E. F. Benson - PAYING GUESTS

She was quite alone in the world without near relations or any intimate friend, and, with the little place in Kent let to her tenants, she lived at Wentworth for the greater part of the year, spent a month at a similar boarding house at Torquay which she called her Christmas holidays, and had another holiday in a third boarding-house in South Kensington for a fortnight of the London season. From there she came back to Wentworth quite worn out with gaiety; everyone had been so kind and pleased to see her, and how her cousins had scolded her for insisting on going back to Bolton after so short a visit. But she was much happier at Wentworth than anywhere else, for she had come to be, not only in her own eyes, but in Mrs. Oxney's and those of the other guests a sort of incarnation of all the Muses. She painted, she sang and played, she danced to the strains of the gramophone with any sound pair of legs among the guests, or, if there happened to be none, she was quite willing to execute a pas seul in the lounge after dinner, which Mrs. Oxney, who always said the agreeable thing, considered equal to the best Russian dancing. And then there was her lawn-tennis, though she shook her head at the suggestion that she should enter at Wimbledon next year, for that would mean giving up so much of her sketching and her music. And then there was her croquet and her golf . . .

She sat down at the piano after removing her hat (shaped like an inverted waste-paper basket and trimmed with three sorts of grapes, pink, blue and orange) and deftly encouraged her pale brown hair to drop in rebellious disorder over her forehead and nearly conceal the ear that was like a pink shell. She ran her hands over the keys: someone had told her--or had she invented it for herself?--that she had a 'butterfly touch,' and when the butterflies alighted on one or two flowers where the careless things were trespassing, Miss Howard said 'Naughty'! to them, and made them do it again. She was supposed to have an amazing power of improvisation, and these industrious little practices with the soft pedal down, while everyone was resting upstairs, certainly developed her gift. There were some fragments from Chopin which were landmarks for the improvisation when it seemed to be wandering and put it back on the road again. Miss Howard could scarcely tell sometimes whether certain bits belonged to her own butterflies or Chopin's, and if she couldn't tell she felt sure that nobody else at Wentworth could. Presently the gong in the lounge announced that lunch was ready (Miss Howard would have winced at that brazen booming if anyone had been present) but she took no notice of the summons, for she knew that Mrs. Oxney would probably come tiptoeing in, and find her quite lost in her music, sitting there with dreamy eyes fixed on the ceiling, and a smile hovering--just that--on her mouth.

It all happened just as she anticipated: out of the corner of a dreamy eye she saw Mrs. Oxney enter, and sit down with a long elaborate creak beside the door, but she did not officially see her until she stumbled over a chromatic run. She gave a little start and an exclamation of surprise.

"Oh, Mrs. Oxney," she said, "how did you steal in without my noticing? And how wicked of you to creep into the corner and listen to my bunglings! Fingers so naughty and stiff this morning. I could slap the tiresome things for being so stupid. Is it nearly lunch-time? Have you come in to tell me to run upstairs and brush my hair and wash my hands? Must I?"

"Certainly you needn't, for you've given me such a treat," said Mrs. Oxney. "I could listen to you playing for ever, Miss Howard. Tiddle-iddle-iddle-iddle-iddle! I call it wonderful without a note to guide you. I wish my fingers were as naughty as that. As for its being lunch-time, why, the gong rang five minutes ago, but I couldn't punish myself by interrupting you."

Miss Howard was perfectly aware that Mrs. Oxney was a musical imbecile, but in spite of that her appreciation gave her strong satisfaction. She was also aware that the gong had sounded five minutes ago, and so she gave another little exclamation of surprise at the astonishing news.

"Fancy!" she said. "But when I get to the piano I become so stupid and absent-minded. I came in so hungry half an hour ago, hoping it was lunch-time and I declare I've no feeling of hunger left now. Music feeds me, I think: even my feeble little strummings are meat and drink to me. Yes: little bits of Chopin. How lovely to have known Chopin! I wish I had known Chopin."

"Well, why didn't you ever ask your mamma to get him to come down to your place in Kent?" asked Mrs. Oxney. "He'd have liked to hear you play, I'll be bound."

Miss Howard gave her silvery little laugh.

"Dear thing!" she said. "Chopin was a friend of great-grandmamma--let's see, which was it?--yes, great-grandmamma Stanley. She went to see him at Majorca or Minorca."

"I have made a mistake then," said Mrs. Oxney, "but you're so good-natured, Miss Howard. And I've come to trespass on your good nature, too."

"You shan't be prosecuted," said Miss Howard gaily. "Trespass away."

"Well, it's this then," said Mrs. Oxney. "There's to be an entertainment at the Assembly Rooms next week, and the Committee deputed me to ask you if you wouldn't play at it. Such a treat it would be, and I'm sure everybody in Bolton would flock to hear you. It's for a good object too, the Children's Hospital in the town."

"How you all work me!" said Miss Howard, immensely pleased at being asked and beginning to fix on the waste-paper basket. "It's sheer bullying, for you know I couldn't refuse to do anything for the dear mites. How I shall have to practice if I'm to be made to play in public!"

"So much the better for Wentworth," said Mrs. Oxney. "Then I may tell them that you will? I do call that kind. And what bits will you play? They'd like it best, I'll be bound, if you played one of your own beautiful improvisations. That would be a thing people couldn't hear at an ordinary concert, 'Improvisations by Miss Howard'! And then that wouldn't call for any practice at all."

"Dear thing," said Miss Howard again. "If you only knew how it takes it out of me. Such dreaming and yet such concentration. But you shall have your way."

Meals were served with military punctuality at Wentworth and the pianist and her impresario were very late to Colonel Chase's high indignation, for if people were late, the service was delayed, and the punctual suffered for the inconsiderateness of the laggard. At breakfast, which, from habits formed in India he called Chota-hazri, unpunctuality did not matter, but tiffin (lunch) was another affair. He was also soured this morning by the fact that the giddy pedometer on his bicycle had got out of order. He had felt super-normally energetic when he went out for his ride and had pedalled away in the most splendid form for nearly three hours, feeling certain that he was breaking his previous record of thirty-five miles and anticipating many congratulations on this athletic feat, which would give so much pleasure to others as well as himself. . . . But, when, on arrival at Wentworth, he had got off his bicycle with rather trembling knees and completely out of breath, to feast his eyes on the disc which would surely register thirty-six miles at least, he found its idiotic hand pointing to the ridiculous figure of nine miles and a quarter. It was most aggravating; he would have to take the wretched instrument to be repaired this afternoon, instead of resting after lunch, and very likely it would not be ready by tomorrow morning so that once more he would not know how far he had been. That would play the deuce with his aggregate for the month which he sedulously entered in a notebook. At one end of it was the record of the miles he had bicycled, and upside down at the other the miles he had walked, and now it would appear that he had only bicycled nine and a quarter miles on October 17th, and perhaps none at all on October 18th.