The Second E. F. Benson Megapack

by E. F. Benson

  They had sat together on the sofa where this afternoon he sat alone waiting for her. Every moment of that half hour was as distinct as the outline of trees and hills just before a storm, and yet it was still entirely dream-like. He knew it had happened, for nothing but the happening of it would account now for the fact of himself; but, though there was nothing in the world so true, there was nothing so incredible. Yet it was all as clean-cut in his mind as etched lines, and round each line sprang flowers and singing birds. For a long space there was silence after they had sat down, and then she said, “I think I always loved you, Michael, only I didn’t know it.…” Thereafter, foolish love talk: he had claimed a superiority there, for he had always loved her and had always known it. Much time had been wasted owing to her ignorance…she ought to have known. But all the time that existed was theirs now. In all the world there was no more time than what they had. The crumpled rose had its petals rehabilitated, the thorn that had pricked her was peeled off. They wondered if Hermann had come in yet. Then, by some vague process of locomotion, they found themselves at the piano, and with her arm around his neck Sylvia has whispered half a verse of the song of herself.…

  They became a little more definite over lover-confessions. Michael had, so to speak, nothing to confess: he had loved all along—he had wanted her all along; there never had been the least pretence or nonsense about it. Her path was a little more difficult to trace, but once it had been traversed it was clear enough. She had liked him always; she had felt sister-like from the moment when Hermann brought him to the house, and sister-like she had continued to feel, even when Michael had definitely declared there was “no thoroughfare” there. She had missed that relationship when it stopped: she did not mind telling him that now, since it was abandoned by them both; but not for the world would she have confessed before that she had missed it. She had loved being asked to come and see his mother, and it was during those visits that she had helped to pile the barricade across the “sister-thoroughfare” with her own hands. She began to share Michael’s sense of the impossibility of that road. They could not walk down it together, for they had to be either more or less to each other than that. And, during these visits, she had begun to understand (and her face a little hid itself) what Michael’s love meant. She saw it manifested towards his mother; she was taught by it; she learned it; and, she supposed, she loved it. Anyhow, having seen it, she could not want Michael as a brother any longer, and if he still wanted anything else, she supposed (so she supposed) that some time he would mention that fact. Yes: she began to hope that he would not be very long about it.…

  Michael went over this very deliberately as he sat waiting for her twenty-four hours later. He rehearsed this moment and that over and over again: in mind he followed himself and Sylvia across to the piano, not hurrying their steps, and going through the verse of the song she sang at the pace at which she actually sang it. And, as he dreamed and recollected, he heard a little stir in the quiet house, and Sylvia came.

  They met just as they met yesterday in front of the fireplace.

  “Oh, Michael, have you been waiting long?” she said.

  “Yes, hours, or perhaps a couple of minutes. I don’t know.”

  “Ah, but which? If hours, I shall apologise, and then excuse myself by saying that you must have come earlier than you intended. If minutes I shall praise myself for being so exceedingly punctual.”

  “Minutes, then,” said he. “I’ll praise you instead. Praise is more convincing if somebody else does it.”

  “Yes, but you aren’t somebody else. Now be sensible. Have you done all the things you told me you were going to do?”

  “Yes.”

  Sylvia released her hands from his.

  “Tell me, then,” she said. “You’ve seen your father?”

  There was no cloud on Michael’s face. There was such sunlight where his soul sat that no shadow could fall across it.

  “Oh, yes, I saw him,” he said.

  He captured Sylvia’s hand again.

  “And what is more he saw me, so to speak,” he said. “He realised that I had an existence independent of him. I used to be a—a sort of clock to him; he could put its hands to point to any hour he chose. Well, he has realised—he has really—that I am ticking along on my own account. He was quite respectful, not only to me, which doesn’t matter, but to you—which does.” Michael laughed, as he plaited his fingers in with hers.

  “My father is so comic,” he said, “and unlike most great humourists his humour is absolutely unconscious. He was perfectly well aware that I meant to marry you, for I told him that last Christmas, adding that you did not mean to marry me. So since then I think he’s got used to you. Used to you—fancy getting used to you!”

  “Especially since he had never seen me,” said the girl.

  “That makes it less odd. Getting used to you after seeing you would be much more incredible. I was saying that in a way he had got used to you, just as he’s got used to my being a person, and not a clock on his chimney-piece, and what seems to have made so much difference is what Aunt Barbara told him last night, namely, that your mother was a Tracy. Sylvia, don’t let it be too much for you, but in a certain far-away manner he realises that you are ‘one of us.’ Isn’t he a comic? He’s going to make the best of you, it appears. To make the best of you! You can’t beat that, you know. In fact, he told me to ask if he might come and pay his respects to your mother tomorrow.

  “And what about my singing, my career?” she asked.

  Michael laughed again.

  “He was funny about that also,” he said. “My father took it absolutely for granted that having made this tremendous social advance, you would bury your past, all but the Tracy part of it, as if it had been something disgraceful which the exalted Comber family agreed to overlook.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “I? Oh, I told him that, of course, you would do as you pleased about that, but that for my part I should urge you most strongly to do nothing of the kind.”

  “And he?”

  “He got four inches taller. What is so odd is that as long as I never opposed my father’s wishes, as long as I was the clock on the chimney piece, I was terrified at him. The thought of opposing myself to him made my knees quake. But the moment I began doing so, I found there was nothing to be frightened at.”

  Sylvia got up and began walking up and down the long room.

  “But what am I to do about it, Michael?” she asked. “Oh, I blush when I think of a conversation I had with Hermann about you, just before Christmas, when I knew you were going to propose to me. I said that I could never give up my singing. Can you picture the self-importance of that? Why, it doesn’t seem to me to matter two straws whether I do or not. Naturally, I don’t want to earn my living by it any more, but whether I sing or not doesn’t matter. And even as the words are in my mouth I try to imagine myself not singing any more, and I can’t. It’s become part of me, and while I blush to think of what I said to Hermann, I wonder whether it’s not true.”

  She came and sat down by him again.

  “I believe you have got enough artistic instinct to understand that, Michael,” she said, “and to know what a tremendous help it is to one’s art to be a professional, and to be judged seriously. I suppose that, ideally, if one loves music as I do one ought to be able to do one’s very best, whether one is singing professionally or not, but it is hardly possible. Why, the whole difference between amateurs and professionals is that amateurs sing charmingly and professionals just sing. Only they sing as well as they possibly can, not only because they love it, but because if they don’t they will be dropped on to, and if they continue not singing their best, will lose their place which they have so hardly won. I can see myself, perhaps, not singing at all, literally never opening my lips in song again, but I can’t see myself coming down to the Drill Hall at Brixton, extremely beautifully dressed, with rows of pearls, and arriving rather late, and just singing charmingly. It
’s such a spur to know that serious musicians judge one’s performance by the highest possible standard. It’s so relaxing to think that one can easily sing well enough, that one can delight ninety-nine hundredths of the audience without any real effort. I could sing ‘The Lost Chord’ and move the whole Drill Hall at Brixton to tears. But there might be one man there who knew, you or Hermann or some other, and at the end he would just shrug his shoulders ever so slightly, and I would wish I had never been born.”

  She paused a moment.

  “I’ll not sing any more at all, ever,” she said, “or I must sing to those who will take me seriously and judge me ruthlessly. To sing just well enough to please isn’t possible. I’ll do either you like.”

  Mrs. Falbe strayed in at this moment with her finger in her book, but otherwise as purposeless as a wandering mist.

  “I was afraid it might be going to get chilly,” she remarked. “After a hot day there is often a cool evening. Will you stop and dine, Lord—I mean, Michael?”

  “Please; certainly!” said Michael.

  “Then I hope there will be something for you to eat. Sylvia, is there something to eat? No doubt you will see to that, darling. I shall just rest upstairs for a little before dinner, and perhaps finish my book. So pleased you are stopping.”

  She drifted towards the studio door, in thistledown fashion catching at corners a little, and then moving smoothly on again, talking gently half to herself, half to the others.

  “And Hermann’s not in yet, but if Lord—I mean, Michael, is going to stop here till dinnertime, it won’t matter whether Hermann comes in in time to dress or not, as Michael is not dressed either. Oh, there is the postman’s knock! What a noise! I am not expecting any letters.”

  The knock in question, however, proved to be Hermann, who, as was generally the case, had forgotten his latchkey. He ran into his mother at the studio door, and came and sat down, regardless of whether he was wanted or not, between the two on the sofa, and took an arm of each.

  “I probably intrude,” he said, “but such is my intention. I’ve just seen Lady Barbara, who says that the shock has not been too much for Mike’s father. That is a good thing; she says he is taking nourishment much as usual. I suppose I oughtn’t to jest on so serious a subject, but I took my cue from Lady Barbara. It appears that we have blue blood too, Sylvia, and we must behave more like aristocrats. A Tracy in the time of King John flirted, if no more, with a Comber. And what about your career, Sylvia? Are you going to continue to urge your wild career, or not? I ask with a purpose, as Blackiston proposes we should give a concert together in the third week in July. The Queen’s Hall is vacant one afternoon, and he thinks we might sing and play to them. I’m on if you are. It will be about the last concert of the season, too, so we shall have to do our best. Otherwise we, or I, anyhow, will start again in the autumn with a black mark. By the way, are you going to start again in the autumn? It wouldn’t surprise me one bit to hear that you and Mike had been talking about just that.”

  “Don’t be too clever to live, Hermann,” said Sylvia.

  “I don’t propose to die, if you mean that. Oh, Blackiston had another suggestion also. He wanted to know if we would consider making a short tour in Germany in the autumn. He says that the beloved Fatherland is rather disposed to be interested in us. He thinks we should have good audiences at Leipzig, and so on. There’s a tendency, he says, to recognise poor England, a cordial intention, anyhow. I said that in your case there might be domestic considerations which—But I think I shall go in any case. Lord, fancy playing in Germany to Germans again. Fancy being listened to by a German audience; fancy if they approved.”

  Michael leaned forward, putting his elbow into Hermann’s chest. Early December had already been mentioned as a date for their marriage, and as a pre-nuptial journey, this seemed to him a plan ecstatically ideal.

  “Yes, Sylvia,” he said. “The answer is yes. I shall come with you, you know. I can see it; a triumphal procession, you two making noises, and me listening. A month’s tour, Hermann. Middle of October till middle of November. Yes, yes.”

  All his tremendous pride in her singing, dormant for the moment under the wonder of his love, rose to the surface. He knew what her singing meant to her, and, from their conversation together just now, how keen was her eagerness for the strict judgment of those who knew, how she loved that austere pinnacle of daylight. Here was an ideal opportunity; never yet, since she had won her place as a singer, had she sung in Germany, that Mecca of the musical artist, and in her case, the land from which she sprung. Had the scheme implied a postponement of their marriage, he would still have declared himself for it, for he unerringly felt for her in this; he knew intuitively what delicious beckoning this held for her.

  “Yes, yes,” he repeated, “I must have you do that, Sylvia. I don’t care what Hermann wants or what you want. I want it.”

  “Yes, but who’s to do the playing and the singing?” asked Hermann. “Isn’t it a question, perhaps, for—”

  Michael felt quite secure about the feelings of the other two, and rudely interrupted.

  “No,” he said. “It’s a question for me. When the Fatherland hears that I am there it will no doubt ask me to play and sing instead of you two. Lord! Fancy marrying into such a distinguished family. I burst with pride!”

  It required, then, little debate, since all three were agreed, before Hermann was empowered with authority to make arrangements, and they remained simultaneously talking till Mrs. Falbe, again drifting in, announced that the bell for dinner had sounded some minutes before. She had her finger in the last chapter of “Lady Ursula’s Ordeal,” and laid it face downwards on the table to resume again at the earliest possible moment. This opportunity was granted her when, at the close of dinner, coffee and the evening paper came in together. This Hermann opened at the middle page.

  “Hallo!” he said. “That’s horrible! The Heir Apparent of the Austrian Emperor has been murdered at Serajevo. Servian plot, apparently.”

  “Oh, what a dreadful thing,” said Mrs. Falbe, opening her book. “Poor man, what had he done?”

  Hermann took a cigarette, frowning.

  “It may be a match—” he began.

  Mrs. Falbe diverted her attention from “Lady Ursula” for a moment.

  “They are on the chimney-piece, dear,” she said, thinking he spoke of material matches.

  Michael felt that Hermann saw something, or conjectured something ominous in this news, for he sat with knitted brow reading, and letting the match burn down.

  “Yes; it seems that Servian officers are implicated,” he said. “And there are materials enough already for a row between Austria and Servia without this.”

  “Those tiresome Balkan States,” said Mrs. Falbe, slowly immersing herself like a diving submarine in her book. “They are always quarrelling. Why doesn’t Austria conquer them all and have done with it?”

  This simple and striking solution of the whole Balkan question was her final contribution to the topic, for at this moment she became completely submerged, and cut off, so to speak, from the outer world, in the lucent depths of Lady Ursula.

  Hermann glanced through the other pages, and let the paper slide to the floor.

  “What will Austria do?” he said. “Supposing she threatens Servia in some outrageous way and Russia says she won’t stand it? What then?”

  Michael looked across to Sylvia; he was much more interested in the way she dabbled the tips of her hands in the cool water of her finger bowl than in what Hermann was saying. Her fingers had an extraordinary life of their own; just now they were like a group of maidens by a fountain.… But Hermann repeated the question to him personally.

  “Oh, I suppose there will be a lot of telegraphing,” he said, “and perhaps a board of arbitration. After all, one expected a European conflagration over the war in the Balkan States, and again over their row with Turkey. I don’t believe in European conflagrations. We are all too much afraid of each other. W
e walk round each other like collie dogs on the tips of their toes, gently growling, and then quietly get back to our own territories and lie down again.”

  Hermann laughed.

  “Thank God, there’s that wonderful fire-engine in Germany ready to turn the hose on conflagrations.”

  “What fire-engine?” asked Michael.

  “The Emperor, of course. We should have been at war ten times over but for him.”

  Sylvia dried her finger-tips one by one.

  “Lady Barbara doesn’t quite take that view of him, does she, Mike?” she asked.

  Michael suddenly remembered how one night in the flat Aunt Barbara had suddenly turned the conversation from the discussion of cognate topics, on hearing that the Falbes were Germans, only to resume it again when they had gone.

  “I don’t fancy she does,” he said. “But then, as you know, Aunt Barbara has original views on every subject.”

  Hermann did not take the possible hint here conveyed to drop the matter.

  “Well, then, what do you think about him?” he asked.

  Michael laughed.

  “My dear Hermann,” he said, “how often have you told me that we English don’t pay the smallest attention to international politics. I am aware that I don’t; I know nothing whatever about them.”

  Hermann shook off the cloud of preoccupation that so unaccountably, to Michael’s thinking, had descended on him, and walked across to the window.

  “Well, long may ignorance be bliss,” he said. “Lord, what a divine evening! ‘Uber allen gipfeln ist Ruhe.’ At least, there is peace on the only summits visible, which are house roofs. There’s not a breath of wind in the trees and chimney-pots; and it’s hot, it’s really hot.”

  “I was afraid there was going to be a chill at sunset,” remarked Mrs. Falbe subaqueously.