The Countess of Lowndes Square and Other Stories E-Book

E.F. Benson

• Herausgeber: Skyline
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Cynthia, Countess of Hampshire, was sitting in an extraordinarily elaborate dressing-gown one innocent morning in June, alternately opening letters and eating spoonfuls of sour milk prepared according to the prescription of Professor Metchnikoff. Every day it made her feel younger and stronger and more irresponsible (which is the root of all joy to natures of a serious disposition), and since (when a fortnight before she began this abominable treatment) she felt very young already, she was now almost afraid that she would start again on measles, croup, hoops, whooping-cough, peppermints, and other childish ailments and passions. But since this treatment not only induced youth, but was discouraging to all microbes but its own, she hoped as regards ailments that she would continue to feel younger and younger without suffering the penalties of childhood.

Leseprobe

E. F. Benson

The Countess of Lowndes Square and Other Stories

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Table of contents

PREFACE

THE COUNTESS OF LOWNDES SQUARE

THE BLACKMAILER OF PARK LANE

THE DANCE ON THE BEEFSTEAK

THE ORIOLISTS

IN THE DARK

THE FALSE STEP

THE CASE OF FRANK HAMPDEN

MRS. ANDREWS’S CONTROL

THE APE

“THROUGH”

“PUSS-CAT”

THERE AROSE A KING

THE TRAGEDY OF OLIVER BOWMAN

PHILIP’S SAFETY RAZOR

PREFACE

I have divided the stories that are here collected under one cover into various classes, so that such readers as want to compare their own experiments, let us say, in blackmailing or spiritualistic séances, with those of other students, may find such tales as deal with their own speciality in crime or superstition grouped together in separate sections of this book. They will thus be spared a skipping hunt through pages in which they feel no personal interest.In the same way, such readers as are in search merely of the lighter (though not more decorative) aspects of life, will be able to avoid like poison so innocent-looking a title as “The Countess of Lowndes Square,” for assuredly they would not find therein the fashionable descriptions of high life which they might reasonably anticipate, but would merely cast the book from them in disgust, when they discovered that one who had been the wife of an Earl, and ought therefore to have known ever so much better, belonged to the most contemptible of the criminal classes. The table of contents, in like manner, conducts the crank and the cat-lover to the pastures where he is most likely to find a digestible snack.The short story is not a lyre on which English writers thrum with the firm delicacy of the French, or with the industry of the American author. If the ten best short stories in the world were proclaimed by popular vote, it is probable that they would all be French stories; while if the million worst stories in the world were similarly brought together into one unspeakable library, they would probably all of them—with the exception, of course, of the fourteen that make up this volume—be found to be written in America. There is something in the precision and economy of the French, something in the opulence and amateurishness of the United States that renders the result of such a plebiscite perfectly appropriate, and we should only, when the result of the poll was known, find in it another instance of the invariable occurrence of the expected.Most of the ensuing tales have appeared before in the pages of Nash’s Weekly, The Windsor Magazine, The Story-Teller, The Century, and The Woman at Home. The rest are now published for the first time.

THE COUNTESS OF LOWNDES SQUARE

Cynthia, Countess of Hampshire, was sitting in an extraordinarily elaborate dressing-gown one innocent morning in June, alternately opening letters and eating spoonfuls of sour milk prepared according to the prescription of Professor Metchnikoff. Every day it made her feel younger and stronger and more irresponsible (which is the root of all joy to natures of a serious disposition), and since (when a fortnight before she began this abominable treatment) she felt very young already, she was now almost afraid that she would start again on measles, croup, hoops, whooping-cough, peppermints, and other childish ailments and passions. But since this treatment not only induced youth, but was discouraging to all microbes but its own, she hoped as regards ailments that she would continue to feel younger and younger without suffering the penalties of childhood.The sour milk was finished long before her letters were all opened, for there was no one in London who had a larger and more festive post than she. Indeed, it was no wonder that everybody of sense (and most people of none) wanted her to eat their dinners and stay in their houses, for her volcanic enjoyment of life made the dullest of social functions a high orgy, and since nothing is nearly so infectious as enjoyment, it followed that she was much in request.Even in her fiftieth year she retained with her youthful zest for life much of the extreme plainness of her girlhood, but time was gradually lightening the heaviness of feature that had once formed so remarkable an ugliness, and in a few years more, no doubt, she would become as nice looking as everybody else of her age.Her father, the notorious (probably infamous) Baron Kakao, of mixed and uncertain origin, had at one time compiled by hook or crook (chiefly, it is to be feared, by crook) an immense fortune; but long after that was spent, and debts of an equally substantial nature been substituted for it, he continued to live in London in a blaze of splendour so Oriental, that he was still believed to be possessed of fabulous wealth, and had without the least difficulty married the plain but fascinating Cynthia to an elderly Earl of Hampshire, and had continued to allow her £10,000 a year, which he borrowed at a staggering rate of usury from optimistic Hebrews. They thought that Lord Hampshire would probably see to his father-in-law’s debts; while, rather humorously, Lord Hampshire was post-obiting himself with others who trusted that Baron Kakao would come to the rescue of his son-in-law.