by E. F. Benson
She raised her head.
“My son!” she said in a voice loud and triumphant. Then her head fell back again, and she lay with face close to his, and her eyelids quivered and shut. Her breath came slow and regular, as if she slept. Then he heard that she missed a breath, and soon after another. Then, without struggle at all, her breathing ceased. . . . And outside on the lawn close by the open window the thrush still sang.
It was an hour later when Michael left, having waited for his father’s arrival, and drove to town through the clear, falling dusk. He was conscious of no feeling of grief at all, only of a complete pervading happiness. He could not have imagined so perfect a close, nor could he have desired anything different from that imperishable moment when his mother, all trouble past, had come back to him in the serene calm of love. . . .
As he entered London he saw the newsboards all placarded with one fact: England had declared war on Germany.
He went, not to his own flat, but straight to Maidstone Crescent. With those few minutes in which his mother had known him, the stupor that had beset his emotions all day passed off, and he felt himself longing, as he had never longed before, for Sylvia’s presence. Long ago he had given her all that he knew of as himself; now there was a fresh gift. He had to give her all that those moments had taught him. Even as already they were knitted into him, made part of him, so must they be to her. . . . And when they had shared that, when, like water gushing from a spring she flooded him, there was that other news which he had seen on the newsboards that they had to share together.
Sylvia had been alone all day with her mother; but, before Michael arrived, Mrs. Falbe (after a few more encouraging remarks about war in general, to the effect that Germany would soon beat France, and what a blessing it was that England was an island) had taken her book up to her room, and Sylvia was sitting alone in the deep dusk of the evening. She did not even trouble to turn on the light, for she felt unable to apply herself to any practical task, and she could think and take hold of herself better in the dark. All day she had longed for Michael to come to her, though she had not cared to see anybody else, and several times she had rung him up, only to find that he was still out, supposedly with his mother, for he had been summoned to her early that morning, and since then no news had come of him. Just before dinner had arrived the announcement of the declaration of war, and Sylvia sat now trying to find some escape from the encompassing nightmare. She felt confused and distracted with it; she could not think consecutively, but only contemplate shudderingly the series of pictures that presented themselves to her mind. Somewhere now, in the hosts of the Fatherland, which was hers also, was Hermann, the brother who was part of herself. When she thought of him, she seemed to be with him, to see the glint of his rifle, to feel her heart on his heart, big with passionate patriotism. She had no doubt that patriotism formed the essence of his consciousness, and yet by now probably he knew that the land beloved by him, where he had made his home, was at war with his own. She could not but know how often his thoughts dwelled here in the dark quiet studio where she sat, and where so many days of happiness had been passed. She knew what she was to him, she and her mother and Michael, and the hosts of friends in this land which had become his foe. Would he have gone, she asked herself, if he had guessed that there would be war between the two? She thought he would, though she knew that for herself she would have made it as hard as possible for him to do so. She would have used every argument she could think of to dissuade him, and yet she felt that her entreaties would have beaten in vain against the granite of his and her nationality. Dimly she had foreseen this contingency when, a few days ago, she had asked Michael what he would do if England went to war, and now that contingency was realised, and Hermann was even now perhaps on his way to violate the neutrality of the country for the sake of which England had gone to war. On the other side was Michael, into whose keeping she had given herself and her love, and on which side was she? It was then that the nightmare came close to her; she could not tell, she was utterly unable to decide. Her heart was Michael’s; her heart was her brother’s also. The one personified Germany for her, the other England. It was as if she saw Hermann and Michael with bayonet and rifle stalking each other across some land of sand-dunes and hollows, creeping closer to each other, always closer. She felt as if she would have gladly given herself over to an eternity of torment, if only they could have had one hour more, all three of them, together here, as on that night of stars and peace when first there came the news which for the moment had disquieted Hermann.
She longed as with thirst for Michael to come, and as her solitude became more and more intolerable, a hundred hideous fancies obsessed her. What if some accident had happened to Michael, or what, if in this tremendous breaking of ties that the war entailed, he felt that he could not see her? She knew that was an impossibility; but the whole world had become impossible. And there was no escape. Somehow she had to adjust herself to the unthinkable; somehow her relations both with Hermann and Michael had to remain absolutely unshaken. Even that was not enough: they had to be strengthened, made impregnable.
Then came a knock on the side door of the studio that led into the street: Michael often came that way without passing through the house, and with a sense of relief she ran to it and unlocked it. And even as he stepped in, before any word of greeting had been exchanged, she flung herself on him, with fingers eager for the touch of his solidity. . . .
“Oh, my dear,” she said. “I have longed for you, just longed for you. I never wanted you so much. I have been sitting in the dark desolate — desolate. And oh! my darling, what a beast I am to think of nothing but myself. I am ashamed. What of your mother, Michael?”
She turned on the light as they walked back across the studio, and Michael saw that her eyes, which were a little dazzled by the change from the dark into the light, were dim with unshed tears, and her hands clung to him as never before had they clung. She needed him now with that imperative need which in trouble can only turn to love for comfort. She wanted that only; the fact of him with her, in this land in which she had suddenly become an alien, an enemy, though all her friends except Hermann were here. And instantaneously, as a baby at the breast, she found that all his strength and serenity were hers.
They sat down on the sofa by the piano, side by side, with hands intertwined before Michael answered. He looked up at her as he spoke, and in his eyes was the quiet of love and death.
“My mother died an hour ago,” he said. “I was with her, and as I had longed might happen, she came back to me before she died. For two or three minutes she was herself. And then she said to me, ‘My son,’ and soon she ceased breathing.”
“Oh, Michael,” she said, and for a little while there was silence, and in turn it was her presence that he clung to. Presently he spoke again.
“Sylvia, I’m so frightfully hungry,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve eaten anything since breakfast. May we go and forage?”
“Oh, you poor thing!” she cried. “Yes, let’s go and see what there is.”
Instantly she busied herself.
“Hermann left the cellar key on the chimney-piece, Michael,” she said. “Get some wine out, dear. Mother and I don’t drink any. And there’s some ham, I know. While you are getting wine, I’ll broil some. And there were some strawberries. I shall have some supper with you. What a good thought! And you must be famished.”
As they ate they talked perfectly simply and naturally of the hundred associations which this studio meal at the end of the evening called up concerning the Sunday night parties. There was an occasion on which Hermann tried to recollect how to mull beer, with results that smelled like a brickfield; there was another when a poached egg had fallen, exploding softly as it fell into the piano. There was the occasion, the first on which Michael had been present, when two eminent actors imitated each other; another when Francis came and made himself so immensely agreeable. It was after that one that Sylvia and Hermann had sat and talked in f
ront of the stove, discussing, as Sylvia laughed to remember, what she would say when Michael proposed to her. Then had come the break in Michael’s attendances and, as Sylvia allowed, a certain falling-off in gaiety.
“But it was really Hermann and I who made you gay originally,” she said. “We take a wonderful deal of credit for that.”
All this was as completely natural for them as was the impromptu meal, and soon without effort Michael spoke of his mother again, and presently afterwards of the news of war. But with him by her side Sylvia found her courage come back to her; the news itself, all that it certainly implied, and all the horror that it held, no longer filled her with the sense that it was impossibly terrible. Michael did not diminish the awfulness of it, but he gave her the power of looking out bravely at it. Nor did he shrink from speaking of all that had been to her so grim a nightmare.
“You haven’t heard from Hermann?” he asked.
“No. And I suppose we can’t hear now. He is with his regiment, that’s all; nor shall we hear of him till there is peace again.”
She came a little closer to him.
“Michael, I have to face it, that I may never see Hermann again,” she said. “Mother doesn’t fear it, you know. She — the darling — she lives in a sort of dream. I don’t want her to wake from it. But how can I get accustomed to the thought that perhaps I shan’t see Hermann again? I must get accustomed to it: I’ve got to live with it, and not quarrel with it.”
He took up her hand, enclosing it in his.
“But, one doesn’t quarrel with the big things of life,” he said. “Isn’t it so? We haven’t any quarrel with things like death and duty. Dear me, I’m afraid I’m preaching.”
“Preach, then,” she said.
“Well, it’s just that. We don’t quarrel with them: they manage themselves. Hermann’s going managed itself. It had to be.”
Her voice quivered as she spoke now.
“Are you going?” she asked. “Will that have to be?”
Michael looked at her a moment with infinite tenderness.
“Oh, my dear, of course it will,” he said. “Of course, one doesn’t know yet what the War Office will do about the Army. I suppose it’s possible that they will send troops to France. All that concerns me is that I shall rejoin again if they call up the Reserves.”
“And they will?”
“Yes, I should think that is inevitable. And you know there’s something big about it. I’m not warlike, you know, but I could not fail to be a soldier under these new conditions, any more than I could continue being a soldier when all it meant was to be ornamental. Hermann in bursts of pride and patriotism used to call us toy-soldiers. But he’s wrong now; we’re not going to be toy-soldiers any more.”
She did not answer him, but he felt her hand press close in the palm of his.
“I can’t tell you how I dreaded we shouldn’t go to war,” he said. “That has been a nightmare, if you like. It would have been the end of us if we had stood aside and seen Germany violate a solemn treaty.”
Even with Michael close to her, the call of her blood made itself audible to Sylvia. Instinctively she withdrew her hand from his.
“Ah, you don’t understand Germany at all,” she said. “Hermann always felt that too. He told me he felt he was talking gibberish to you when he spoke of it. It is clearly life and death to Germany to move against France as quickly as possible.”
“But there’s a direct frontier between the two,” said he.
“No doubt, but an impossible one.”
Michael frowned, drawing his big eyebrows together.
“But nothing can justify the violation of a national oath,” he said. “That’s the basis of civilisation, a thing like that.”
“But if it’s a necessity? If a nation’s existence depends on it?” she asked. “Oh, Michael, I don’t know! I don’t know! For a little I am entirely English, and then something calls to me from beyond the Rhine! There’s the hopelessness of it for me and such as me. You are English; there’s no question about it for you. But for us! I love England: I needn’t tell you that. But can one ever forget the land of one’s birth? Can I help feeling the necessity Germany is under? I can’t believe that she has wantonly provoked war with you.”
“But consider—” said he.
She got up suddenly.
“I can’t argue about it,” she said. “I am English and I am German. You must make the best of me as I am. But do be sorry for me, and never, never forget that I love you entirely. That’s the root fact between us. I can’t go deeper than that, because that reaches to the very bottom of my soul. Shall we leave it so, Michael, and not ever talk of it again? Wouldn’t that be best?”
There was no question of choice for Michael in accepting that appeal. He knew with the inmost fibre of his being that, Sylvia being Sylvia, nothing that she could say or do or feel could possibly part him from her. When he looked at it directly and simply like that, there was nothing that could blur the verity of it. But the truth of what she said, the reality of that call of the blood, seemed to cast a shadow over it. He knew beyond all other knowledge that it was there: only it looked out at him with a shadow, faint, but unmistakable, fallen across it. But the sense of that made him the more eagerly accept her suggestion.
“Yes, darling, we’ll never speak of it again,” he said. “That would be much wisest.”
Lady Ashbridge’s funeral took place three days afterwards, down in Suffolk, and those hours detached themselves in Michael’s mind from all that had gone before, and all that might follow, like a little piece of blue sky in the midst of storm clouds. The limitations of man’s consciousness, which forbid him to think poignantly about two things at once, hedged that day in with an impenetrable barrier, so that while it lasted, and afterwards for ever in memory, it was unflecked by trouble or anxiety, and hung between heaven and earth in a serenity of its own.
The coffin lay that night in his mother’s bedroom, which was next to Michael’s, and when he went up to bed he found himself listening for any sound that came from there. It seemed but yesterday when he had gone rather early upstairs, and after sitting a minute or two in front of his fire, had heard that timid knock on the door, which had meant the opening of a mother’s heart to him. He felt it would scarcely be strange if that knock came again, and if she entered once more to be with him. From the moment he came upstairs, the rest of the world was shut down to him; he entered his bedroom as if he entered a sanctuary that was scented with the incense of her love. He knew exactly how her knock had sounded when she came in here that night when first it burned for him: his ears were alert for it to come again. Once his blind tapped against the frame of his open window, and, though knowing it was that, he heard himself whisper — for she could hear his whisper— “Come in, mother,” and sat up in his deep chair, looking towards the door. But only the blind tapped again, and outside in the moonlit dusk an owl hooted.
He remembered she liked owls. Once, when they lived alone in Curzon Street, some noise outside reminded her of the owls that hooted at Ashbridge — she had imitated their note, saying it sounded like sleep. . . . She had sat in a chintz-covered chair close to him when at Christmas she paid him that visit, and now he again drew it close to his own, and laid his hand on its arm. Petsy II. had come in with her, and she had hoped that he would not annoy Michael.
There were steps in the passage outside his room, and he heard a little shrill bark. He opened his door and found his mother’s maid there, trying to entice Petsy away from the room next to his. The little dog was curled up against it, and now and then he turned round scratching at it, asking to enter. “He won’t come away, my lord,” said the maid; “he’s gone back a dozen times to the door.”
Michael bent down.
“Come, Petsy,” he said, “come to bed in my room.”
The dog looked at him for a moment as if weighing his trustworthiness. Then he got up and, with grotesque Chinese high-stepping walk, came to him.
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nbsp; “He’ll be all right with me,” he said to the maid.
He took Petsy into his room next door, and laid him on the chair in which his mother had sat. The dog moved round in a circle once or twice, and then settled himself down to sleep. Michael went to bed also, and lay awake about a couple of minutes, not thinking, but only being, while the owls hooted outside.
He awoke into complete consciousness, knowing that something had aroused him, even as three days ago when the telephone rang to summon him to his mother’s deathbed. Then he did not know what had awakened him, but now he was sure that there had been a tapping on his door. And after he had sat up in bed completely awake, he heard Petsy give a little welcoming bark. Then came the noise of his small, soft tail beating against the cushion in the chair.
Michael had no feeling of fright at all, only of longing for something that physically could not be. And longing, only longing, once more he said:
“Come in, mother.”
He believed he heard the door whisper on the carpet, but he saw nothing. Only, the room was full of his mother’s presence. It seemed to him that, in obedience to her, he lay down completely satisfied. . . . He felt no curiosity to see or hear more. She was there, and that was enough.
He woke again a little after dawn. Petsy between the window and the door had jumped on to his bed to get out of the draught of the morning wind. For the door was opened.
That morning the coffin was carried down the long winding path above the deep-water reach, where Michael and Francis at Christmas had heard the sound of stealthy rowing, and on to the boat that awaited it to ferry it across to the church. There was high tide, and, as they passed over the estuary, the stillness of supreme noon bore to them the tolling of the bell. The mourners from the house followed, just three of them, Lord Ashbridge, Michael, and Aunt Barbara, for the rest were to assemble at the church. But of all that, one moment stood out for Michael above all others, when, as they entered the graveyard, someone whom he could not see said: “I am the Resurrection and the Life,” and he heard that his father, by whom he walked, suddenly caught his breath in a sob.