Buntingford Jugs

Fiction ~ short story
Published December 1925
Approx. 5,000 words
(First read 27/12/1994) 

Mrs Aylwin is a Benson Type No. 7:

... comely; she could also have been called buxom.  Her age might have been forty-five, but it was fifty, and she found fifty a very pleasant age to be.  She had been a widow for ten years, and these ten years had been the busiest and far the happiest of her life.

Her pleasure is to collect antiques and bric-a-brac, anything from Aubusson carpets to 'ornaments made of shells'.   The sole teeny-weeny fly in this rich, creamy ointment is her friend and fellow aficionado Mr Anthony Coleham who will insist on proposing marriage.  Did I say 'teeny-weeny'?  In fact:

He was a large man, pleasantly furnished with flesh, and filled a chair beautifully.

In an effort to win over his reluctant inamorata, Mr C begins a campaign to buy up every piece of Buntingford ware on the market ~ this happens to be Mrs A's latest collecting fad ~ with a view to making a wedding present of it to her.  The story has its charms, but is promising only up to the dénouement when it sadly comes rather unknotted.  Available in Fine Feathers and Other Stories (1994).

THE CRITICS

 

Brilliant literary talent distinguishes the handsome Christmas Number of the Windsor Magazine, stories of outstanding novelty and interest being contributed by Horace Annesely Vachell, E. F. Benson [etc. etc.]

~The Grantham Journal [UK], 12/12/1925

George's Secret

Fiction ~ short story
Published 21st November 1894
Approx. 1,800 words
(First read 27/12/1994)

My original 1994 review of this one was a tad dismissive:

A fishing story.  Picture this: I'm sitting in my London club on a dreary afternoon in November at the tail end of the 19th century.  All inside is snug as a bug; I've just had a splendid lunch.  I pick up The Sketch and find in it a new story by 'that Benson cove'.  "Jolly good," I think to myself; "he's always good to pass an idle moment."  I embark on George's Secret ... and after no more than two minutes I'm sound asleep.

I re-read it last June (2013) and actually found it quite funny.  It's the simple tale of a chap who, having never fished before, goes at it like a bull angling for Dresden figurines, and ~ much to the displeasure of his pals ~ has stupendous beginner's luck.  When he introduces 'Art' to his technique, the streak fails.  Available in Fine Feathers and Other Stories (1994).

By the Sluice

Fiction ~ short story (spook)
Published in The Tatler, 25th March 1927
Approx. 4,700 words
(First read 27/12/1994) 

The first of three spook stories to be found in Fine Feathers and Other Stories (1994).  [EFB?] goes to spend a weekend with his friends Louis Carrington + wife.  Louis is a bank manager and it turns out his sub-manager has mysteriously gone missing after embezzling a 'paltry sum' from the bank.  The usual kinds of ghostly happening come to pass (including a phone-call from the beyond), all enveloped in a thick fog for added atmosphere, until the mystery is revealed.  Actually quite a good story of its type ~ the motivation for the sub-manager's initial crime is discreetly swept under the carpet so as not to detract from the spookiness.

Boxing Night

Fiction ~ short story
Published in The Tatler, 30th November 1923
Approx. 5,700 words
(First read 27/12/1994) 

In this one it's Hugh Grainger who gets to tell the story, which is of two sisters living in an isolated farmhouse in Romney Marsh who both dream the same premonitory dream, which comes to pass ... kind of.   You couldn't really call this a 'ghost story' because there aren't any actual ghosts in it, just premonitions.  As Hughie says:

Ghosts, clairvoyant visions, true presentiments, and dreams are all glimpses of the unseen [...]  Such messages and messengers come from we know not where, and we know not how they come, but certainly they do come.  Often the very act of communication appears difficult: those beyond the ken of our normal perceptions find it hard to get into touch with us, and often the messages get distorted or bungled in transit.

Boxing Night deals with one such distorted message.  Not a bad story at all.  Available in The Technique of the Ghost Story (1993) and in Fine Feathers and Other Stories (1994), but sadly not available online at present. 


THE CRITICS

[…] No. 12, The Top Landing, and Boxing Night are short, sharp and gruesome. They ring the changes on some favourite Bensonian themes of suicide and premonition, paranoia and nightmare, fitting in fine with the more familiar tales included [in the collection].

~Alexis Lykiard. Quoted from his review of Ash-Tree Press' Mrs Amworth, first published in All Hallows magazine, 10/2001

Atmospherics

Fiction ~ short story
I have a feeling that this story made its world début when it was broadcast on the BBC in December 1928, read by E F Benson himself.  It was first published in The Radio Times on 28/12/1928
Subsequently collected in Fine Feathers and Other Stories
Approx. 1,700 words
(First read 27/12/1994)

Our nameless author goes to spend a weekend with ... well, with himself, basically ~ at Mayor's Orchard, which is the house of his friend Harry Armytage, in the Cinque Port town of Tillingham.  He takes with him to show off his 'new toy': an Ad Astra wireless set.  Having rather failed to impress his pals, persistence pays off when ~ as if by magic ~ he tunes in to scenes from King George II's visit to Rye-I-mean-Tillingham as they are happening.  That's it.  Fred briefly re-used the idea (sort of) in his opinion piece Magic White and Black (1934) and, possibly, in another story I haven't succeeded in pinpointing yet.

See also: The Confession of Charles Linkworth (1912).

M.O.M.

Fiction ~ short story
Published December 1915
Approx. 3,600 words
(First read 26/12/1994)

M.O.M. bears a passing resemblance to Saki's earlier Filboid Studge (1910): it tells the tale of a young chap who invents a wonder drug ('My Own Mixture') which, he claims, will cure everything from gout to intemperance, in spite ~ or more likely because ~ of its vile taste.  And lo! he makes a killing with it.  That's all there is to it, really.  Benson seems to have had a particular interest in, and slightly ambiguous attitude toward, the plethora of fads that were apparently the order of the day in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain ~ just think Lucia'n'Daisy with their gurus, their callisthenics and all the rest of it.  Sadly only available in Fine Feathers and Other Stories (1994).  Well, perhaps not all that sadly ~ it's not really up to much.

Mrs Andrews's Control

Fiction ~ short story
Published September 1915
Approx. 3,200 words
(First read 26/12/1994)

Mrs Henry Andrews and her husband live in extreme happiness and comfort together at Oakley¹.  Mrs is a chronic faddist: having worked her way through every diet in the book, she moves on to matters psychical.  Cartomancy, Christian Science, astrology, palmistry, and (her husband having now joined her) finally they hit on automatic writing².  Sadly, though they produce reams and reams, none of it is intelligible.  Success arrives when they decide to hold a pencil together rather than one each.  A 'control' by the name of Pocky quickly 'comes through' and makes himself useful, advising Mr A on his investments, etc.  But what is this? ~ 'the German war' breaks out³, Pocky becomes 'patriotic and truculent', changes his name to Pocksky and throws his weight behind the Russians before the author administers the coup de grâce.  A thoroughly fun read, Benson at his satirical best.  Available online here (in The Countess of Lowndes Square and Other Stories) and in Fine Feathers and Other Stories (1994).


¹ EFB's novel The Oakleyites appeared in the same year: it too featured a Mrs Andrews much like this one ...
² Psychography is the technical term, apparently.
³ The actual term EFB uses: luckily it never reached Capri.  I know, I know, I'm unkind to him on this subject, and it's utterly uncalled-for.