An Act in a Backwater - E. F. Benson

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different stamp of house, sir, quite a different stamp of house.”

      “And a different stamp of rent?” asked Arthur.

      “The gentleman is very anxious to get desirable tenants,” was the hopeful reply.

      “Come, Jeannie,” said Arthur, “it will end in our taking Buckingham Palace, but no matter!”

      The house in question was not exactly Buckingham Palace, but within a few days they had taken it. Miss Fortescue drove in to see it, after bargaining that the horses should not be used again the whole of the next day, and made up her mind to stay at any rate with Jeannie and Arthur for a week or two. As she also indicated which room she would like, and chose a paper for it, it may be supposed that her “week or two” did not mean less than a week or two. The rent was not prohibitive, the garden was charming, and the house stood in a side street where traffic was scanty, and looked out behind over the Cathedral, and Canons, as Jeannie said, really hung on their garden wall like ripe plums.

      A day or two later rumours began to spread through Wroxton that the Aveshams were coming to live there, and discussion raged. The Colonel knew they were not.

      “I should think, sir, if my cousins were coming, I should not be the last to be informed of it. Just gossip, sir, mere gossip—I wonder at you for paying any attention to it.”

      He scarcely even believed the assurance of the owner of 8 Bolton Street that he had actually let it to them, for as soon as Mr. Hanby had left the room he burst out:

      “A mere ruse, sir, to send up the value of the house, by making people think that the aristocracy want to take it. Transparent, transparent!”

      But he did not feel quite easy about it in the depths of his gallant heart, and he thought again how awkward it would be if it were true.

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      A fortnight later Jeannie, Miss Fortescue, and Arthur were all staying at the Black Eagle Hotel, employed in settling in. Morton had been let, but let unfurnished, and in order to avoid the expense of storing, it was laid upon them that they should cram as much furniture into 8 Bolton Street as it would possibly hold. Thus from morning to night the greater part of the street was congested with Pantechnicon vans, and Jeannie and Arthur might be seen many hours a day measuring wardrobes, and finding for the most part that they would not go into any of the rooms. Miss Fortescue sat in a large chair in the middle of the street and made scathing comments on the appearance and behaviour of the others.

      “I little thought,” said this magisterial lady one day, “that the time would come when I should see my nephew in his shirt-sleeves wrestling with towel-horses in the Queen’s highway.”

      “No, dear Aunt,” said Arthur, “and if you will look round you will see a distressed bicyclist who wants to pass. You must move.”

      Miss Clifford, in fact, was approaching. She did not ride with any overpowering command over her machine, and from the desire to avoid Miss Fortescue was making a beeline for her. A collision was just avoided by Miss Fortescue’s extreme agility in removing herself and her chair.

      A wardrobe was just blocking the front door, and Arthur threw himself down in another unoccupied chair for a moment’s rest. Jeannie’s voice sounded in passionate appeal from inside the hall, but till the wardrobe had been passed it was impossible to go to her aid.

      “Oh, it is hot!” he said. “Why on earth did we move in this broiling weather? Aunt Em, dear, I’m going to send for some beer from that wine-merchant’s opposite, and if you don’t like to see me drink it in the Queen’s highway you must look in the other direction.”

      “The Aveshams have no sense of dignity,” said Miss Fortescue, sweepingly.

      “No, but it doesn’t matter; they’ll think that I’m not me, but the footman.”

      “You’re much too badly dressed for any footman,” said Aunt Em.

      “Well, they’ll think you are the cook and I’m your young man,” said Arthur.

      Arthur sent one of the Pantechnicon men to get some beer, and while he was gone:

      “They told me there was so little traffic here,” he said, “and the street is crowded with vans. Oh, there’s that man again! He has passed and repassed a dozen times this morning, besides standing at the corner for ever so long. Is he a friend of yours, Aunt Em?”

      The man in question was Colonel Raymond, no less, strutting and swelling down the other side of the street, and bursting with uneasy curiosity. He had, as Arthur said, passed and repassed a dozen times, longing to speak to one of them, and manage to introduce himself in some way. Once he had given a hand to one of the van-men with a bookcase, but as ill-luck would have it, all three of the house-party, as he called it, were inside at the moment, and when the danger of the bookcase falling on a washing-stand was over there was no excuse for lingering. On another occasion he had waited a full two minutes while the foot-path was congested, and on it being made possible for him to pass, he had raised his hat with a gallant flourish to Jeannie, who stood at the door. But she had appeared quite unconscious of his salute, and the Colonel was working himself into a fever of impatience. It was one thing to be able to say at the club that he had spent his morning in Bolton Street, where his cousins had taken Number 8, but it was another to have them definitely established in Wroxton, not knowing him from Adam. The trying climate of India was nothing compared to the sultriness which loomed over his prospects.

      The amiable and kindly interest in the minutest dealings of others, which is known as curiosity, was not wanting in the town of Wroxton. Miss Clifford had hardly passed on her bicycle when she realized that it was idle to struggle with so overmastering an emotion, and dismounted at the end of the street, for she was no adept at turning round, and rode straight back again. She would have done so if only to get another look at the furniture which was being unloaded, though, as they had got on to a bed-room layer of it, it might not have seemed engrossing to the ordinary mind; but this was not all. She would get another look at the lady who sat in the middle of the road, and at the young man in his shirt-sleeves. She might even, if lucky, catch a glimpse of Miss Avesham herself, whom she had not yet seen.

      So she rode slowly back, and when about thirty yards distant saw Arthur drinking out of a pewter mug. The disappointment was intense, for he might even have been Lord Avesham himself, come to help his brother and sister in the settling in. But this beer-drinking in public made it impossible. It could only be the foreman of the Pantechnicon, or perhaps—this would be better than nothing—the footman or a valet of peers. But as she passed she distinctly heard him say, “Do have some beer, Aunt Em.”

      Miss Clifford rode on towards the High Street, away from the direction of her home, lost and stupefied in a whirl of conjecture and perplexity. If he was the footman, what was his Aunt Em doing there, unless—and this was just possible—his Aunt Em was the cook? If, on the other hand, he was the foreman, the presence of his aunt was still more difficult, for that foremen of furniture companies should bring their aunts with them to superintend seemed a proposition which might almost be negatived offhand. Could it be—No, it was not possible, and Miss Clifford, by this time having reached the High Street, dismounted again and determined to go home without more delay. The shortest way home lay down Bolton Street—at least to go down Bolton Street was so little longer that the excellence of the road quite made up for it—and a minute afterward she was again opposite the house. No very great change had taken place since she saw it last. The possible footman was still standing in the doorway with the pewter pot in his hand, and his Aunt Em was sitting on a low black oak chest, which suggested to Miss Clifford’s romantic mind all sorts of secret drawers and unsuspected wills, confessions of crime, and proofs of innocence. As a matter of fact, it contained Jeannie’s boot-trees and a knife-board, but Miss Clifford did not know this. But her perseverance had its reward. Even as she passed, a voice of lamentation

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