Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  With streaming eyes and voice that choked she besought him.

  “Just give me what you can, my darling,” she said, “and oh, how content I will be! It is so short a time ago that you thought I could make you happy, and I can — believe me, I can. I was not worthy when you asked me first, but I have learned so much since I began to love you, and I am worthier now. You have always liked me, we have always been good friends, and you will get over this sudden infatuation for Elizabeth. I will be so good about that; I won’t be jealous of her. It wasn’t your fault that you fell in love with her; I will never reproach you for it. We shall be so happy together very soon; she will go back to India and you will forget. I will do anything except give you up!”

  Once or twice he had tried to interrupt her, but she swept his words away in the torrent of her entreaties. But here for a moment her voice utterly choked, and he put his arm round her, raising her, dragging her from her knees. Weeping hysterically, she clung to him, burying her face on his shoulder, and all the tenderness and kindliness in his nature came to him.

  “My dear, don’t talk like that,” he said, soothing her, “and don’t cry like that. Dry your eyes, Edith; there is nothing to cry about.”

  “Tell me, then,” she sobbed, “what are you going to do with me?”

  Still with his arm about her he led her across the room to the sofa where, half an hour ago, Elizabeth had fallen. There was no possibility of choice left him, and he saw that clearly enough. He could not break a promise made to one who loved him, the strength of whose love he had not even conjectured before. Undemonstrative and reticent by nature, Edith had never yet shown him her heart, nor had he known how completely it was his. There was no struggle any more; there was left to him only the self-humiliating task of comforting her.

  “God knows I will give you all I can,” he said. “I will do my best to make you happy. But, my dear, don’t humiliate me any more. I know that you are giving me all a woman can give a man. And it is sweet of you to forgive me; I don’t deserve to be forgiven. There, dry your eyes. Let me dry them for you. Never, never, I hope, will you cry again because of me.”

  Edith’s sobbing had ceased, and with a woman’s instinct she began to repair with deft fingers the little disorder of her dress.

  “Oh, I will love you so, my darling!” she whispered. “We shall be happy; I know we shall be happy. And when I give you the best gift of all, when I give you a child, and another child....”

  “Yes, yes, I know,” he said. “And how their grannie will love them!”

  She shrank away from him a moment at this. He had said anything that might comfort and quiet her, which came to his tongue.

  “And how we shall love them!” he added quickly. “There, you look more yourself.”

  Still leaning on him, as if loth to let him go, she turned her tear-stained face round to the mirror above the sofa.

  “Ah, but what a fright!” she said. “I shall just go and wash my face and then come back to you. Mother will be in any minute now. And I shall look into Elizabeth’s room, shall I not? She — she said she wanted to know.”

  The sounds of the arrival of the motor hastened her departure upstairs, and next moment Mrs. Hancock came in.

  “Well, it is nice to see you, my dear!” she said. “But I can’t say it’s a surprise, for I told Edith I was sure you would look in. But where’s Edith? And where’s Elizabeth?”

  Edward shook hands.

  “Elizabeth went to bed half an hour ago,” he said. “She was not feeling very well. Edith has just gone upstairs. She was going to look in and see how she was.”

  Mrs. Hancock sat down to her patience-table. She always played patience when she had been to a party, to calm herself after the excitement.

  “Isn’t that like my darling Edith!” she said. “Forgetting all about her ankle, I’ll be bound, and even about you, though you mustn’t scold her for it. She will have told you that her ankle began to pain her. Fancy! There is a second king already. Ring the bell, dear Edward, I must have a little lemonade, and no doubt you would like a whisky and soda. Another ace — how provoking!”

  Mrs. Hancock had a tremendous belief in her own perspicacity, and, looking at the young man, came to the very distinct conclusion that something had happened. His voice sounded rather odd, too. Simultaneously she caught sight of the wreck of Edith’s fan on the floor. Her remarkable powers of imagination instantly enabled her to connect this deplorable accident — for Edith was usually so careful — with whatever it was that had happened. Perhaps there had been a little tiff over Edward’s long-continued absence. She summoned up all her tact and all her optimism.

  “Why, if that isn’t Edith’s fan!” she said. “She must have dropped it and stepped on it. Or it would be more like Elizabeth to step on it. And what a long time you have been away. Edith was almost disposed to blame you for that, until she and I had a good talk together. I told her it would never do for you to neglect either your business or your friends. Once Mr. Hancock was away from me for a month, when there was either a slump or a boom in the markets. Dear me, how the old words come back to one, though I’m sure I forget what they mean! Has it been a slump or a boom, dear Edward, all this last fortnight?”

  “Oh, everything has been pretty quiet,” said he absently. He could barely focus his attention enough on what she was saying to understand her. Upstairs Edith had gone in to see Elizabeth — to tell her what had happened ——

  “I see,” said Mrs. Hancock, with great cordiality. “And so you have had to watch things very carefully. Such a pleasant dinner at Mr. Martin’s, and a great deal of wise and witty talk. And I have such a lovely plan for Elizabeth, which I shall tell her about to-morrow, so there’s no reason why I should not tell you now. I mean to let her stay with me after you have taken my darling away, all October and November, and come with me to Egypt, so that we shall all meet again, our happy little party. I have just heard from her father, who, of course, will pay for her travelling expenses, and he is quite agreeable, if Elizabeth likes. I quite look forward to telling her; she will go mad with joy, I think, for imagine a girl seeing Egypt at her age! I am very fond of Elizabeth; she is lively and cheerful, though I think she has felt the heat this last fortnight. So affectionate, is she not? And I’m not sure she doesn’t like her Cousin Edward best of all of us.”

  This amazing display of tactful conversation, designed to take Edward’s mind off any little tiff that he might have had with Edith, demanded some kind of appreciation from him.

  “I should be delighted to know that Elizabeth liked me,” he said.

  “You may be sure she does. Such a common interest you have, too, in music. Ah! here is Edith; and my patience is coming out in spite of that horrid ace which blocked me so long. We were talking about Elizabeth, dear, and I was telling Edward how fond she is of him.”

  The poor lady had touched the limit of his endurance.

  “I think I must be getting to bed,” he said.

  “Not wait and chat while I have my lemonade? Well, dear, it is nice to see you again, and I have no doubt that Edith will see you out, and lock the door after you, so that I need not ring for Lind again. Edith, my darling, your fan! Who could have stepped on it? Was it Elizabeth? And has your ankle ceased to pain you?”

  Edward followed Edith out into the hall. There was no repressing his anxiety to know.

  “Did you see her?” he asked.

  “Yes. Oh, Edward, I have been wronging Elizabeth so. And I am sorry. She told me she didn’t care for you, not one scrap. It — it had never entered her head. I asked her forgiveness for having had such dreadful thoughts about her. I don’t know how I thought so. It has made me quite happy. You see, she never thought of you. And she kissed me and forgave me.”

  She lifted her face to his.

  “She told me to tell you,” she said. “She — —”

  Edward kissed her quickly and stepped out into the black, cloud-shadowed night.

  CHAPTER XI


  THE TELEGRAM

  Mrs. Hancock was distinctly aware when, three days afterwards, she started in her motor for a drive with Elizabeth, that in order to live worthily up to Mr. Martin’s pattern of the thankful, cheerful Christian life, she had to keep a very firm hand on herself and nail her smile to her pleasant mouth. Indeed, for these last few days she had to set before herself an ideal not of cheerful, but of grinning Christianity. Like a prudent manager, however, she had steadfastly saved up as an all-conquering antidote to the depression and queerness which was so marked in Elizabeth, her joyful plan that should give the girl a month more of Heathmoor and her own undivided society and a reunited tour in Egypt afterwards at Colonel Fanshawe’s expense. The prospect of that, she felt sure, could not possibly fail to restore to Elizabeth her accustomed exhilaration and liveliness.

  Meantime Mrs. Hancock had carefully forborne to ask either of the girls (for Edith also had exhibited symptoms of queerness) what was ailing with the serenity of life. It fitted in with the cheerful gospel to know as little as possible about worrying and annoying topics, lest their infection should mar the soothing and uplifting influence over others of a mind wholly untroubled. Two inquiries only had she made (and those were from Edward), which elicited the comfortable fact that the event of the 8th of October still remained firm, and that he had not lost any money in the City. After that she firmly shut her eyes to any possible cause of trouble, and though one (and that the correct one) actually stood immediately in the foreground of her mental vision, she by long practice in obedience to Mr. Martin’s gospel had reached a pitch of absolute perfection in the feat of mental eye-closing, even as a child frightened by the dark can by an effort of will shut out terrifying possibilities by the corresponding physical feat, or firmly bury its head under the bed-clothes.

  But her victory over these subtle influences of gloom and general oddity had not been gained without effort. It had been distinctly hard to maintain an equable cheerfulness with Elizabeth. Sometimes for a little the girl was quite herself with a short-lived flood of high-spirited talk; sometimes from her sitting-room Mrs. Hancock would hear a flight of brilliant song-birds on the piano. But then suddenly the flood would cease from pouring, and the flight fail in mid-air. Once just after a silence had fallen on the ringing air she had come into the drawing-room to find Elizabeth sitting with her hands still resting on the keys, and her head bowed forward over them. Her assertion that she was not ill carried conviction; her denial that anything was the matter was less easy of belief. But she said it, and since successful inquiry might lead to disturbing information, Mrs. Hancock fell back on the unimpeachable general duty of trusting everybody completely and in particular of believing what Elizabeth said.

  But it required an effort to remain perfectly comfortable, for she was surrounded with people who did not appear to be so, and Edward, so it seemed to her, though he had lost no money and was going to marry Edith on the 8th of October, seemed to have been drawn into what she looked upon as a vicious circle — vicious since it was wrong, positively wrong, not to be happy and comfortable. She was not quick or discerning in the interpretation of symptoms, nor, indeed, when she suspected that anything was amiss, quick to see symptoms at all. But through her closed eyelids, so to speak, there filtered the fact that Elizabeth altogether avoided looking at Edward, but that he observed her with furtive, eager glances, that somehow seemed disappointed in what they sought. Also, though Elizabeth took spasmodic and violent spells at the piano, she never played in the evening when Edward was there, but had evinced a sudden desire to learn the new patience which Mrs. Hancock had found in a ladies’ paper. Mrs. Hancock did not so much wonder at that, for this particular mode of killing time was undoubtedly of thrilling interest, and she almost thought of buying Elizabeth a little patience-table for her birthday, which occurred in October. She intended in any case to look out the article in question in the catalogue from the stores and see how much it cost. There would be no harm in that, and if it cost more than she felt she could manage, why, there would be no necessity to say anything about it. But then an admirable notion struck her — her own table was getting a little rickety; it shook when she put cards down on to it. Also it was rather small for the great four-pack “King of Mexico,” which she had fully determined to learn this autumn. So Elizabeth should have her old table, and she would get a new one of size No. 1 (bevelled edges and adjustable top). That it was even more expensive did not trouble her, and she impressively told herself that she would not have dreamed of buying it had it not been that she wanted to give dear Elizabeth a present. In fact, though she bought it apparently for herself it was really Elizabeth for whom this great expense was incurred. And all these rich and refreshing rewards — namely, another month at Heathmoor, instead of the cobras and deserts of India, a tour in Egypt, and the most expensive patience-table at the stores — she would announce to her fortunate niece as they went round by the Old Mill. How all the look of trouble and depression would fade from dear Elizabeth’s face as she listened to the announcement of those delicious joys, one after the other. Mrs. Hancock felt a sudden gush of thankfulness to the kind disposition of Providence that had endowed her with the ample income which she was so eager to spend in securing the happiness of others; and even while, without self-conscious commonplace, she felt herself blessed in such opportunities and the will to take advantage of them, she could not help feeling how true it was that kindness and thought for others is so laden with gain for oneself. For she herself would have a new patience-table (size No. 1, with bevelled edges), a delightful companion throughout October, after Edith had left her, while Elizabeth’s father would pay her expenses in Egypt. She could not help feeling also how much more Christian and how much more Martinesque it was to stifle, smother, and destroy whatever might be the cause of Elizabeth’s trouble by this perfect shower of causes for happiness, rather than inquire into it and thus run the risk of being herself unsettled and made uneasy. But it had certainly required an effort; she had to put firmly out of her mind not only Elizabeth’s possible worries, but also the remembrance of the evening when she had come back from dinner with the Martins, and thought Edward’s voice had sounded odd, and seen Edith’s fan lying broken on the floor. That had never been explained. Edith had said subsequently that she supposed she must have stepped on it, but it was very odd she should not have noticed it, for the breaking of all those ivory sticks must have made quite a loud snap. Meantime the gong that heralded the arrival of the motor had sounded quite two minutes and Elizabeth had not yet appeared. Mrs. Hancock thought she would just speak to her on the subject of punctuality, and then wipe all impression of blame away by the recital of these prospective benefits. Elizabeth was not downstairs, and it was just possible that she had not heard the gong; Lind was told to sound it again.

  Elizabeth heard it the second time that it boomed, and rose from where she knelt by her bed, by the side of which five minutes ago she had flung herself, following, so it seemed to her, some blind instinctive impulse. That morning there had broken over her a storm of rayless despair. For a couple of days after her final rejection of Edward, when Edith’s absolute determination not to give him up voluntarily had been known to her, the apathetic quiet of the step taken, of deliberate renunciation, had been hers. But it had not been, and the poor girl guessed it, the peace that is always eventually not only the reward but the consequence of self-abnegation, but only the exhaustion that follows a prolonged mental effort. Edith’s choice, apart from the tremendous significance it had for herself, was incredible and monstrous to her nature. She did not question the fact that Edith loved Edward, but the notion of love not seeking the happiness of the beloved was to her inconceivable. She could not understand it, could not in consequence have the smallest sympathy with it. But this she had to take and did take on trust, and let depend on it her own unalterable decision — that decision that, as far as she could see, took the sun bodily out of her own life. From mere weariness she had found
in the dull acquiescence in this an apathy that had for a couple of days anæsthetized her. Against this insensitiveness, knowing that it was valueless, she had made pitiful little struggles, seeking now to establish some kind of sympathy and renewal of intimacy with her cousin, now to rouse herself to feel in music the passion with which it had inspired her. Instead, for the present, she found she had a shrinking abhorrence of it. Its beauty had become remote, and from its withdrawn eminence, its unassailable snow-peaks, it mocked her. It did more than mock; it reminded her of all it had done for her, how through it she and Edward had been brought together, to stand now close to each other, embracing, overlapping, yet with a thin, unmeltable ice between them.

  Then in due course had come the recuperation of her vital forces, and she had awoke this morning after long and dreamless sleep to find that the anæsthesia of her mind had passed off. For a couple of minutes perhaps she had lain still in the delicious consciousness of restored vigour, and of delight in the new freshness of the early day. Then as she became fully conscious of herself again, she found that what had been recuperated in her was but her capacity for suffering, and the blackness of a vivid despair, bright black, not dull black, fell on her, more black because she knew that it was a darkness of her own making. A word from her to Edward would scatter it and let loose the morning. She had no doubt of that, no doubt that he, at her bidding, would break the fetters of his promise that bound him as easily as if they had been but a wisp of unwoven straw. She told herself and, what was the more persuasive, she could hear his voice telling her that she was committing a crime against love, that she was refusing and bidding him profane the most sacred gift of all. She told herself that she was a fool to listen to any voice but that which sounded so insistently, but there was yet a voice, still and small, that was steadfast in its message to her. It was not that she cared one jot for the ordinary external consequences of a disobedience to that; she guessed that there would be a consensus of opinion in her favour if she disobeyed. No doubt they would say it was a deplorable accident that she and Edward had fallen in love with each other, but once the accident had happened it was best to make the best of a regrettable situation. The young man had never been in love with poor Edith; he had but fallen a lukewarm victim to the influence of propinquity and Mrs. Hancock. Certainly it was very sad for Miss Hancock, but she was young, she would get over it, and probably end by making quite a good marriage.