by E. F. Benson
How well he remembered her saying that; her voice rang in his ears like a haunting tune! And while Esther made this artistic sacrifice to the god of things as they are not, he and Nadine strolled along the firm sandy beach, shining with the moisture of the receding tide. She had taken his arm, and just as her voice now sounded in his ears, so he could feel the pressure of her hand on his coat.
“You live among unrealities,” she said, “although you are so simple and practical. You are thinking now that some day you and I will go to live on that golden island. But there is no island really, it is just like the rest of the sea, only the sun shines on it.”
The bitter truth of that struck him now as applied to her and himself. Though she had refused him before, the sun shone on those days, and not until she had engaged herself to Seymour did the gold fade. Not until today when he had definite confirmation of that from her own lips, had he really believed in her rejection of him. He well knew her affection for him; he believed, and rightly, that if she had been asked to name her best friend, she would have named none other than himself. It had been impossible for him not to be sanguine over the eventual outcome, and he had never really doubted that some day her affection would be kindled into flame. He had often told himself that it was through him that she would discover her heart. As she had suggested, he would some day crack the nut for her, and show her her own kernel, and she would find it was his.
And now all those optimisms were snuffed out. He had completely to alter and adjust his focus, but that could not be done at once. Tonight he peered out, as it were upon familiar scenes, and found that his sight of them was misty and blurred. The whole world had vanished in cold gray mists. He was lost, quite lost, and…and there was a letter for him on the table which he had not noticed. The envelope was obviously of cheap quality, and was of those proportions which suggest a bill. A bill it was from a bookseller, of four shillings and sixpence, incurred over a book Nadine had said she wanted to read. He had passed the bookseller’s on his way home immediately afterwards and of course he had ordered it for her. She had not cared for it; she had found it unreal. “The man is meant to arouse my sympathy,” she had said, “and only arouses my intense indifference. I am acutely uninterested in what happens to him.” Hugh felt as if she had been speaking of himself, but the moment after knew that he did her an injustice. Even now he could not doubt the sincerity of her affection for him. But there was something frozen about it. It was like sleet, and he, like a parched land, longed for the pity of the soft rain.
Hugh had a wholesome contempt for people who pity themselves, and it struck him at this point that he was in considerable danger of becoming despicable in his own eyes. He had been capable of sufficient manliness to remove himself from Nadine that afternoon, but his solitary evening was not up to that standard; he might as well have remained at Winston, if he was to endorse his refusal to dangle after her with nothing more virile than those drawling sentimentalities. She was not for him: he had made this expedition today in order to convince himself on that point, and already his determination was showing itself unstable, if it suffered him to dangle in mind though not in body. And yet how was it possible not to? Nadine, physically and tangibly, was certainly going to pass out of his life, but to eradicate her from his soul would be an act of spiritual suicide. Physically there was no doubt that he would continue to exist without her, spiritually he did not see how existence was possible on the same terms. But he need not drivel about her. There were always two ways of behaving after receiving a blow which knocked you down, and the one that commended itself most to Hugh was to get up again.
* * * *
Lady Ayr at the end of the London season had for years been accustomed to carry out some innocent plan for the improvement and discomfort of her family. One year she dragged them along the castles by the Loire, another she forced them, as if by pumping, through the picture galleries of Holland, and this summer she proposed to show them a quantity of the English cathedrals. These abominable pilgrimages were made pompously and economically: they stayed at odious inns, where she haggled and bargained with the proprietors, but on the other hand she informed the petrified vergers and custodians whom she conducted (rather than was conducted by) round the cathedrals or castles in their charge, that she was the Marchioness of Ayr, was directly descended from the occupants of the finest and most antique tombs, that the castle in question had once belonged to her family, or that the gem of the Holbeins represented some aunt of hers in bygone generations. Here pomp held sway, but economy came into its own again over the small silver coin with which she rewarded her conductor. On English lines she had a third class carriage reserved for her and beguiled the tedium of journeys by reading aloud out of guide-books an account of what they had seen or what they were going to visit. Generally they put up at “temperance” hotels, and she made a point of afternoon tea being included in the exiguous terms at which she insisted on being entertained. John aided and abetted her in those tours, exhibiting an ogreish appetite for all things Gothic and mental improvement; and her husband followed her with a white umbrella and sat down as much as possible. Esther’s part in them was that of a resigned and inattentive martyr, and she fired off picture postcards of the places they visited to Nadine and others with “This is a foul hole,” or “The beastliest inn we have struck yet” written on them, while Seymour revenged himself on the discomforts inflicted on him, by examining his mother as to where they had seen a particular rose-window or portrait by Rembrandt, and then by the aid of a guide-book proving she was wrong. Why none of them revolted and refused to go on these annual journeys, now that they had arrived at adult years, they none of them exactly knew, any more than they knew why they went, when summoned, to their mother’s dreadful dinner-parties, and it must be supposed that there was a touch of the inevitable about such diversions: you might grumble and complain, but you went.
This year the tour was to start with the interesting city of Lincoln and the party assembled on the platform at King’s Cross at an early hour. The plan was to lunch in the train, so as to start sight-seeing immediately on arrival, and continue (with a short excursion to the hotel in order to have the tea which had been included in the terms) until the fading light made it impossible to distinguish ancestral tombs or Norman arches. Lady Ayr had not seen Seymour since his engagement, and, as she ate rather grisly beef sandwiches, she gave him her views on the step. Though they were all together in one compartment the conversation might be considered a private one, for Lord Ayr was sleeping gently in one corner, John was absorbed in the account of the Roman remains at Lincoln (Lindum Colonia, as he had already announced), and Esther with a slightly leaky stylograph was writing a description of their depressing journey to Nadine.
“What you are marrying on, Seymour, I don’t know,” she said. “Neither your father nor I will be able to increase your allowance, and Nadine Waldenech has the appearance of being an expensive young woman. I hope she realizes she is marrying the son of a poor man, and that we go third class.”
“She is aware of all that,” said Seymour, wiping his long white finger-tips on an exceedingly fine cambric handkerchief, after swallowing a sandwich or two, “and we are marrying really on her money.”
“I am not sure that I approve of that,” said his mother.
“The remedy is obvious,” remarked Seymour. “You can increase my allowance. I have no objection. Mother, would you kindly let me throw the rest of that sandwich out of the window? It makes me ill to look at it.”
“We are not talking about sandwiches. Why do you not earn some money like other younger sons?”
“I do. I earned four pounds last week, with describing your party and other things, and there is my embroidery as well, which I shall work at more industriously. I shall do embroidery in the evening after dinnerwhile Nadine smokes.”
Lady Ayr looked out of the window and pointed magisterially to the towers of some great church in the town through which the train was passing.
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“Peterborough,” she said. “We shall see Peterborough on our way back. Peterborough, John. Ayr and Esther, we are passing through Peterborough.”
Esther looked out upon the mean backs of houses.
“The sooner we pass through Peterborough the better,” she observed.
John turned rapidly over the leaves of his guide-book.
“Peterborough is seventy-eight miles from London, and contains many buildings of interest,” he informed them.
Lady Ayr returned to Seymour.
“I hope you will insist on her leaving off smoking when you are married to her,” she said. “I cannot say she is the wife I should have chosen for you.”
“I chose her myself,” observed Seymour.
“Tell me more about her. Certainly the Waldenechs are a very old family, there is that to be said. Is she serious? Does she feel her responsibilities? Or is she like her mother?”
Seymour brushed a few remaining sandwich-crumbs off his trousers.
“I think Aunt Dodo is one of the most serious people I know,” he said. “She is serious about everything. She does everything with all her might. Nadine is not quite so serious as that. She is rather flippant about things like food and dress. However, no doubt my influence will make her more serious. But as a matter of fact I can’t tell you about Nadine. A fortnight ago, when I proposed to her, I could have. I could have given you a very complete account of her. But I can’t any longer: I am getting blind about her. I only know that it is she. Not so long ago I told her a quantity of her faults with ruthless accuracy, but I couldn’t now. I can’t see them any more: there’s a glamor.”
Esther looked up.
“Oh, Seymour,” she said, “are you talking about Nadine? Are you falling in love with her? How very awkward! Does she know?”
Seymour pointed a withering finger at his sister.
“Little girls should mind their own business,” he said.
“Oh, but it is my business. Nadine matters far more than any one else. She might easily think it not right to marry you if you were in love with her.”
Lady Ayr turned a petrifying gaze from one to the other.
“She seems a very extraordinary young person,” she said. “And in any case Esther has no business to know anything about it.”
“Whether she thinks it right or not, she is going to marry me,” said Seymour.
Esther shook her head.
“You are indeed blind about Nadine,” she said, “if you think she would ever do anything she thought wrong.”
“You might be describing John,” said Seymour rather hotly.
“Anyhow, Nadine is not like John.”
“I see no resemblance,” said Lady Ayr. “But it is something to know she would not do anything she thought wrong.”
“When you say it in that voice, Mother,” said Esther, “you make nonsense of it.”
“The same words in any voice mean the same thing,” said Lady Ayr.
Seymour sighed.
“I am on Esther’s side for once,” he said.
Esther turned to her brother.
“Seymour, you ought to tell Nadine you are falling in love with her,” she said. “I really don’t think she would approve. Why, you might become as bad as Hugh. Of course you are not so stupid as Hugh—ah, stupid is the wrong word—you haven’t got such a plain kind of intellect as Hugh—which was Nadine’s main objection—”
Seymour patted Esther’s hand with odious superiority. “You are rather above yourself, my little girl,” he said, “because just now I agreed with you. It has gone to your head, and makes you think yourself clever. Shut your eyes till we get to Lincoln. You will feel less giddy by degrees. And when you open them again, you can mind your own business, and mother will tell you about the Goths and Vandals who built the cathedral. You are a Vandal yourself: you will have a fellow-feeling. Mother, dear, put down that window. I am going to see cathedrals to please you, but I will not be stifled to please anybody. The carriage reeks of your beef sandwiches. But I think I have some scent in my bag.”
“I am quite sure you have,” said Esther scornfully. “I am writing to Nadine, by the way. I shall tell her you are falling in love with her.”
“You can tell her exactly what you please,” said Seymour suavely. “Ah, here is some wall-flower scent. It is like a May morning. Yes, tell Nadine what you please, but don’t bother me. What is the odious town we are coming to? I think it must be Lincoln. John, here is Lincoln, and all the people are ancient Romans.”
Seymour obligingly sprayed the expensive scent about the carriage, even though they were so shortly to disembark.
“The river Witham,” said John, pointing to a small and fetid ditch. “Remains of Roman villas—”
“The inhabitants of which died of typhoid,” said Seymour. “Tell Nadine we are enjoying Lincoln, Esther. Had father better be allowed to sleep on, or shall I wake him? There is a porter: call him, Mother—I won’t carry my bag even to save you sixpence. But don’t tell him we are marchionesses and lords and ladies, because then he will expect a shilling. I perceive a seedy-looking ’bus outside. That is probably ours. It looks as if it came from some low kind of inn. I wish I had brought Antoinette. And yet I don’t know. She would probably have given notice after seeing the degradation of our summer holiday.”
“Seymour, you are making yourself exceedingly disagreeable,” said his mother.
“It is intentional. You made yourself disagreeable to me: you began. As for you, Esther, you must expect to see a good deal less of Nadine after she and I are married. I will not have you mooning about the house, reminding her of all the damned—yes, I said damned—nonsense you and she and Berts and Hugh talked about the inequality of marriages where one person is clever and the other stupid, or where one loves and the other doesn’t. You have roused me, you and mother between you, and I am here to tell you that I will manage my own affairs, which are Nadine’s also, without the smallest assistance from you. Put that in—in your ginger-beer, or whatever we have for dinner, and drink it. You thought I was only a sort of thing that waved its hands and collected jade, and talked in rather a squeaky voice, and walked on its toes. Well, you have found out your mistake, and don’t let me have to teach it you again. You can tell Nadine in your letter exactly what I have said. And don’t rouse me again: it makes me hot. But mind your own business instead, and remember that when I want either your advice or mother’s I will ask for it. Till then you can keep it completely to yourselves. You needn’t answer me: I don’t want to hear anything you have got to say. Let us go to the cathedral. I suppose it is that great cockshy on the top of the hill. I know it will prove to have been built by our forefathers. The verger will like to know about it. But bear in mind I don’t want to be told anything about Nadine.”
* * * *
Seymour had become quite red in the face with the violence of the feelings that prompted these straightforward remarks, and before putting the spray of wall-flower scent back into his bag, he shut his eyes and squirted himself in the face in order to cool himself, while Esther stared at him open-mouthed. She hardly knew him, for he had become exactly like a man, a transformation more unexpected than anything that ever happened at a pantomime, and she instantly and correctly connected this change in him with what he had been saying. For the reason of the change was perfectly simple and sufficient: during those last days at Winston, after the departure of Hugh, he had fallen in love with Nadine, and his nature, which had really been neither that of man or woman, had suddenly sexed itself. He had not in the least cast off his tastes and habits; to spray himself and a stuffy railway-carriage with wall-flower scent was still perfectly natural to him, and no doubt, unless Nadine objected very much, he would continue to take Antoinette about with him as his maid, but he had declared himself a man, and found, even as his sister found, that the change in him was as immense as it was unexpected. He thought with more than usual scorn of Nadine’s friends, such as Esther and Berts, who all pla
yed about together like healthy, but mentally anemic, children, for he, the most anemic of them all, had suddenly had live blood, as it were, squirted into him. Indeed the only member of the clan whom he thought of with toleration was Hugh, with whom he felt a bond of brotherhood, for Hugh, like himself, loved Nadine like a man. Already also he felt sorry for him, recognizing in him a member of his own sex. Hitherto he had disliked his own sex, because they were men, now he found himself detesting people like Berts, because they were not. For men, so he had begun to perceive, are essentially those who are aware of the fact of women; the rest of them, to which he had himself till so lately belonged, he now classified as more or less intellectual amœbæ. And the corresponding members of the other sex were just as bad: Esther had no sense of sex, nor perhaps, and here he paused, had Nadine.
That, it is true, gave him long pause. He knew quite well that Nadine had been no more in love with him, when they had got engaged, than he had been with her. They had both been, and she so he must suppose was still, quite undeveloped as regards those instincts. Hugh with all his devotion and developed manliness awoke no corresponding flame in her, and Seymour was quite clear-sighted enough to see that there was no sign of his having succeeded where Hugh had failed. She belonged, as Dodo had remarked, to that essentially modern type of girl, which, unless she marries while quite young, will probably be spinster still at thirty. They had brains, they had a hundred intellectual and artistic interests, and studied mummies, or logic, or Greek gems, or themselves, and lived in flats, eagerly and happily, and smoked and substituted tea for dinner. They knew of nothing in their natures that gave them any imperious call; on the other hand they called imperiously though unintentionally to others. Nadine had called like that to Hugh, and was dismayed at the tumult she had roused, regretting it, but not comprehending it. And now she had called like that to Seymour. She was like the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, calling in her sleep. Hugh had answered her first and had fought his way through thicket and briar, but his coming had not awakened her. Then she had called again, and this time Seymour stood by her. She had given him her hand, but her sleep had been undisturbed. She smiled at him, but she smiled in her sleep.