by E. F. Benson
Madge gave a little shriek of horror.
“That is one of the facts of life which I can’t get over,” she said. “I can’t reconcile myself to wanton destruction of beauty. Oh, there is so little in the world.”
Now, there is a particular mental sensation which corresponds to the physical sensation of stepping up a step when there is no step there. Evelyn felt this now.
She had gone suddenly into vacancy, with a thump.
“What do you mean?” he said. “I should have thought there was so much there that one was bewildered. Surely almost everything is beautiful.”
“Do you really think that?” she asked.
“Why, of course. But the trouble is that one has not wits enough to see it. And all beauty is equal — woman, man, mountain-side, pansy. And probably slug,” he added. “But to appreciate that would require a great deal of insight. But Sir John Lubbock says that earwigs are excellent mothers. That opened my eyes to earwigs.”
Again Madge walked on in silence for a space.
“Are you ever bored?” she asked at length.
“Bored? No. All that anyone has ever made is at one’s disposal to wonder at. And if one can’t do that, one can go and make something oneself. No, I hope I shall have the grace to commit suicide before I am bored.”
Madge stopped and turned to him. That she was being unwise she knew, but something intimate and indwelling dictated to her.
“I am bored every day of my life!” she said. “And how can I avoid it? Is it very stupid of me?”
Evelyn did not hesitate in his reply.
“Yes, very!” he said. “Because it is such a waste of time to be bored. People don’t recollect that.”
They had come opposite the drawing-room window, and as they passed Lady Ellington stepped out on to the terrace.
“Is that you, Madge?” she asked.
Even in the darkness Evelyn knew what had happened to Madge’s face. The fall of it was reflected in her voice.
“Yes; have you finished your bridge?” she asked.
“We are waiting for Mr. — Mr. Dundas to cut in,” she said. “Mr. Home thought he was in the smoking-room, and has gone there.”
“Oh, I am not in the smoking-room,” said Evelyn.
If one judged by definitions given in dictionaries it would probably be a misuse of language to say that Lady Ellington “played” bridge. Cards were dealt her, and she dealt with them, embarking on commercial transactions. She assessed the value of her hand with far more accuracy than she had ever brought to play on the assessment of her income-tax, and proceeded to deal with her assets with even more acuteness than she was accustomed to dispose on the expenditure of her income. Mrs. Home had silently entreated Philip to allow her to cut out, and Lady Ellington was left to play with three men. This she always enjoyed, because she took full advantage of the slight concessions which were allowed to her sex if no other woman was of the table. But before embarking on the second rubber she turned to Madge.
“I want to speak to you, dearest,” she said, “before you go to bed. We shall only play a couple more rubbers. Mr. Home, you really ought to have pneumatic cards; they are a little more expensive, but last so much longer — yes, two more rubbers — I go no trumps — and I will come to your room on my way up. No doubling? Thank you, partner; that is the suit I wanted.”
Philip, who was her partner, had exposed two excellent suits, so the imagination of the others might run riot over which particular suit was the desire of Lady Ellington. At any rate she scored a little slam, but was not satisfied, and turned on Evelyn, who, it is idle to remark, had talked during the play.
“I missed a nine,” she said. “Mr. Dundas was saying something very amusing.”
But as her face had been like flint, Mr. Dundas had to draw the inference that, however amusing, she had not been amused.
Lady Ellington always kept the score herself, and never showed any signs of moving, if she had won, until accounts had been adjusted and paid. To-night affairs had gone prosperously for her; she was gracious in her “good-nights,” and even commended the admirable temperature of the hot water, a glass of which she always sipped before going to bed. Madge had gone upstairs, but not long before; and her mother, having locked her winnings into her dressing-case, came to her room and found her sitting by the open window, still not yet preparing to go to bed.
“Do I understand that you walked on the terrace alone with Mr. Dundas?” she asked in a peculiarly chilly voice.
Madge showed no surprise; she had known what was coming.
“Yes, we took a turn or two,” she said.
Her mother sat down; Madge had not turned from the window and was still looking out.
“Kindly attend, Madge,” she said. “It was very indiscreet, and you know it. I don’t think Mr. Home liked it.”
Of the girl who had talked so eagerly and naturally to Evelyn on the terrace there was hardly a trace; Madge’s face had grown nearly as hard as her mother’s.
“I am not bound just yet to do all Mr. Home likes,” she said.
“You are bound, if you are a sensible creature, at all events not to run any risks, especially now.”
Madge turned away from the window.
“You mean until the bargain is completed. Supposing I refuse?” she said, and there was a little tremor in her voice, partly of contempt, partly of fear.
Lady Ellington, as has been remarked, never let her emotions, however justifiable, run away with her; she never, above all, got hot or angry. Causes which in others would produce anger, produced in her only an additional coldness and dryness, which Madge was, somehow, afraid of with unreasoning nightmare kind of fear.
“I will not suppose anything so absurd!” said her mother. “You are twenty-five years old, and you have never yet fallen in love at all. But as I have pointed out to you before, you will be far happier married than living on into the loneliness and insignificance of being an old maid. Lots of girls never fall in love in the silly, sentimental manner which produces lyrics. You are quite certainly one of them. And as certainly Mr. Home is in love with you.”
“We have been into this before,” said the girl.
“It is necessary, apparently, to go into it again. Mr. Home, I feel certain, is going to propose to you, and you should not do indiscreet things. With regard to your refusing him, it is out of the question. He is extremely suitable in every way. And you told me yourself you had made up your mind to accept him.”
“You made up my mind,” said Madge; “but it comes to the same thing.”
“Precisely. So please promise me not to do anything which a girl in your position should not do. There is no earthly harm in your walking with any penniless artist in the moonlight, if you were not situated as you are. But at the moment it is indiscreet.”
“You are wrong if you suppose that Mr. Dundas said anything to me which could possibly be interpreted into a tender interest,” said Madge. “He called attention to the moon merely in order to remark that it was out of drawing.”
“That never occurred to me,” said her mother, “though it would be a matter of total indifference whether he took a tender interest in you or not. I merely want your promise that you will not repeat the indiscretion.”
“Oh, certainly,” said Madge.
Lady Ellington had put her bedroom candle on Madge’s dressing-table. As soon as she had received the assurance she required, she at once rose from her chair and took it up. But with it in her hand she stood silent a moment, then she put it down again.
“You have spoken again of things I thought were settled, Madge,” she said, “and I should like your assurance on one point further. We agreed, did we not, that it would be far better for you to marry than remain single. We agreed also that you were not of the sort of nature that falls passionately in love, and we agreed that you had better marry a man whom you thoroughly like and esteem. Mr. Home is such a man. Is that correctly stated?”
“Quite,” said Madge.
“In fact, I don’t know why I suggested that I should refuse him.”
“You agree to it all still?”
Madge considered a moment.
“Yes; things being as they are, I agree.”
“What do you mean by that exactly?”
Madge got up, and swept across the room to where her mother stood.
“I have long meant to say this to you, mother,” she said, “but I never have yet. I mean that at my age one’s character to some extent certainly is formed. One has to deal with oneself as that self exists. But my character was formed by education partly and by my upbringing, for which you are responsible. I think you have taught me not to feel — to be hard.”
Lady Ellington did not resent this in the slightest; indeed, it was part of her plan of life never to resent what anybody did or said; for going back to first principles, resentment was generally so useless.
“I hope I have taught you to be sensible,” she remarked.
“It seems to me I am being very sensible now,” said Madge, “and you may certainly take all the credit of that, if you wish. I fully intend to do, at any rate, exactly what you suggest — to accept, that is to say, a man whom I both esteem and respect, and who is thoroughly suitable. For suitable let us say wealthy — because that is what we mean.”
Lady Ellington qualified this.
“I should not wish you to marry a cad, however wealthy,” she said.
Madge moved softly up and down the room, her dress whispering on the carpet before she replied.
“And it does not strike you that this is rather a cold-blooded proceeding?” she asked.
“It would if you were in love with somebody else. In which case I should not recommend you to marry Mr. Home. But as it is, it is the most sensible thing you can do. I would go further than that; I should say it was your duty.”
Again Madge walked up and down without replying at once.
“Ah, it is cold-blooded,” she said, “and I am doing it because I am cold-blooded.”
Then she stopped opposite her mother.
“Mother, when other girls fall in love, do they only feel like this?” she asked. “Is this all? Just to feel that for the rest of one’s life one will always have a very pleasant companion in the house, who, I am sure, will always deserve one’s liking and esteem?”
Lady Ellington laughed.
“My dear, I can’t say what other girls feel. But, as you remark, it is all you feel. You are twenty-five years old, and you have never fallen in love. As you say, you have to take yourself as you are. Good night, dear. It is very late.”
She kissed her, left her, and went down the passage to her own room. She was a very consistent woman, and it was not in the slightest degree likely that she should distrust the very sensible train of reasoning which she had indicated to her daughter, which also she had held for years, that a sensible marriage is the best policy in which to invest a daughter’s happiness. Lady Ellington’s own experience, indeed, supplied her with evidence to support her view, for she herself was an excellent case in point, for her husband had been a man with whom she had never been the least in love, but with whom, on the other hand, she had managed to be very happy in a cast-iron sort of way. She felt, indeed, quite sure, in her reasonable mind, that she was acting wisely for Madge, and it was not in her nature to let an unreasonable doubt trouble her peace. But an unreasonable doubt was there, and it was this, that Madge for the first time, as far as she knew, seemed to have contemplated the possibility of passion coming into her life. There had been in her mind, so her mother felt sure, an unasked question— “What if I do fall in love?”
Lady Ellington turned this over in the well-lit chamber of her brain as she went to bed. But her common-sense came to her aid, and she did not lie awake thinking of it. She had made up her mind that such a thing was unlikely to the verge of impossibility, and she never wasted time or thought over what was impossible. Her imagination, it is true, was continually busy over likely combinations; there were, however, so many of these that things unlikely did not concern her.
The men meantime had gone to the smoking-room, and from there had moved out in general quest of coolness on to the terrace. The moon had risen nearly to the zenith, and no longer offended Evelyn’s sense of proportion, and the night, dusky and warm, disposed to personal talk. And since neither Evelyn nor Philip had seen Tom Merivale for a year, it was he who had first to be brought up to date.
“So go on with what you were saying at dinner, Tom,” said Evelyn. “Really, people who are friends ought to keep a sort of circulating magazine, in which they write themselves up and send it round to the circle. In any case, you of the three of us are most in arrears. What have you done besides growing so much younger?”
“Do you really want to know?” asked he.
“Yes.”
Evelyn rose as he spoke and squirted some soda-water into his glass. They were sitting in the square of light illuminated by the lamps of the room inside, and what passed was clearly visible to all of them.
“You must sit quiet then,” said Tom, in his low, even-toned voice, “or you will frighten them.”
“Them? Whom? Are you going to raise spirits from the vasty deep?” asked Philip.
“Oh, no; though I fancy it would not be so difficult. No, what I am going to show you, if you care to see it — it may take ten minutes — is a thing that requires no confederates. It is not the least exciting either. Only if you wish to see what I have done, as you call it, though personally I should say what I have become, I can give you an example probably. Oh, yes, more than probably, I am sure I can. But please sit still.”
The night was very windless and silent. In the woods below a nightingale was singing, but the little wind which had stirred before among the garden beds had completely dropped.
“Have you begun?” asked Evelyn. “Or is that all? Is it that you have been silent for a year?”
“Ah, don’t interrupt,” said the other.
Again there was silence, except for the bubbling of the nightingale. Four notes it sang, four notes of white sound as pure as flame; then it broke into a liquid bubble of melodious water, all transparent, translucent, the apotheosis of song. Then a thrill of ecstasy possessed it, and cadence followed indescribable cadence, as if the unheard voice of all nature was incarnated. Then quite suddenly the song ceased altogether.
There was a long pause; both Evelyn and Philip sat in absolute silence, waiting. Tom Merivale had always been so sober and literal a fellow that they took his suggestion with the same faith that they took the statements of an almanack — it was sure to be the day that the almanack said it was. But for what they waited — what day it was — neither knew nor guessed.
Then the air was divided by fluttering wings; Tom held his hand out, and on the forefinger there perched a little brown bird.
“Sing, dear,” said he.
The bird threw its head back, for nightingales sing with the open throat. And from close at hand they all three heard the authentic love song of the nightingale. The unpremeditated rapture poured from it, wings quivering, throat throbbing, the whole little brown body was alert with melody, instinctive, untaught, the melody of happiness, of love made audible. Then, tired, it stopped.
“Thank you, dear brother,” said Tom. “Go home.”
Again a flutter of wings whispered in the air, and his forefinger was untenanted.
“That is what I have done,” he said. “But that is only the beginning.”
Evelyn gave a long sigh.
“Are you mad, or are we?” he asked. “Or was there a bird there? Or are you a hypnotist?”
He got up quickly.
“Phil, I swear I saw a bird, and heard it sing,” he said excitedly. “It was sitting there, there on his finger. What has happened? Go on, Tom — tell us what it means.”
“It means you are the son of a monkey, as Darwin proved,” said he, “and the grandson, so to speak, of a potato. That is all. It was a cousin of a kind
that sat on my finger. Philip, with his gold and his Stock Exchange and his business generally, does much more curious things than that. But, personally, I do not find them so interesting.”
Philip, silent as was his wont when puzzled, instead of rushing into speech, had said nothing. But now he asked a question.
“Of course, it was not a conjuring trick,” he said. “That would be futility itself. But you used to have extraordinary hypnotic power, Tom. I only ask — Was that a real nightingale?”
“Quite real.”
Evelyn put down his glass untasted.
“I am frightened,” he said. “I shall go to bed.”
And without more words he bolted into the house.
Philip called good night after him, but there was no response, and he was left alone with the Hermit.
“I am not frightened,” he said. “But what on earth does it all mean? Have a drink?”
Tom Merivale laughed quietly.
“It means exactly what I have said,” he answered. “Come down to my home sometime, and you shall see. It is all quite simple and quite true. It is all as old as love and as new as love. It is also perfectly commonplace. It must be so. I have only taken the trouble to verify it.”
Philip’s cool business qualities came to his aid, or his undoing.
“You mean you can convey a message to a bird or a beast?” he asked.
“Oh, yes. Why not? The idea is somehow upsetting to you. Pray don’t let it upset you. Nothing that happens can ever be upsetting. It is only the things that don’t happen that are such anxieties, for fear they may. But when they have happened they are never alarming.”
He pushed his chair back and got up.
“Ah, I have learned one thing in this last year,” he said, “and that is to be frightened at nothing. Fear is the one indefensible emotion. You can do nothing at all if you are afraid. You know that yourself in business. But whether you embark on business or on — what shall I call it? — nature-lore, the one thing indispensable is to go ahead. To take your stand firmly on what you know, and deduce from that. Then to test your deduction, and as soon as one will bear your weight to stand on that and deduce again, being quite sure all the time that whatever is true is right. Perhaps sometime the world in general may see, not degradation in the origin of man from animals, but the extraordinary nobility of it. And then perhaps they will go further back — back to Pagan things, to Pan, the God of nature.”