The Simple Life

Fiction ~ short story
First published in The World and His Wife, July 1905
Collected in Fine Feathers and Other Stories, 1994
Approx. 1,800 words
(First read 26/12/1994)

The whole story can be summed up by the first sentence:

The Duchess of Shrewsbury was sitting in a small, wooden sort of shelter on the lawn of what she called her cottage near Goring (which, however, has battlements and a tower), without any shoes and stockings on, because she was leading the simple life.

Castle Goring, Sussex

Whether you read it as a typically Bensonian fleck of light-hearted satire on the self-delusions of the rich, or a savage attack on the sheer extravagance and bone-bloody-idleness of the Edwardian élite*, is up to you.  I'll merely say that though Fred's stories do occasionally suffer from near- or total plotlessness, he does usually manage to work in a climax of sorts.  Here he doesn't: at the end of The Simple Life birds scour about the garden looking for worms.  Symbolism? ~ nah, not likely.  For those who like their reading untaxing and fun.

* The latter is pretty unlikely.

Mr Carew's Game of Croquet

Fiction ~ short story
Published 5th March 1924
Approx. 2,400 words
(First read 25/12/1994)

Mr Jocelyn Carew is a bit of a rara avis in EFB's output: a social-climbing man, kind of a cross between Lucia Lucas and Georgie Pillson.  Benson neatly sums him up in one sentence (and in a joke which I'm pretty sure he used more than once):

It had been said of him that his age varied in inverse proportion to the number of countesses present.

Brilliant.  Anyway, Mr C arrives in 'the country' (in fact only Richmond ... or somewhere like that) for a house party while the rest of the mob are out at Henley, having been asked to entertain the Duchess of Whitby, who he's never met, until their return.  Wandering about the garden he comes upon an elderly lady he takes to be the said Duchess: "In addition to being a duchess, she had everything a duchess ought to have ~ height, distinction, charm of manner, and above all, this delightful friendliness."  The two embark on a lengthy and rather hot game of croquet, which is briefly interrupted by 'a rather shabby-looking little lady.  Mr Carew quickly settled that she did not matter.'  I don't need to say any more, do I?  The story is available in Fine Feathers and Other Stories (1994) and is a hoot. 

If (comme on dit) you enjoyed this story, you're sure to like The Sister of the Baroness (1910) by Katherine Mansfield.

Music

Fiction ~ short story
First published in The Windsor Magazine, December 1924
Collected in Desirable Residences and Other Stories (1991)
Approx. 3,100 words
(First read 19/05/1992) 

Music is, to use a favourite word of E. F. Benson characters, delicious: charming light satire from front to back and side to side.  Just listen to our introduction to this canny, cunning, ruthless social climber:

When Elizabeth Nutter¹ came to London with a view to perching herself on the very topmost bough of the pleasant tree of Society which grows by the Thames, she possessed the usual equipment of such amiable invaders.  She had an amusing face, gowns from Paris, pearls from the Orient, an iron, inflexible will, any amount of money, a variety of complexion to suit all lights, and no husband.

I'd love to quote the whole thing but this will have to do ... oh no, go on, Ewie, let's have a bit more.  Here's E.N. on the possibilities of picking up a new husband in London (she's already disposed of one such back in the 'Argentine Republic'):

[...] it would be well to make herself at home in London before she chose this permanent addition to her life's appurtenances, otherwise he might not suit her social colour scheme, which at present was undetermined, and it was well to see what sort of possible husbands were stocked just now in London before she selected one.

Anyway, she launches herself into the fray and is moderately successful, but soon realizes she's climbing horizontally rather than vertically: she wants to reach the pinnacle rather than content herself with collecting dull Cabinet politicians and uninspiring aristocrats ("For being a duchess," thought the astute Elizabeth, "doesn't prevent your being a dowdy.")  What she needs is a stunt.  It's a bit of a risk but, despite her innate dislike of music, she

The Divine Novello, without piano

decides to 'adopt' a young ~ and blond, and handsome ~ pianist who's a countryman of hers².  This chap, known professionally as Smirkowski³, has just one drawback: he can't play a note.  Still, thinks Our Liz, that won't matter, she can pass his style off as 'modern' and Society won't know any better.  And lo! ... well, you can probably guess the rest.
When, as here, Benson is at his very best, his comic stories are twenty times more amusing than his ghost stories are spooky or his dramas are dramatic.
Not one single word of Music goes to waste: it's perfect.

(Daft, obviously ... but perfectly daft.)

 

¹ A couple of hundred years ago I had a great-great-great-great-aunt who was née Elizabeth Nutter.  Not relevant ~ just thought I'd mention it.
² E.N. and her protégé are obviously ex-members of the English 'beef barony' of Argentina: there's nothing remotely Hispanic about them.
³ Stokowski was Big Stuff in 1924.

 

The Peerage Cure

Fiction ~ short story
Published in The Windsor Magazine, July 1926
Collected in Desirable Residences and Other Stories, 1991
Approx. 2,900 words
(First read 01/05/1992) 

Another story starring that most blatant of social climbers, Mrs Amy Bondham.  Mrs B is having a break from her 'literary, artistic and histrionic friends' (see Entomology and others) and is concentrating on blue-bloods.  Through sheer persistence she's finally managed to bag herself an invitation to the Duchess of Whitby's 'magnificent Norman pile'.  Unfortunately she overdoes it on the ice-skating rink at Doncaster Castle, but is quite happy to come home and develop pleurisy followed by pleuro-pneumonia: it was worth it.  Her devoted (and really rather nice) husband ~ 'Christophero mio': ring any bells? ~ tries to bring her back from the delirium in which her mind wanders constantly over her recent triumph, until finally he hits on the ideal thing: he reads to her out of Burke's Peerage.  That's it: it doesn't sound like much because it isn't much ~ but it's great fun, as are all the Amy Bondham stories.