Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  “Oh! yes, quite well,” she replied. “Percy and I were talking about her this evening. It’s funny that neither you nor Reggie have even seen her.”

  She was feeling her way with tactful discretion. But it was a very narrow path down which Gertrude meant to go, and Mrs. Davenport not unnaturally had missed it.

  “What is she like?” asked Gertrude.

  “Ah! what isn’t she like? She is the most beautiful woman in England, I think, also one of the most reckless, and, I believe, very generous. I should call her dangerous as well. But she is so interesting, so unlike others, that you forget everything else, which is harder than forgiving it.”

  Gertrude turned round and faced her.

  “Ah, you too,” she said.

  “I don’t quite understand, dear,” said Mrs. Davenport, gently; “have you and Reggie been talking about her? Tell me, Gerty. I saw something was a wee bit wrong. I’m sure you haven’t been quarrelling, though. What has been the matter?”

  “I couldn’t love Reggie more than I do,” said Gertrude, irrelevantly, “and I don’t think he could love me more than he does. It’s odd that I should be troubled.”

  “Yes, dear, I am sure of your love for each other,” said Mrs. Davenport. “But tell me what is wrong. It does one good to tell things; they become so much smaller in the telling. Those vague thoughts are like those great spongy puff balls that we noticed to-day; as soon as you really examine them, you find there is nothing in them. What is it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Gertrude again.

  Ah, that infinite patience of womankind! Mrs. Davenport waited a moment, and then, by an unerring instinct, laid her hand softly on Gertrude’s, and pressed it gently. The touch had power in it, and the dumb soul spake.

  “I’ve got no right to be troubled,” said Gertrude, “and I feel it’s horribly ungrateful of me, when I think of what Reggie is to me, and how good you are all to me. But—”

  Her voice got tremulous, and she stopped abruptly.

  “Yes?” said Mrs. Davenport, softly, wanting to hear more for Gertrude’s sake.

  “It’s just this,” she said at last, speaking rapidly, and with a splendid self-control. “Reggie said something this evening which hurt me. He said that recklessness mattered less in a beautiful woman than in another.”

  “Is that all?” said Mrs. Davenport, with considerable relief.

  “No, that’s not all,” said Gertrude. “That was all nonsense; of course I know he doesn’t mean that. But he didn’t see it hurt me. Oh! it’s so hard not to give you a wrong impression. I don’t mean that he was inconsiderate at all — he never is anything but considerate — but he simply didn’t know. It wasn’t tangible to his mind. If I cut my finger he’d be miserable about it, but somehow he was unable to understand how this hurt me, and so he could not see that it did hurt me. It hurt me somewhere deep down, ever so little, but the feeling was new and strange. This sounds horribly selfish, I’m afraid, but I can’t help it.”

  “Ah, I think I see,” said Mrs. Davenport.

  “It’s like this,” said Gertrude. “Hitherto I’ve always felt so entirely at one with Reggie. If I feel a thing, he’s always seemed to feel it too, like an echo, and the same with me. But just this once I listened for the echo and it didn’t come.”

  Mrs. Davenport paused a moment.

  “Did you ever hear of the man who was out riding with his wife when her horse threw her, and in dismounting to help her he dropped his whip, and while he was picking it up, the horse kicked her and killed her?” she asked. “It seems to me that you are just a little like that man, Gerty. Love is a very big thing; one’s own small sensibilities are very little things. Take care of the big thing, never mind the others.”

  “But they’re so mixed up,” said the girl. “You see the little thing is a part of the big thing.”

  “You are right — that is quite true. But there are many very lovely things which it is right to look at as a whole. Love is one of those. All philosophers, from the beginning of the world, have addled their brains over that impossible analysis. You and Reggie are not philosophers, Gerty; you are young lovers, and it is not your business to analyse or dissect, but to enjoy.”

  Mrs. Davenport was at the sore disadvantage of having to temporise. She could not but suspect what was at the bottom of this. But all she said was quite sincere. She fully believed that the strength of Gerty’s love would fill the interval, if there was to be an interval between her and Reggie. It is best that the woman be better, finer, bigger than the man, for the beautiful indulgence of a woman’s love has more passive endurance in these early stages than a man’s. In the perfect marriage, the two eventually are mixed “in spite of the mortal screen,” but such mixings are rare at first. They rushed together, they will inevitably recoil a little, and a woman has more power of waiting than most men. Gertrude seemed somewhat relieved, but it was not quite over yet. The grey ghost was waiting for his frillings.

  “I was just a little disappointed, you understand?” she said. “I waited for the echo, but it never came. Ah! well, I am very happy. Yon are very good to me.”

  “God forbid that I or mine should ever give you pain,” said Mrs. Davenport, warmly.

  “And what am I to do?” said Gertrude, to whom the practical side of things always presented itself.

  “Be natural, dear,” said the other, “as you always are. You are both very young; well, that is a gift almost more worth having than anything else. It lies in your power a great deal to keep it. And, if you guard it well, it will build up in you the only other gift which is worth having, which will last you to your grave. They will melt into each other.”

  Gertrude looked at her inquiringly.

  “It is called by many names,” she said. “It is trustfulness, it is serenity, it is sympathy; it is all these, and many more. Some people call it the grace of God, and I think they are right.” She kissed the girl on her forehead very tenderly. “It will tide you over the difficult places, over which youth carries you now, for youth has the gift of a splendid stainlessness — of going through deep waters and not being drowned, of avoiding evil instinctively, without thought; but the time comes to us all when we avoid it with our reason as well, and with our soul.”

  “It was ridiculous of me,” said the girl suddenly. “Reggie didn’t know what I felt, and I didn’t tell him; and yet I was disappointed. I’ve probably done just the same to him lots of times, and he never told me. It was abominably selfish of me. I hope he’ll forgive me.”

  “I should think it extremely unlikely,” said Mrs. Davenport, with enormous gravity. “I should advise you to cry yourself to sleep. I am going to bed, and so are you. Good-night! Ah! my dear, I pray you may be very happy.”

  Gertrude clung to her in a long kiss, feeling a new bond had sprung up between them.

  But the odious, little, grey ghost, who had been grinning sardonically at her easy enthusiasm, was sitting by her bed, waiting till the renewal of strength, brought by sleep, had quickened her capabilities for listening to his cold accuracies — until that generous, sudden glow had begun to burn somewhat less warmly in her breast.

  CHAPTER III.

  Lord Hayes had been rather troubled about his health during the winter in which the foregoing events had occurred, though it had not stood in the way of their giving several large house-parties. But at one of these he had suddenly fainted dead off in the middle of dinner, and, when the house was empty again, he had gone up to London to see a doctor.

  Eva was sitting in her room when he returned, feeling rather bored.

  “Well, Hayes,” she said, as he came in, “what did they say to you?”

  Lord Hayes adjusted his trousers about the knee before he answered.

  “I have all the symptoms of dangerous heart disease,” he said. “I may live for many years, and die of something else. Again, I may die almost at any moment.”

  Eva’s book drooped off her knee.

  “How horrible!” sh
e said at length. “Can nothing be done? Are they sure they are right?”

  “Unfortunately, they are quite sure,” he said; “and nothing can be done. They consider the chance of my dying quite suddenly at any time as possible, but not at all likely.”

  Eva, in her serene health, felt a sudden, great pity for him, but not unmixed with horror. She had no sympathy with disease; it seemed to her hardly decent.

  “Poor Hayes,” she said. “I cannot tell you how shocked I am.”

  “I thought it was best to tell you,” said he, “but let us avoid the subject altogether. I shall live to bore you for many years yet.”

  Eva looked at him admiringly.

  “You are a brave man. But you are right. Don’t let us talk about it.”

  This took place late in November, but the fact that the symptoms, which had been the result of over-fatigue, did not re-occur, made Eva soon get used to the thought, and, in a measure, her husband too. He took the doctor’s advice, did not over-exert himself at all, and found that the discovery they had made did not affect his health. The days soon began to pass on as usual.

  Eva had suddenly determined to go abroad for a few weeks, for she had an intense dislike to an English winter. Hence it came about that one morning at breakfast, when she and her husband were alone, she had said to him, —

  “What do you propose to do during these next two months, Hayes?”

  Lord Hayes looked up from his breakfast, not quite understanding the purport of her question.

  “I suppose we shall remain here till Easter,” he said. “We are paying some visits in January, I believe.”

  “I should rather like to go abroad for a few weeks now this horrible weather has begun.” She looked out of the window, where snow was beginning to fall heavily, and shivered sympathetically. “I hate this English weather,” she said; “it is like being in a cold bath. Dry cold is not so bad, there is something exhilarating about it. But this doesn’t suit me in the least. Why shouldn’t we go to Algiers again?”

  “I thought you didn’t like Algiers,” he said. “Do you propose that we should go alone?”

  “Oh no, we won’t make any intolerable demands of that sort on each other. I think it suits us best to have people with us. I daresay Percy would like to come for a bit, perhaps your mother would join us, and then there’s Jim Armine, who always wants to go abroad whenever he can.”

  Eva spoke with the utmost indifference, but her husband found himself wondering whether that indifference was not a very subtle piece of acting. That he had some inkling of the young man’s feelings towards his wife was very possible, but he had not the least objection to that. In fact, it rather pleased him than otherwise, as it afforded a sort of testimonial to his own admirable taste in wishing her to become his wife, and to his enviable success in securing her for that purpose. He knew quite well that the rôle of jealous husband would not suit him in the least, and he had no intention of being a complaisant one, but he had sense enough to guess that complaisance was not necessary. He had no reason to believe that Eva had a heart at all; and he had no desire to make a mistake. If he suggested to Eva that he would rather not have Jim Armine with them, his remark would be liable to be interpreted in a way which she might with justice resent; in fact, that was the only interpretation open to her, for he liked the young man well enough in himself. He did not even admit the smallest suspicion into his mind; he only realised that there was the possibility of an avenue, down which suspicion might some day choose to walk; and when suspicion was seen by him walking down that avenue, he would go and take its hand, and they would knock at Eva’s door, and show themselves.

  Eva rose from the table.

  “Then you don’t mind coming to Algiers?”

  It was clearly impossible to say “No; but I do mind Jim Armine coming,” and so he proposed a date some ten days off for their departure.

  “Why shouldn’t we go sooner?” asked Eva.

  “There’s been some unpleasantness down at the ironworks,” he said, “and I think that, as owner, I ought to just wait till it’s settled in some form or another.”

  “Do you mean down at Trelso?”

  “Yes; the men are striking, or wanting to strike, for higher wages — more pay, in fact.”

  “Couldn’t you go down there to-day, and see the agents or managers or whoever they are?”

  “There is nothing definite yet; we only know that there is a good deal of discontent.”

  “Surely, then, you can leave it with your manager to deal with, when it occurs. It is absurd waiting in England for a handful of miners to tell you what they want.”

  “It would be better, I think, if I waited,” he said.

  “I wish you would explain to me exactly why.”

  “Simply because, as owner,” he said, “they would wish to consult me if anything went really wrong.”

  “Surely there is a telegraph to Algiers. I should infinitely prefer starting in less than a week. I really cannot stand this sort of weather.”

  “I feel sure I am right to stop,” he said. “It is certainly best.”

  Eva hesitated a moment.

  “Would you mind my going on without you, then? Perhaps that would be the best plan. I daresay Jim will come with me.”

  Her husband looked at her narrowly. He felt he was playing a losing game.

  “I will go down to Trelso to-day, and see exactly what the state of affairs is — how they stand, in fact.”

  “Very good. I shall start on Thursday, then. I will write to Jim to-day. I hope you won’t lose any more money over this.”

  He smiled rather grimly.

  “I hope not. This last year has been very expensive. I don’t grudge it in the least; in fact, it is very interesting to me to see how much a woman can spend.”

  He was conscious of an impotent desire to make it not quite pleasant for Eva, even if she did get her own way in the main, and he was pleased to see her flinch, just perceptibly. She was annoyed with herself for doing it.

  “Yes, I suppose you find you spend much more now than you used.”

  “About ten thousand a year more.”

  “Dear me, that is a great deal. You can hardly have counted the cost.”

  “I did not quite realise it at the time. That’s what I mean by saying it was more than I anticipated.”

  “Ah! of course you wouldn’t anticipate it,” said Eva. “Love is blind, you know.”

  Lord Hayes was rather sorry he had begun. He was somewhat in the position of a dog which runs out from its shelter to bite a passer-by, and when it gets into the open, discovers that its intended victim carries a stick.

  Eva waited long enough to give him time to reply if he wanted, but finding he said nothing, turned and left the room.

  Two days after this, as they were sitting at dinner, Eva asked him what had happened about the ironworks.

  “I am glad you reminded me,” he said. “I told them that I wished particularly to leave England at once, and asked them to telegraph to me in case I was wanted. It appears that they do not expect any immediate disturbance, so I shall be able to come with you on Thursday — in fact, there will be nothing to detain me.”

  “You had better stop if you think you are wanted,” said Eva. “I can manage perfectly by myself, and Jim Armine will be with me; he wrote to-day. But if they don’t want you, of course you’ll go with me.”

  “Armine is coming, then, is he?” asked her husband.

  “Yes; you don’t object to him, I hope?”

  “Not in the least.”

  “If you do, it would have been better if you had said so at once,” said Eva, carelessly. “I’ve asked him now.”

  “Why should you suppose I object to him?” he asked suddenly.

  “You didn’t seem very cordial about it. Have you asked anybody else?”

  “I mentioned it to my mother when I saw her in Trelso, but she said she wouldn’t come.”

  “Ah!” said Eva, with the ghost of a smi
le, “did she say why?”

  “Apparently it was for your sake — because of you, in fact.”

  “I expect she meant for her own sake. I should be charmed to have her. There is a straightforwardness, a refusal to compromise, in her behaviour to me, that is very refreshing.”

  “She speaks of you with bitterness — I might almost say rancour,” remarked Lord Hayes.

  “I am more sinned against than sinning, then,” said Eva. “I always feel perfectly charitable towards her. She loathes me; but, after all, that is not her fault. Really, it is wonderful what a fine order of hatred is compatible with the most orthodox Christianity. But of course I am one of the works of the devil, which she has been led to renounce from a child.”

  Thus it came about that, before the middle of December, Lord Hayes and his wife, and Jim Armine, were installed in the charming little villa at Algiers. The Gulf of Lyons was kinder on this occasion to the susceptibilities of Lord Hayes, and he produced his white umbrella, and sat on a deck chair in untroubled contemplation. He always wore a yachtsman’s cap and brown shoes on calm trips, which were, somehow, particularly aggravating to Eva.

  She was sitting on deck when he came upstairs on the morning after their departure from Marseilles, and Eva had a long, malignant look at him as he approached her.

  “You look completely nautical this morning,” she said slowly. “I hope it won’t get rough, for your sake, or you will have to retire. The commodore will be found groaning in his cabin. But, perhaps you are only a fighting sailor, like Lord Nelson, who was always ill, wasn’t he? In that case, I hope we sha’n’t meet any Moorish privateers. If we are attacked during a storm, you will be completely exposed.”

  Eva had rarely said anything to him in such simple bad taste, and her husband was surprised. The childishness of her strictures, however, rather amused him than otherwise, for he thought he had the key to them, in a rather awkward little scene which had taken place the evening before. Eva had been arguing some point with Jim Armine, and he had got a little excited. She had just made an assertion which seemed to him to contradict what she had said a moment before, and by an unlucky slip he exclaimed, —