The Osbornes

by E. F. Benson

He had come in to see her before going down to the smoking room again, where the best cigars in England were, so to speak, on tap, and where Per and Sir Thomas, between the cigars, a little brandy and soda, and the recollections of their prowess among the pheasants during the day, always sat up late. In Mr. Osborne’s house it was one of the rules of honour that the host should express a wish to sit up later than any of his guests, or wait at any rate till they all had yawned before proposing retirement, and Claude, after this cheerful remark about Mrs. Price, turned to leave the room again. Dora knew what was expected of him and suddenly rebelled.

“Surely you can leave them to drink and smoke and turn out the lights,” she said. “Do stop and talk to me. I have sent Hendon away, and who is to brush my hair? Besides, I want to talk. I’ve got better right to talk to you than Sir Thomas has. Oh, Claude, teach me: you are yourself all the time, and yet you can say things to Mrs. Price, which, if it wasn’t you——”

Dora broke off. He had unpinned the tiara, which was one of his father’s many wedding gifts to her, and which she wore, knowing it was a ludicrous thing to do in the country, because it pleased him, and next moment her hair, unpinned also by a movement or two of his deft fingers, fell in cataracts round her face.

“I don’t see the trouble,” he said. “Lady Ewart isn’t your sort, darling, but it’s you who are so clever. It’s you who manage so well, not me. Why, she said only to-day that she was quite jealous of you, for Sir Thomas thought such a lot of you, though of course that was only her chaff. And they say he’ll be in the running for a peerage at the next birthday honours.”

For the moment Dora was silent; simply she could not speak. She saw in the looking glass in front of her, looking over his shoulder, that face which to her was the most beautiful thing in the world, and simultaneously she heard what that beautiful mouth said. For that instant her mind was divided: it could not choose between beauty and the hopelessness of what was said. As if anybody cared who was made a peer, or as if a peerage conferred not only nobility but a single ounce of breeding! As if a problematic Lord Ewart could be for that reason even a shade more tolerable than a Sir Thomas of the same name! What could it matter, except to guards and railway porters who might count on a rather larger tip? And then the greater potency of her lover’s face absorbed her, and she lifted up her hands and drew it down to her. “Ah, well, what does it all matter?” she said, “so long as there’s you and me? But go down, dear, if you think you had better, and be sure to yawn a great deal, so that they won’t sit up very late.”

But after he had gone she wondered whether she guessed the reason why Claude made himself appropriate so easily to Lady Ewart and Mrs. Price. Was it simply because he found no difficulty in doing so? Was not his cleverness, his tact, shown rather in the fact that he could talk to Mimi appropriately? And it was at that moment, as she remembered now, that a certain trouble, vague and distant as yet, and couched in the innermost recesses and darkness of her mind, began to stir. She scarcely then knew what it was: she knew only that there was veiled trouble somewhere.

After this week of the shooting party, she and Claude had returned to town, still occupying the flat in Mount Street, where they remained till Christmas, with week-ends in the country. Most of these had been passed at the houses of Dora’s friends, and it could not but please and gratify her to find how Claude was welcomed and liked, so that, if at Grote there had been trouble astir, it was still again. He did all the usual things better than the average: he shot well, he played golf excellently, he was a quiet and reliable partner at bridge, he talked pleasantly, always got up when a woman entered the room, and always opened the door for her to leave it. Such accomplishments did not, it is true, reach down very far below the surface, but a young man, if he happens to be quite exceptionally good-looking and has such things at his fingers’ ends, will generally be a welcome guest. Dora had never actually wanted comforting with regard to him, but it pleased her to see that he took his place easily and naturally. For the rest, he was busy enough, for in view of the next general election he was nursing a suburban constituency, which promised well. He spoke with fluency and good sense, he was making an excellent impression in public, and he earned a considerable personal popularity in the domestic circles of his voters. And in this connection Dora had another uncomfortable moment.

As was frankly admitted between them, she could help him a good deal here, and she often went down with him and made innumerable calls at West Brentworth on miles of detached and semi-detached villas. It was an advantage beyond doubt, in this sort of place, that Claude had married a girl of “title,” and Lady Dora Osborne, or, as she was more generally addressed, Lady Osborne, charmed a large section of constituents not only because she was delightful, but because her brother was the Earl and her mother the Countess. There was no use in denying or failing to make the most of this adventitious advantage, and Dora made the most of it by being completely natural, and entering with zest into the questions of board-wages and the iniquities of tweenies. She could do that with knowledge and experience to back her, since such minutiæ had formed a very real part of her life up to the time of her marriage, and her mother was an adept in getting the most out of those who were so fortunate as to be the recipients of the somewhat exiguous wages. She could speak about beer money and the use of coals when the household was on board-wages with point and accuracy, and it charmed West Brentworth to find that Lady Osborne was not “too high” to take interest in such matters. At other houses, however, there reigned a more aristocratic tone: there would be a peerage and a copy of the World on the table, and a marked unconsciousness of the existence of anybody who was not a baronet. There the parties for Newmarket were discussed, and Mrs. Sandford, pouring out tea, and “tempting” Lady Osborne to a second cup, would say that the whole world seemed to have been in town lately, and was Lady Osborne dining at the Carlton two nights ago when so many distinguished people were there?

Upon which would ensue a very enlightened conversation. Mrs. Sandford knew quite well that the Earl of Wendover was Dora’s first cousin, and the Viscount Bramley her second cousin (for that came out of the peerage) and what a beautiful terrace there was at Bramley (for that came out of Country Life).

Then—and this was the uncomfortable moment—she and Claude got into their motor, having made the last call, and started for town. Claude said, “What a superior woman Mrs. Sandford seems to be.”