Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  The room was dark, and Maud did not see how grave May’s face was. She listened to what Manvers said, and laughed. Then for a moment there was a dead silence until May spoke again.

  “Then do you really think that three-quarters of the world is poor in order that one-quarter may be able to make them do distasteful work for them?”

  “Oh, I don’t go as far as that,” said Manvers. “I don’t attempt to account for poverty or misery. I only notice a perfectly obvious effect of the unequal distribution of wealth, namely, that the rich can get almost all unpleasant things done for them by proxy, in exchange for varying quantities of gold and silver.”

  “You can never have seen the real misery of poverty if you can talk about it like that,” said May. Manvers lit another cigarette.

  “Ah, there you are wrong,” he said. “I have known it myself, real grinding poverty, when you don’t know how or where you will get your next meal. I don’t ever speak of it, because, as I said, I prefer the cheerful side of life. It was unpleasant, I confess, but I did not make a martyr of myself — I don’t like martyrs — so why should I look on others in the same state as martyrs?”

  Tom had left the room some moments before, and came back during this last speech. He knew what Manvers’ early history had been, but was surprised to hear him mention it. He regarded it, he knew, as sensitive people regard some slight deformity.

  May looked up at Manvers.

  “I am sorry,” she said; “of course I didn’t know. But I feel very deeply about these things.”

  “Then you will spare a little pity for my early years too,” he said, laughing. “That is charming of you. Good heavens, it’s after ten, Tom; I must go at once, and if you will lend me a latchkey, I needn’t wake anybody up.”

  Maud got up.

  “And I’ve got to go down to the House,” she said. “My father is making a statistical speech, and there will be a division. It is so tiresome his speaking to-night I should have liked to sit in that armchair for ever. Good-night, Mrs. Carlingford. Do you know, I can’t call you Mrs. Carlingford any longer. Good-night, May. Do come and see me again soon.”

  Tom went to see Maud off, and came back to the library. May was sitting in one of the big chairs with her hands idle on her lap. Tom threw himself down on the sofa near her and stared at the ceiling.

  “London suits me,” he said, “and to-night I had London and Athens and you altogether. What had you and Manvers been talking about when I came in? You looked so grave.”

  “Oh, nothing. He told me that he had known what fearful poverty was like.”

  “Poor chap, yes. He doesn’t often speak of it I’m awfully fond of him. He is nearly always amusing.”

  “Yes, he seems clever,” said May.

  Tom was silent a moment.

  “Really I am a lucky devil,” he said. “I have everything I want I have you first of all, and all life interests me and amuses me. And I’ve just paid my annual visit to the dentist.”

  “Shall we go to Applethorpe for the Sunday?” asked May.

  “Oh, I think not,” said Tom, “at least, unless you want to. I think Applethorpe would seem a little dull, don’t you?”

  “Well, there are not so many things to do there as here, certainly,” said May, “and I suppose Mr. Manvers will be with us still.”

  “I hope he will stop for a fortnight or more. It’s absurd his going to a hotel if we are in London.”

  “Oh, of course,” said May, “but I want to go to Applethorpe soon. We didn’t go last Saturday or the Saturday before.”

  Tom gave no answer for a moment “I’ll do exactly as you like,” he said; “we’ll go on Saturday if you wish.” —

  “Let’s go,” said May. “Mr. Manvers can come with us or go to the Chathams’. I know they want him to stay there a day or two.”

  “Why not get Maud Wrexham as well, then?” said Tom. “If they would both come it would be delightful.”

  May paused a moment. This was not exactly what she meant by a Sunday at Applethorpe.

  “I expect they have people with them,” she said. Tom was a little perplexed, but assumed that for some reason May did not want Maud Wrexham to come.

  “Well, there’s no need to ask her unless you like,” he said, rising.

  “I never said I didn’t want her.”

  “No, dear, but I thought from your manner that perhaps you didn’t.”

  May made a grab at the skirts of her retreating serenity.

  “No, it would be delightful if she would come,” she said with an effort. “I’ll write a note to her to-night.”

  CHAPTER XII.

  EASTER was late, and when Tom and May left London to spend a week or two with old Mr. Carlingford at Applethorpe, spring had already burst out into freshest and greenest leaf. As they drove along the avenue from the Lodge gate, May thought she had never seen anything so beautiful. The ground sloped sharply from the road up on either side, and the russet of the last year’s dead bracken was mingled with the milky green of the fresh new shoots. Here and there an ash-tree with its black buds, or a lime on which the little fans of green leaves were beginning to burst from their red sheath, stood firmly among the young yearly plants, an experienced guarantee to the steadfast kindness of the varying seasons. Now and then a white-scutted rabbit bundled across the road, or a squirrel whisked up to some safer eminence, and scolded violently from among the branches. As they passed the lake, a moorhen half swam, half flew to seek the shelter of the rhododendron bushes, leaving a widening ripple behind it, and a sudden gust of wind arose, shaking half a dozen catkins from the listless birch-trees. The whole air was redolent of spring and country, and promise of fresh life.

  Tom was driving, and May sat beside him. She had not been very well for a week or two, and as the wind struck her, he thought she shivered slightly.

  “You’re not cold, are you, darling?” he said “No, Tom, only very happy.”

  He laughed.

  “Well, so am I; but I don’t shiver. Put that cloak round you.”

  “Do you remember giving me your coat one night, Tom?” she asked.

  “Yes; you were so obstinate, too. You refused to put it on for a long time.”

  They drove on in silence for a little way.

  “Are you glad to get down here?” asked Tom.

  “Yes, very. I’ve got so many people I know here You see, Tom, I’m not very clever, and I do like little quiet everyday things to do. And I see more of you here. You’re always so busy in London. Ted’s here, too. He got here two days ago.”

  “Why doesn’t he come as your father’s curate?” asked Tom.

  “Well, he has all his Cambridge work to do. He can’t very well give up that. And yet I don’t know.”

  “I think he’s right,” said Tom. “He is doing splendid work, I believe. It doesn’t interest me, personally, but I do believe it ought to be done.”

  “Ted told me you always used to howl at him so for working at scholiasts or syntax or something.”

  “I know I used. But after all if the world is ever going to reach perfection, you have to work up all lines perfectly. And he says that scribes are terrible fellows for scamping their work and making stupid mistakes; they must be shown up.”

  “But there are bigger things in the world than scribes and scholiasts, Tom,” said May, half-timidly.

  “Yes, dear; but what is a man to do? He cannot work passionately at things he does not feel passionately.”

  “But there is one thing which it is every one’s duty to feel passionately. And when a man goes into the church, it seems to me a sort of visible sign that he does feel it passionately.”

  “But there are other things in the world,” said Tom. “What is beauty made for, or love, or anything lovely? Surely they are worth giving one’s life for? If there was only meant to be one thing in the world which it is right for men to strive after — I mean the personal direct relation with God — why are all these wonderful and beautiful things g
iven us? Not just to look at and wonder and go by?”

  “No. To help us to realize the personal and direct relation with God. We should look on them as signs of His love for us. Do you remember the first present you gave me, that little diamond ring? It was awfully pretty, but I loved it because you gave it me.”

  Tom was silent.

  “It’s no use talking of it, darling, even with you,” he said at last. “It is your passion, and I have another passion. Neither of us can really conceive that there is another standpoint besides our own. We acquiesce in there being others, but unless one experiences a thing, one cannot feel it.”

  “I am not afraid, Tom,” said she. “He will teach us all in the way it is best for us to be taught If we are willing to receive, He will give us the knowledge of Himself, when it is good that we receive it.”

  “And there we are at one,” said Tom. “That I believe with my whole soul.”

  They reached home just as evening was falling, but the night came on warm and cloudless. Tom helped May very tenderly out of the carriage, and after tea they walked a little up and down the gravel path above the long terrace. The beds were already odorous with spring blossoms, and white-winged moths hovered noiselessly over the flowers, and glided silently away again like ghosts into the surrounding dusk.

  The mist was rising a little from the low-lying fields towards the village, across which two country lads were walking home, one with an empty milk-pail in his hand, the other with a spade over his shoulder, whistling loudly. And in the dusk husband and wife spoke together of the dear event that was coming, and in that human love and longing their souls met and mingled. May thought no more of the barrier which still stood between them even in their almost perfect love and confidence. She, in her clear unquestioning faith, was apt to lose sight too much of the use and value of beauty and love and life, which are as directly gifts from God as faith, and to wonder, with something like anguish, when she thought how completely they had possession of her husband, what the end would be. But now that the fulness and perfection of a woman’s life was promised her, she, too, for a little felt the sweetness and strength of living. She was a woman, and the crown of womanhood was coming to her; the divine miracle was near its fulfilment. She was alone in the hush of evening, beneath the opening stars, with her husband, and things human and divine seemed so mingled together, that neither failed of their completeness.

  The next few days passed very peaceably. May, who had been rather languid and out of spirits in London, soon regained her serene health. She and Tom strolled together in the woods or drove out for an hour or two every day. Ted and his father were with them a good deal, and Tom, who had rather overworked himself in the last few weeks, found a new pleasure in hanging about doing nothing. May insisted on his going long rides or walks, in which she herself could not join, and after spending the morning quietly in the woods with Tom, or paddling about on the lake exploring the little creeks and islands, she would send Tom and Ted off together in the afternoon for a long tramp or a ride over the Surrey downs.

  They had spent one of these afternoons, about a week after they had come to Applethorpe, in this manner, and about four o’clock had descended on to a little red-backed village standing in a hollow of the downs, surrounded by hop-gardens and strawberry fields, and having had tea in the country inn, proceeded homewards. Their way lay through the village street with its neat white cottages, and long strips of garden fronting the road. In one were flowering clumps of primroses, and a border of merry daffodils lay underneath the windows. In another a more ambitious show had been planned, and sundry little wooden labels, stuck about in beds of young fresh green, not yet in flower, promised a crop of annuals. In another a box hedge, cut into fantastic shapes, gave a genteel privacy, and marked it off from its neighbours. The little Norman church stood at the bottom of the street, and just as they passed the gate a group of mourners came away from a grave which the sexton was filling in. Tom waited for them to pass, and stood a moment watching them ascend the street. They went in, he noticed, at the house with the box hedge. A moment afterwards the clergyman, who knew Tom, came out, and as they stopped to speak to him, Tom asked what the funeral had been.

  “A poor woman here,” he said, “who died in childbed two days ago. Poor thing! she leaves her husband, such a nice young fellow, quite alone. They had only been married nine months.”

  Tom turned angrily round on the astonished young man.

  “How can you say such horrible things?” he said, and walked off, followed by Ted, at five miles an hour.

  Ted caught him up in a few moments, and made him abate his pace.

  “Poor old boy,” he said, “don’t get in such a state about it!”

  They walked on a few moments in silence.

  “It’s all too horrible,” broke out Tom at length. “ How can such things be? Poor darling! And I have been such a brute to her. Our lives are lived apart really. She thinks the passion of my life is no more than a plaything sent to amuse us, and the passion of hers is unintelligible to me. It is no more than a beautiful unconvincing fable.”

  “But what if the fable is true?” asked Ted.

  “It may be true, but how can I tell? All I know is that it isn’t convincing to me. It may be so, or it may not. But if it doesn’t convince me, what am I to do? I would give the world to be convinced of it.”

  “She is very happy in your love,” said Ted.

  “She is the best and sweetest woman on this earth,” said Tom. “I love her more and more every day. But I do love my art too. My life would be incomplete — impossible without either.”

  Ted sighed.

  “You are very fortunate. Your circle of completeness is widening every day. You are in love with love and life.”

  “Teddy, do leave that place,” said Tom earnestly. “It is changing you. You always were narrow, you know, as I often told you, but you are getting narrower. You only care about dead things. You had better care about the worst of living things than the best of dead.”

  “So you tell me. But no one can realize any one else’s conviction, as you have also told me. You are playing symphonies to the deaf. It may be so, or it may not be so. How can I tell?”

  “But you know it is so,” said Tom.

  “Sometimes I think it must be so. I know, at any rate, that you, for instance, get more keen and active happiness out of life than I do. The best emendation doesn’t give me the quality of pleasure which the smell of a spring morning or a hundred other things give you.”

  “I told you so. You do know it,” said Tom. “ Why don’t you act on it?”

  “I can’t There is no other reason. It is no use to say to myself: ‘ You shall care for a spring morning more than you care for Zenobius.’ I don’t care passionately for Zenobius, but I don’t care at all for a spring morning.”

  “I agree with you to a certain extent, you know,” said Tom—” more, at any rate, than I used to at Cambridge. I think scholiasts ought to be studied. They are a leaf, or a line in the book of ultimate perfection. But you have got them out of focus. They are too close to your eyes, and conceal everything else. Well, here we are at the vicarage. Good-bye, Teddy! I must go home quickly.”

  Tom passed along the village street, and at the church suddenly the words of the clergyman came back to him with a sickening sense of revulsion. He paused at the door a moment, and then by a sudden impulse went in and knelt down in the nearest seat. He was not aware of conscious thought, only of an overmastering need. “Why am I here,” he thought to himself, “I who have no right here?” Then like an overwhelming wave the thought of May came upon him — May, the love of his strong, young life, soon to be in pain, perhaps in danger of death, like the woman in the cottage with the box hedge, with that yet unborn life within her. And the same impulse which had prompted him to come into the church, prompted him to say, “If there is One allpowerful and all-loving, may He be with her now.” And like the old pagans in Homer, he felt inclined to vow a
hecatomb of oxen if his prayer was granted. And thus in his terrible fear and need Tom was brought by his love for May to the feet of the unknown God.

  He waited a moment before leaving the church, and looked round. There were the old windows he knew so well: a pink Jonah being fitted neatly into a green whale; a yellow-haired, long-legged David standing on the chest of a prostrate Goliath, and with immense difficulty lifting the giant’s sword; a perfect Niagara of dew descending on the fleece of Gideon, Joshua laying violent hands on a red sun and a yellow moon, and the walls of Jericho falling over symmetrically in one piece. The east window consisted of three narrow lancets, still faintly visible in the dusk, and the middle of these showed a figure crowned with thorns, with arms outspread, drawing the whole world unto Him....

  He went quickly up over the fields from the village where he and May had walked the first night they came, and along the terrace walk. A little wind stirred in the bushes, and blew across him the faint odour of the flowers. In the house the lamps were already lit, and looking up to May’s bedroom window he saw through the white blind a light burning there. For one moment his heart stood still with fear, and then, regathering courage, he went into the house.

  His father was sitting in the library, with a green reading-lamp by him, and he looked up quickly as Tom entered.

  “Where is May? Where is May?” he asked.

  Mr. Carlingford shut up his book.

  “My dear boy, how late you are, and what on earth is the matter with you? Tom, for God’s sake don’t be hysterical or faint. It’s all right, but it has been very sudden. May’s child was born — a son — just about four o’clock. She is asleep now, and doing very well.”

  Tom stood there, perfectly pale, with his mouth slightly open. Then quite suddenly his hat and stick fell from his hand, and he collapsed into a chair.

  Mr. Carlingford rang the bell. “Tom, if you behave like that, I shall disown you. I never saw such an absurd exhibition. Are you going to cry, or die, or what? Here, bring some brandy quickly,” he said to the man who answered the bell.