generous housekeeper Mrs Keeling, there were vast quantities of nitrogenous food provided in many courses, and it was not till nine that the dining-room door was opened, on the run, by Mr Silverdale to let the ladies leave the room. He made a suitable remark to each as she passed him, and Julia Fyson and Alice, with waists and arms interlaced, stopped to talk to him as they went out. Precisely at that moment, while they were all in the Gothic hall together, the boy covered with buttons opened the front door and admitted Norah Propert. The door into the dining-room was still being held wide by Silverdale, as the interlaced young ladies answered his humorous laments over the setting of the sun now that the ladies were leaving, and through it Keeling standing at the head of the table saw Norah there. She had had but one moment for thought as the front-door was opened to her, but the light from the hall streamed full on to the step and she judged it better to come in than, having been already seen, retreat again. Without looking up she walked across to the library door while still Mrs Fyson stared, and let herself in. She heard the dining-room door opposite close again while she fumbled for the switch of the electric light; she heard indistinguishable murmurs from the hall. Only one caught her ear intelligibly when Mrs Keeling said, ‘Oh, Mr Keeling’s typewriter. She is cataloguing his books.’

It had begun to snow thickly outside, and she stood for a minute or two before the fire, shaking from her cloak the frozen petals, which fizzed on the coals. Certainly she had felt a disconcertment at the moment of her entry and passage through the hall, had found fault with the ill luck that had caused her to meet the gorged galaxy from the dining-room on the one and only night when her brother had not been with her. But the encounter did not long trouble her, and like warmth coming over frozen limbs, the fact of being here alone gave her a thrill of pleasure that surprised her. She was in his secret garden all by herself, without Charles to intrude his presence, without even Keeling himself. She did not want him here now; she was surrounded with him, and presently she plunged like some ecstatic diver into the work she had come to do for him. Soon the buzz of men’s conversation drifted past the door, prominent among which was Silverdale’s expressive and high-pitched voice, and without intention she found herself listening for Keeling’s. Then the murmur was cut off by the sound of a shutting door, and she went on with her work on the catalogue cards. Faint tinkles of a piano were heard as Alice performed several little pieces, faint screams as Julia Fyson sang. Keeling was there, no doubt, and still she did not want him in his bodily presence. He was more completely with her in this room empty but for herself.

She had settled in her own mind to get away before the party broke up, but she grew absorbed in her work, and it came with something of a surprise and shock to her when again she heard the gabble of mixed voices outside, saying what a pleasant evening they had had, and realized that she must wait till those compliments were finished. She had not yet written the note which Keeling had asked her to leave on the table, regarding her brother’s health, and this she did now as she waited, giving a promising account of him. Soon the front-door closed for the last time, leaving silence in the hall, and she heard a well-known foot cross it in the direction of the drawing-room, pause and then come back. Keeling entered.