An Autumn Sowing

by E. F. Benson

Keeling had that faculty, which had stood him in such good stead all his life, of being able to make up his mind quickly when all the data were put before him. He did not hesitate now, and ten minutes after, when the details of the ownership and present lease were in his possession, he had authorised his agent to purchase for him.

‘I gather that the owner wishes the transaction to be private,’ he said. ‘And I wish the same.’

‘Certainly. I think you have made a wise purchase, sir,’ said Simpson. ‘I am told that the landlord is ex-officio a member of the Club. Good-morning, sir. I will have the deed made out with your lawyer without delay.’

Keeling nodded. The last speech had given him something to think about.

CHAPTER VI

Mrs Keeling had much enjoyed the sense of added pomp and dignity which her husband’s mayoralty gave her. She liked seeing placards in the streets that a concert in aid of some charity was given under the patronage of the Lady Mayoress, and would rustle into the arm-chair reserved for her in the middle of the front-row with the feeling that she had got this concert up, and was responsible not only for the assistance it gave to the charity in question, but for the excellence of the performance. She assumed a grander and more condescending air at her parties, and distinctly began to unbend to the inhabitants of Alfred Road instead of associating with them as equals. She knew her position as Lady Mayoress; it almost seemed to her that it was she who had raised her husband to the civic dignity, and when one morning she found among her letters an invitation from Lady Inverbroom for herself and him to dine and sleep one day early in December, at their place a few miles outside Bracebridge, she was easily able to see through the insincerity of Lady Inverbroom’s adding that it would give her husband such pleasure to show Mr Keeling his library. It was an amiable insincerity, but Emmeline was secretly sure that the Lady Mayoress was the desired guest. She tried without success to control the trembling of her voice when she telephoned to Keeling—who had just left for the Stores (those vulgar stores)—the gratifying request. He was quite pleased to accept it, but she could detect no trembling in his voice. But men controlled their feelings better than women....

She took the parlour-maid as her maid, though her husband altogether refused to pass off the boy covered with buttons as his valet, and enjoyed a moment’s supreme triumph when she was able to reply to Lady Inverbroom, who hoped, when she showed her her room that she would ask the house-maid for anything she required, that she had brought her own maid. Then Lady Inverbroom (to hide her natural confusion) had poked the fire for her and pointed out the position of the bathroom, which communicated with her bedroom. Certainly that was most convenient, and dinner would be at half-past eight.

Mrs Keeling felt a little strange: the magnificence of this great house rather overawed her, and she had to remind herself several times, as she dressed, that she was Lady Mayoress. There were quantities of tall liveried footmen standing about when she went down, but she remembered to put her nose in the air to about the angle at which Lady Inverbroom’s nose was naturally levelled, and walked by them with an unseeing eye, as if they were pieces of familiar furniture. She had soup on a silver plate, and was quite successful in avoiding what she would have called ‘a scroopy noise’ made with her spoon as she fed herself off that unusual material. Then when Lord Inverbroom alluded casually to the great Reynolds over the chimney piece, she flattered herself that she made a very apposite remark when, after duly admiring it, she said, ‘And who is the heir to all this beautiful property?’ for she was well aware that her hosts were childless. There were no guests in the house, except themselves, and though it would have been nice to let slip the names of illustrious people when alluding to this visit afterwards in Bracebridge, she felt glad at the time that there was no one else, for she was on the verge of feeling shy, which would never have done for a Lady Mayoress.

A few small incidents during dinner rather surprised her; once Lady Inverbroom, in helping herself to some hot sauce let a drop of it fall on the fingers of the footman who handed it to her. Instantly she turned round in her chair and said in a voice of real concern (just as if the man had not been a piece of furniture), ‘I beg your pardon; I hope I didn’t burn you!’ After dinner again, when cigarettes came round, she was rather astonished at being offered one, and holding her head very high, turned abruptly away. No doubt it was a mistake, but there would have been words at the Cedars next morning, if the parlour-maid had offered a cigarette to any lady. Indeed she was rather astonished that Lord Inverbroom lit his without first asking her if she minded the perfume.

But what surprised her even more than her hostess’s politeness to a footman, or the handing of a cigarette to herself, was her husband’s obvious unconcern with the magnificence of his surroundings. He seemed perfectly at his ease, and though there was nothing in his manner which suggested a sort of haughty polish which she felt was suitable in these exalted places, he behaved as simply as if he was at home. In fact his simplicity almost made his wife blush once, when, on the occasion of a large puff of smoke coming down the chimney he said to Lord Inverbroom, ‘I can show you a new cowl which will quite stop that.’ But Lord Inverbroom did not seem the least uncomfortable at this sudden peeping out of the mercantile cloven hoof, and merely replied that a cowl that would prevent that chimney from smoking would be worth its weight in gold. That was very tactful, and Mrs Keeling was vexed that her husband would not leave the subject: instead he laughed and said that the cowl in question did not cost much more than its weight in iron. Then luckily the talk drifted away on to books, and though Mrs Keeling knew that by all the rules of polite behaviour her husband should have been engaging his hostess in light conversation while she talked to her host, Keeling and Lord Inverbroom quite lost themselves in discussing some Italian book with pictures that had lately appeared. Lord Inverbroom said he could not afford it, which must be a joke....