Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  “But have we really done anything so awful?” she asked. “Is it highly improper that Edward and I should go to the opera together? There were about two thousand people there to chaperone us, and a lot of them were so respectable — bald men and stringy women!” She laughed again. “Did you see the one just behind us, Edward?” she said. “I’m sure you did! She had been out and got caught in a sudden shower of diamonds. She was peppered with them. There were several on her forehead, and I think one on her nose. Oh, dear!”

  “And why that?” asked Edith.

  “Because I feel quite mad, and because I am afraid I shall recover. I suppose I shall go to Heathmoor again to-morrow. There will be Lind there, and Mr. Martin, and, and —— Any other place would be as bad. It isn’t that Heathmoor is more impossible than London or India, or any other place would be. Yes, I’ll remember that you sprained your ankle after the opera — about now, in fact; and then I helped you to bed, and then I went to bed myself, exactly as I’m going to do! Oh, I’m so tired! Good-night, Siegfried and Brunnhilde! Edward, you are a darling for taking me!”

  Next minute she was alone in her bedroom, and there shot through her like fire a pain, agonizing and contemptible, which she had never known before; the intolerable torture of jealousy seized her, and she writhed in its grip. As clearly as if the scene was before her eyes, she knew what was happening next door. She could almost hear Edith saying in that quiet, sincere voice of hers, “Now we shall have a little time alone, Edward. I thought dear Elizabeth was never going. Is she not queer and excited to-night?” And she would hold out her hand to him, and he would sit on the edge of her sofa holding it in his, and he would bend to kiss her, not once, not once only. They would whisper together the words that were natural and proper between pledged lovers, the words that but an hour ago he was burning to say to her. Now, she made no doubt, he was glib with them to Edith. And yet an hour ago she had wrenched herself away from his arm and his kiss with horror and upheaval of her nature. Of that horror there was nothing left now in the hour of the first onslaught of jealousy. Now it was inconceivable to her that when he had offered her what she longed for, the thought of which, given to another, made her writhe with jealousy, she could have rejected it. She had repulsed him for wanting to give her what her whole heart cried out for, and what was hers, though he had already sworn it away to another. He had not met her, then; he did not know that she was ordained for him, even as he for her. And now, just because he had promised like a child, not knowing what he promised, he was giving all that by right was hers to a girl whom he did not love.

  For a moment that thought, namely, that Edith was nothing to him, assuaged her; she might as well be jealous of a dog that he caressed and mumbled nonsense-love to, and her rage turned against herself for having been so insane as to give him scruples instead of welcome. What if she went back now into the room she had so lately left, and said to Edith, “Let him go; you will have to let him go. It is not you he cares for!” What if she challenged him to say which of them he chose? She knew well what his answer would be.

  Inconceivable as was her folly in rejecting him, equally inconceivable was her mood on that morning — was it only the morning of to-day? — when she walked about the dewy garden in an ecstasy of happiness at the knowledge of her love. She had thought it was sufficient to love; it had made her happy to do that. But she had understood nothing of its nature then. It was only when she saw Brunnhilde awake to Siegfried’s kiss that she had begun to understand. And the full understanding had come when Edward clasped and kissed her, and she for that moment had clung to him, only to push him away, to thrust from her just that which she wanted, which her whole soul needed. It was but a foolish fairy-tale she had told herself among the roses and sweet peas — a tale of sexless, bodiless love, fit for a Sunday School or a Bible-reading — a tale of white blossoms and white robes — a thing for children and old maids.

  The Inquisition had another pair of pincers heating for her; they were ready now, and glowing. What if his moment’s heat and flash of desire for her was but the fruit of excitement, but the froth which the music had stirred up in him? Certainly it had been easy to quell it. She had but to tell him to let go of her and he obeyed; to get out of the motor, and then he stood on the pavement. She despised his weakness, for surely a man who was in earnest, who was stirred even as she was stirred, not by some mere breeze of attraction, or by the excitement of a stimulated scene, but felt the heart’s need, would not have relinquished her as easily as that. Yet it looked to her in unreasoning agony that it was so, for now he was with Edith, indulging in more madrigals, no doubt. Yet, when she thought as collectedly as might be for a second she had the cold water ready for those pincers. She knew really that what she now called his weakness was in reality of the same stuff as her own strength; that which made her strong — that grotesque angular old image called “Honour” — was one with the reason of his yielding to her. She was left alone with that now; next door a precisely similar idol presided over the two whom she raged to think upon.

  Yet, if he had not so easily succumbed to her strength, or if, to put it more truthfully, if they had not both been held in by the force that restrained the hot impulse, that governed, that laid cool hands on the reins he had flung away, would she, so she asked herself now, have continued to persist, have ranged her will and purpose against his, till there was no more courage left in her? She did not know; swift and decisive though the struggle had been, it seemed to have taken all the force of which she was capable to make it at all.

  For the moment there was remission for her at the hands of her jealousy, and she walked across to the window and stood behind the curtain looking out on to the moon-emblazoned river. The flood-tide was at its height, and the reflection of the lights from the farther bank lay on the lake-like surface in unwavering lines. Stars and moon burning in the blaze of an everlasting day, and something in the calm of the night, in the eternal progress of those shining worlds, gave her a momentary tranquillity, so that she was able to ask herself this question, on the answer to which all depended, with a mind aloof from herself. How long her will could have held out against her love she did not know, but she knew she would not have chosen to yield.

  And at that moment she had won, had she but known it, the first real battle of her life. For that moment she stood with her banner waving round her. The next she was back in the thick of the mêlée again, without tactics, without any sense of there being any one in command of the army she fought with, or even of herself being but a unit in an immense warfare. She felt utterly alone, struggling, yet hardly knowing why, knowing only that the odds against her seemed desperate.

  CHAPTER IX

  EDWARD’S ABSENCE

  The injury to Edith’s ankle which, according to the authorized version, had happened on their return from the opera to the hotel, gave more trouble than she had expected, and ten days after its infliction she was still a limping pedestrian. This morning she was whiling away the half-hour that would elapse before the motor took her out with her mother, in a long chair in the strip of shade just outside the drawing-room window, with an unread paper on her knees, hearing rather than listening to Elizabeth’s stormy performance on the piano. The agitation that sounded there was not confined to those musical excursions, for ever since that night at the opera there had been something about Elizabeth that her cousin would have summed up in the word “queer.” Had not other circumstances and other people been “queer,” too, she would probably have been content to define without analysis. As it was, she had spent a good deal of time during this last week in attempting to penetrate this queerness of Elizabeth, and seeing if it fitted in with other oddities. And she had come to the uncomfortable conclusion that they were not unconnected.

  Very small phenomena — more remembered now than noticed at the time — had announced, like horns faintly blowing, the train of circumstances that were growing peaked, like a volcano-cone, and promised eruption. Such, for instance, ha
d been her sense that something had happened on the afternoon when Edward had interrupted Elizabeth’s practising. It was barely noticeable at the time, but it tended to confirm her view of subsequent happenings, which began to take shape and substance in her mind on the evening of the opera. That night Elizabeth had been rather oddly excited, and though an excited Elizabeth was a daily, if not an hourly, phenomenon, her excitement then had been of peculiar texture. Though not given to similes, it had represented itself, quaintly enough, to Edith’s mind, under the image of Elizabeth holding some young living thing — a puppy or a kitten — down in a bucket of water to drown it, while to draw off attention from her employment she had been wildly and incoherently talkative. At the time it had struck Edith that her excitement was not merely a reaction from the climax of music and drama; she was certainly attempting to drown something, and while her tongue was voluble with vivid talk her fingers were holding something down, shrinking but resolute.

  This was not wholly an affair of memory and interpretation; the impression had been conveyed to Edith at the time, and now, taken in conjunction with other events and conclusions, it assumed the importance of a cipher, when a numeral is prefixed to it. And the numeral, without doubt, was Edward. For on the night of the opera, after Elizabeth had gone to her bedroom, Edward had lingered for a talk, and he had been as inanimate as Elizabeth had been vivid, as grey as she had been rainbowed. He was absent-minded, preoccupied, inaccessible; he had nothing enthusiastic or enraptured to tell her about the opera which had so stirred his companion, and yet when questioned he said that so far from being disappointed with it it had been magnificent. To her comment that Elizabeth had seemed to enjoy it, he had for reply, that “he believed she did.” Half a dozen times he had tried to rouse himself, and for a few minutes had pulled himself up by muscular effort, as it were, to a normal level, but as often as he thus exerted himself he fell back again below the surface, below waves and waters. And once more her own image of Elizabeth trying to drown something occurred to her. Then, again, Edward would ask after her injured ankle, and not listening to her reply, repeat his inquiries; he suggested a train for their return next morning to Heathmoor, having himself arranged half an hour before they were to drive down in his car. Finally, Edith, half-amused, half-piqued with him, had told him that whether he knew it or not, he was tired, and had better follow Elizabeth’s example and go to bed. For a few minutes after that he had roused himself to the performance of the little loverlike speeches, the touches and hints of their relationship. It had never been the habit of either to be demonstrative, but to-night these attentions seemed to her purely mechanical things, wooden and creaking, not the result of the fatigue with which she had saddled him.

  Since that night, instead of seeing him, as she was accustomed to do, every evening on his return from town, she had not once set eyes on him. He had telephoned next day that stress of business kept him that night in London (a thing that occasionally happened) but the same stress of business, it appeared, had prevented his coming down to his house next door ever since. A Sunday had intervened, and he had merely told her that he was engaged to pay a week-end visit, and this morning a further note had come, saying that a similar engagement prevented his coming down on the Saturday that was at hand. It was true that he had written to her with frequent regularity, for every morning presented her with a note from him, but those communications were of the most unsatisfactory description, with perfunctory regrets for his continued absence, and perfunctory assurances of the imperativeness of the employments which detained him. Once he had said that the hot weather had pulled him down from the usual serenity of his health, and visited him with headaches, but her inquiry and sympathy on this point had brought forth no further allusion to it. He was still staying at the Savoy Hotel, for while work was so heavy it was not worth while getting to Heathmoor late in the evening, only to leave by the early train in the morning. This, he said, would only add further fatigue to a fatiguing day. And he had clearly written in, between lines, “I should not set eyes on you, even. How is your ankle?”

  These notes, as has been mentioned, arrived with regularity, but they were not the only communications received at Arundel from him. Twice, to Edith’s knowledge, Elizabeth had heard from him, and, allowing herself now to suspect everything and everybody, Edith imagined that her cousin had heard oftener than that. For the early post was delivered at the house an hour before breakfast-time, and was sent up to the rooms of its various destinations. But a week ago now, Edith, by chance, had come down before its arrival, and when it came had sorted it out herself and seen the neat unmistakable handwriting; and to-day, in obedience to a definite jealousy and suspicion, she had come down early again, and again found that Edward had written to her cousin. This time, hating herself for it, yet unable to resist, she had fingered the envelope and come to the conclusion that there were certainly two sheets in it. To neither of these letters had Elizabeth made the slightest allusion.

  There remained to colour, as it were, all these various outlined features with a general “wash” the aspect of Elizabeth, the impression of her. Of Edward she could only judge by the tenor of his notes, and in them he revealed nothing except reticence. But Elizabeth was here, her moods, her appearance, her voice, all gave information about her; and if Edward’s notes suggested reticence, Elizabeth suggested repression. It required very little knowledge of human nature (luckily for Edith, since her acquirements in that supreme branch of knowledge were of the most elementary description) to see that her mind was beset by some monstrous incubus. Often she sat silent and absorbed, and then, with an effort, would break into a torrent of broken-winged high spirits and gaiety, which presented the appearance of a fair forgery of her normal appreciative pleasure in life. Then, with equal suddenness, she would seem incapable of keeping up this spurious pageant, and in the middle of some voluble extravagance she would sink back again into a nervous silence. More than once this change had come on the ringing of the front door bell, which, sounding in the kitchen passage, was clearly audible from the garden. Not once or twice only in this last week had Edith seen her drop suddenly into a restless silence when this innocent harbinger was heard, while with eager and shrinking anxiety she watched beneath dropped eyelids for the appearance of a visitor. Sometimes some such would appear and Elizabeth would soon make an excuse for a visit to the house or a conjecture as to the arrival of the post.

  Now up till the moment of her falling in love with Edward, Edith’s potentialities for jealousy had remained practically dormant and sealed up in her nature, the reason presumably being that she had not cared enough about anybody to be able to wake that green-eyed monster, three-quarters fiend and one-quarter angel, from its hibernation. For though jealousy is a passion which at first sight seems wholly ugly and contemptible, it must not be forgotten that its very existence postulates the pre-existence among its ancestors of love. Love, we may say, represents one of its grandparents; it is always of that noble descent. Or, if it be argued that a passion so utterly mean is wholly lacking in the open-hearted trust which so emphatically is in the essence of love, it must at least be conceded that love is in the hand that turns the key or breaks the seal of the cell where jealousy lies confined, then flings open the door to let the wild and secret prisoner escape and roam. The love that is lofty, that seeks not its own, will no doubt wring its hands in despair to see what sort of intruder it has set loose, will use its best efforts, shocked at the appearance of this monster, to confine it again; but without love never has jealousy been allowed to get free, to root about among the springing crops of the heart, devouring, trampling, spoiling. And in Edith’s case her love had from the first come mixed with the sense and pride of possession; its first act, while yet new-born, was to set guards round its treasure, sentinels to watch. To-day they were wide-eyed and alert.

  From inside the drawing-room came the sound of the galloping squadrons of chord and scale and harmony; Brahms was working up to one of his great intellectua
l crises with an attack thought out, brilliantly manoeuvred, before delivering the irresistible assault. Then quite suddenly the music entirely ceased in the middle of a bar, and there was dead silence. For half a second Edith conjectured the turning of a page, but the half second grew and grew, and it was clear that it was no such momentary halt as this that had been called. Simply, Elizabeth had finished, had broken off in the middle.

  An idea, an explanation leaped into Edith’s mind, suggested to her by one of her green-eyed sentinels, and in her present mental condition, sapped as it was by the secret indulgence of a week’s jealousy, she was unable to resist testing the accuracy of her conjecture as she was to resist the demands of her lungs for air. But in pursuance of her object she waited without moving until the pulse in her clenched hand had throbbed a hundred beats. Then very quietly she got out of her chair and went softly in through the open garden door into the drawing-room.

  Elizabeth was sitting with her back towards her at the writing-table that stood at the far end of the room. As Edith entered the swift passage of her pen ceased, and she sat with her head resting on one hand, thinking intently. Then, taking it up again, she began writing once more. Edith had seen enough for her present purpose, and she took an audible step forward. Instantly Elizabeth turned round, and as she turned she shut the blotting-book on her unfinished letter.

  “Oh, how you startled me!” she said. “I thought somehow you had gone out driving with Aunt Julia.”

  Edith sat down.

  “No, the car has not come round yet,” she said. “It will be here in a minute. We shall pass the post-office; I will post your letter for you.”