Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  “Capital five minutes I had there, Tom,” said he. “Why, where are you from, May?”

  “I’ve just come from the Mills, on my way home to lunch,” said she.

  “Oh, but you’ll lunch with us,” said Tom confidently. “We are just going home. Look, there is the house quite close, and we are going to lunch at one in order to shoot again for an hour or two afterwards.”

  “Thanks, I’m afraid I had better go home,” said May.

  “Oh, but why — why?” asked Tom, forgetting manners and everything else in the contemplation of his visions incarnate.

  May turned towards him, smiling.

  “Well, I really must go off again in half an hour. It’s very kind of you to ask me,” she added suddenly.

  “That’s splendid! We shall be very soon off again too. Mr. Markham has been walking me off my legs already, and I know he will want to do it again the moment lunch is over.”

  Mr. Carlingford was standing at the library window as the party came down the grass slope to the house, and a smile gathered on his lips as he watched Tom talking eagerly to May. Then, half to himself, half aloud, he made the following enigmatical quotation: “‘As for the gods of the heathen,’” and rang the bell to order another place at lunch.

  Thus entered Tom into the garden of man’s heritage; the crowning gift of love was added to youth and life, the golden key which unlocks the gate of Paradise was in his hand. His whole previous life had in a moment been flushed with an intenser colour; he was like a man born blind, who, until his eyes were opened, knew not, could not have known, his limitations. It was bewitching, blinding, but altogether lovely, this new world into which he had entered. For him the period of bitter joy and sweetest anguish had begun.

  That night he went to his bedroom early, saying he was tired and sleepy with the cold air; then ran upstairs three steps at a time, feeling an unutterable desire to be alone with his love; another presence, he felt, was a desecration. He blew out his candle, and lay down full length on his bed, while the firelight danced and shivered on the walls and the flames flapped in the grate, and spread out his arms as if to take the truth in. How was it possible, he wondered, that a man who had ever been in love could speak of it? Love was something white and sacred, a clear flame burning in a casket of gold, to be hidden from the gaze of men. No, that was not it at all; love was a glorious conquering god, and his captives should stand in the market-place of cities and cry aloud, “See, I can move neither hand nor foot, I am chained in golden chains, my limbs are heavy with the chains of love. Envy me, bless me, weep for joy that I am a captive. Bind me closer yet, crush me beneath the weight of fetters. Lead me about in your triumphant procession; I am a captive, a prisoner.” He sat up, wondering at himself. It was not possible. How can the daughters of the gods dwell with men? “Why, everything is possible to me,” he answered himself. “I am in love, I am the king of all the earth. Nothing is impossible.”

  This modest conviction made lying still impossible. He got off his bed, and began walking up and down the room, stopping now and then opposite the fire, which burned brightly and frostily. In the red glow of the coals his brown eyes looked black; his mouth was a little open, and his breath came quickly, as if he had been running a race. His smooth boyish face, tanned by southern suns, was flushed with excitement. Once in his walk he stopped, stood on tip-toe, and stretched himself till he felt every muscle in his body quiver and tingle.

  Sleep was impossible, everything but violent action was impossible, thought was impossible and inevitable. Surely it was morning by this time. His watch reminded him that it was just a quarter to twelve; he had been in his room only twenty minutes. Perhaps time had stopped, perhaps he was dead, perhaps this was heaven. He would go to the housetop and cry to the four quarters of heaven, and to the listening earth, the story of his love, how he was out shooting pigeons, and standing in a bramble bush, when he saw her for whom the world was made walking towards him. He would run down through the village to the vicarage, and stand and look at the little house in which she slept. What was space? How could she be in a room, and that room be in a house? for she was everywhere. Heaven and earth could not hold her; even the thought of her filled all the world. That afternoon he had seen the tall bare-limbed trees, the level rays of the setting sun, the rose-tinged fields of snow, all lovely because she was lovely, all bursting with the knowledge of her. He should have stood alone when the sun was just setting and questioned them of her. He should have taken the level rays of the sun into his arms, and kissed them because they were beautiful with one infinitesimal fraction of her beauty. He should have torn the secret of her from all Nature.

  Mr. Carlingford laid a little trap for Tom next morning, which that young gentleman fell into headlong, much to his father’s amusement. It appeared that Mr. Markham had expressed a desire to consult a certain book which Mr. Carlingford knew was in the house, but had been unable to find till this morning. Would Tom, therefore, be so good as to ring the bell, in order that a boy might be sent down with it?

  “I’ll take it if you like, father,” said Tom, with much over-acted nonchalance.

  “No; why should you?”

  “I — I rather want to see Mr. Markham and ask him if he can come out shooting again to-morrow, and find out when Ted’s coming home.”

  “Well, why not write a note?” said his father, smiling to himself at this lamentably superficial excuse.

  “Oh, I’ve got nothing to do,” said Tom, rising, “I may as well go. And Gibson says the pond bears; perhaps Markham will like to skate.”

  Tom rang at the vicarage bell, and was apparently unable to make it sound, but at the second attempt produced a peal which would have awakened the dead, and asked if the vicar was in.

  “Yes, he is in his study. This way, please.”

  Tom peeped in through a chink of the drawingroom door, with his heart thumping at his ribs, and followed the servant into the study. Mr. Markham was compiling some notes from an annotated text of the “Clouds,” but seemed glad to see him, and grateful for the book. A brilliant idea struck the young strategist, and he blurted it out.

  “I came also to tell you that the pond bore, if you or — or — any one wanted to skate, and I shall be awfully glad if you would shoot to-morrow again. And oh, Mr. Markham, you know I’m very stupid at Greek, but since I’ve been to Athens I’ve simply loved it. I’m reading Aristophanes — at least, I’m going to, and I wonder if I might bring difficulties and so on to you — it would help me so much, if it’s not too much bother to you?”

  “That’s capital of you,” said Mr. Markham heartily. “I do like to see young men behave as if they had not done with classics when they leave the University.

  My dear boy, of course you may. Come any morning or every morning. I set to work pretty early, and always read classics till eleven in the morning.”

  “Thank you so much,” said Tom; “but you’ll find me fearfully stupid.”

  “Nonsense, nonsense! one is only stupid about the things one doesn’t care for. I’ll tell you what. You must come to breakfast here whenever you want, and then we can set to work together at nine. I know your father doesn’t breakfast till late.”

  “That is awfully good of you,” said Tom, “but I shall take you at your word, you know. And, by the way, perhaps Miss Markham would like to know the pond bore. I might tell her, if she’s in.”

  “No, May’s out,” said her father. “She is always doing something.” — .

  “But what can she find to do here?” asked Tom, divided between his desire to loiter and his wish to run away.

  “She’s always visiting these poor folks,” said Mr. Markham. “She spends half her day among them. Very nipping weather,” and he stirred the fire.

  “I see,” said Tom; “how awfully good of her! Well, I must go. I shall skate this afternoon. Really it would be a pity to waste such a lovely bit of ice. Gibson says it’s quite splendid.”

  “Many thanks. I dare say one
or both of us will come. It’s a pity Ted’s not here. He’s so fond of it. Good-bye. Mind you take me at my word about the Aristophanes.”

  Tom lingered and loitered through the village, ordered a bookshelf which he did not want from the carpenter, in case of May being there, and some bad and unnecessary tobacco from the village store, but saw her not But there were the prospects of the afternoon and the Aristophanes lessons to fall back on.

  So through the quiet country weeks their two young lives flowed inevitably towards each other, like two streams which, rising on distant ranges of hills, yet must some day meet in the valley between them. Though their natures sprang from widely distant sources, it was inevitable they would some time join.

  But to continue the metaphor, the bed over which Tom’s stream flowed was a bright gravelly soil, on which the water danced gaily and light-heartedly down to the valley, pursuing a straight swift course, whereas May had many rocks arid sandy places to get over, and, what was worse, she could not understand, and half rebelled against, the course her stream seemed to be taking. The traditions in which she had been brought up had become part of her nature; for her, she thought, was the sheltered life, busy in little deeds of love, in caring for her own corner of the world, and bringing it nearer to God, and when at first the stream began to flow in this unconjectured direction, she was bewildered, almost frightened. Was there anything in this world so certain as her own duty? Could anything rightly come between her and this other life she had planned and dedicated humbly and gratefully to God? What call was there so clear as that still small voice which said, “Inasmuch as ye have done it to the least, ye have done it unto me?” And when she had come to argue about it, even to herself, the end was already inevitable. As soon as a moral question becomes a thing to argue about, it is already without force. No argument will convince a man that it is better being good than bad; it is a matter, not for dispute, but of knowledge, and the man who disputes about it is bad.

  Meantime Tom had turned a large roomy attic into a studio, and worked with all an artist’s regularity, which the world is accustomed to call irregularity.

  He went constantly to London, made great friends with Wallingthorpe, and caused that eminent sculptor many fits of divine despair, but followed his advice about not immediately setting up a mourning Demeter, I though for other reasons than his. A mourning Demeter, he announced frankly, should soon be set up, but not at once. He was merely waiting, so he told Wallingthorpe, for that particular spark of divine fire to descend, and till it descended he was willing and eager to gain greater facility with his hand. He also cordially agreed that no studio could exist in England except in London, but said that there were reasons why he could not live in London just now.

  “Perhaps before the summer is over,” he began, and his face flushed all over, and he asked if anything had been heard of Manvers.

  Ted was at Cambridge, and during the Lent Term Tom went up there to see him. He arrived at the close of a lovely day in March, and though the lawns and lower roofs of buildings were already in shade, the four tall pinnacles of King’s Chapel burned like rosy flames against the tender green of the evening sky.

  Markham had not seen Tom since he came to England, and he looked forward to his visit with something like passionate eagerness, for Tom was to him the connecting link with the outer world of movement and eagerness from which he had voluntarily banished himself, but towards which even now he sometimes looked back with something like regret. Though his nature was one that hugs the shore, and prefers the quiet monotonous safety of the landlocked creeks and soft-sanded beaches to the risks and possibilities of the open seas, he sometimes cast his eyes to the great horizon where the ocean-going steamers passed and repassed, with their strange cargoes and dead and living freight from those dim mysterious countries whose very existence was becoming a fable to him.

  And Tom came, with the seal of art and love upon him, but was his old boyish self, and sat on the arm of Ted’s armchairs, and inveighed against scholiasts, and wondered if Ted had ever heard of Pheidias. After tea they strolled down together through the gathered dusk, and sat on the bridge, and once more Tom dropped a match in the river, and waited to hear it fizz. But the difference was there, and Ted wondered if Tom would speak of it. Once he seemed on the point of it. The willow which overhangs the river had just begun to break into tender leaf, and the delicate foliage hung round it like a green mist Tom paused a moment, and grew serious.

  “Look at it,” he said, “it’s like the loveliest thing on earth; it is youth bursting into—” and he broke off suddenly.

  Once again later in the evening he grew serious, and it was so odd for Tom to be serious twice in a day, that Markham wondered.

  “How I can have been such a fool when I was here I don’t know,” he said. “Somebody told me once that I thought Cambridge narrow simply because I wasn’t broad enough to appreciate it. Well, I think she was right. Mind, I don’t go back on anything I said this afternoon about scholiasts. You are narrow, old boy, so don’t misunderstand me.”

  “Who was it said that?” asked Markham.

  “Miss Wrexham, I think. Didn’t you meet her at home? She often tells home truths without making them unpleasant. That is not very common.”

  “Oh, do you think home truths are unpleasant?” asked Markham. “I rather like you telling me I’m narrow.”

  “My dear Ted, I never said home truths were unpleasant. I only said that she told me home truths without making them unpleasant.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “All the difference in the world. Whether they are unpleasant or not simply depends on the personality of the person who tells you them.”

  “You mean you think Miss Wrexham is not unpleasant?” asked Markham.

  “Certainly, she’s not unpleasant. I think she’s quite delightful. I suppose you don’t appreciate her.”

  “Well, I hardly know her. I remember what May said of her.”

  Tom sat up in his chair.

  “What did she say of her?”

  “She said she thought she wasn’t genuine.”

  “That’s not quite true. Miss Wrexham is nearly always what you want her to be, but she doesn’t seem to me to forfeit her genuineness. She is the most adaptable person I ever saw. To me she praises the Parthenon, to Manvers La Dame qui s’amuse. But to any one who doesn’t know her well, that must appear like want of genuineness.”

  Tom rose and walked up and down the room.

  “I am getting terribly bourgeois in my tastes, Manvers would tell me. I care for nothing now but loyalty and honesty and genuineness and quiet country life.”

  Markham stared.

  “My dear Tom, you really shouldn’t give me such surprises. What has happened to the bustle and stir of the world, and statuettes bowling cricket-balls?”

  “I don’t know. It was a phase, I suppose. One can’t reach one’s proper development except through phases. Paul was a Pharisee of the Pharisees; Augustine was a debauchee, a sensualist with the shroud round his feet.”

  “Paul, Augustine,” said Ted, with a smile; “let us continue the list What about you?”

  Tom paused.

  “I don’t know. I only know I have changed, that something very big has happened to me. Perhaps some time you will know what it is. I’m going to bed, Teddy.”

  CHAPTER X.

  TOM stayed at Cambridge two days, having meant to stay a week, but he found the need of getting home again imperative. He longed to tell Ted all about it, but something prevented him. Ted was as delightful as ever, but Tom felt that the difference between them could not be bridged by a confidence, as you bridge over a ravine first by a wire or a rope, and strengthen it till it will bear men and beasts. His confidence, he felt, would not reach to the other side, but dangle dismally in the air. Before he left, however, he had another talk with him, in which he expressed his feelings about the ravine, though he made no direct attempts to bridge it over.

  “These
two days have been charming,” he said; “you must be dreadfully happy here, Teddy.”

  Ted looked up suspiciously.

  “Is Saul also among the prophets?” he asked. “You nearly startled me out of my wits yesterday by saying that you liked quiet country life, and cows, and now you like Cambridge!”

  Tom frowned and looked about for inspiration.

  “I spent a week in London a month ago,” he said, “and enjoyed it immensely. There were a heap of people I knew, and I went dancing and dining all night, and all day the noise of the town roared round me. Then I went home, and as it was a lovely day, I got out at the park gates and walked. Do you remember that little hollow just to the left of the drive, where I shot two woodcock one day? Well, it is full of birch trees, and the birch trees were beginning to have a little green cloud of leaves round them, and all over the ground were clumps of primroses pushing up among last year’s dead leaves. The sun was setting, and the rays struck the birch trunks horizontally. I felt as if I could have sat there for ever and looked at it. As a matter of fact, in five minutes I was tired of it, and went on walking.”

  “Is it a parable?” asked Ted.

  “Yes; obviously Cambridge is the quiet, little, green hollow. I remember I used to think it so terrible that people should live there for ever, and only busy themselves with what went on in the little hollow. I was wrong. When I stopped in the little hollow at home, I thought there could be nothing more lovely than to live there always.”

  “In fact, you wanted to — you envied the birds which did?”

  “In the same way as one envies people who grow beards, when one is shaving in the morning,” said Tom. “I wouldn’t ever really grow one myself. But I envied the birds to whom such a hollow was native and natural.”

  Markham laughed.

  “Birds and beards — what metaphor are you going to employ next?”

  Tom stood in front of him, smoking meditatively.