Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  The sensation was very undefined, but distinctly unpleasant, and, following his invariable rule to divert his mind from all unpleasantness, he lay down on the short turf and buried his face in a great bed of thyme which grew there. All summer was in that smell, hot, redolent, the very breath of life, and with eyes half-closed and nostrils expanded he breathed it deeply in.

  The place he had come to was very remote and solitary, a big clearing in the middle of trees, well known to him in earlier years. No road crossed it, no house lay near it, but the air was resonant with the labouring bees, and the birds called and fluted to each other in the trees. But suddenly, as he lay there, half lost in a stupor of happiness, he heard very faintly another noise, to which at first he paid but little attention. It was the sound apparently of a flute being played at some great distance off, but what soon arrested his attention was the extremely piercing character of the notes. Remote as the sound was, and surrounded as he was by the hundred noises of the summer noon, it yet seemed to him perfectly clear and distinct through them all. Then something further struck him, for phrase after phrase of delicious melody was poured out, yet the same phrase was never repeated, nor did the melody come to an end; on the top of every climax came another; it was a tune unending, eternal, and whether it came from earth or heaven, from above or below, he could not determine, for it seemed to come from everywhere equally; it was as universal as the humming of the bees.

  Then suddenly a thought flashed into his mind; he sprang up, and a strange look of fear crossed his face. At the same instant the tune ceased.

  FOURTH

  IT was not in Lady Ellington’s nature to be enthusiastic, since she considered enthusiasm to be as great a waste of the emotional fibres as anger, but she was at least thoroughly satisfied when, two evenings after this, Madge came to her room before dinner after another punting expedition with Philip, and gave her news.

  “It is quite charming,” said her mother, “and you have shown great good sense. Dear child, I must kiss you. And where is Mr. Home — Philip I must call him now?”

  “He is outside,” said Madge. “I said I would go down again for a few minutes before dinner.”

  Lady Ellington got up and kissed her daughter conscientiously, first on one cheek and then on the other.

  “I will come down with you,” she said, “just to tell him how very much delighted I am. I shall have to have a long talk to him to-morrow morning.”

  There was no reason whatever why the engagement should not be announced at once, and in consequence congratulations descended within the half hour. Mrs. Home was a little tearful, with tears of loving happiness on behalf of her son, which seemed something of a weakness to Lady Ellington; Tom Merivale was delighted in a sort of faraway manner that other people should be happy; Evelyn Dundas alone, in spite of his previous preparation for the news, felt somehow slightly pulled up. For with his complete and instinctive surrender to every mood of the moment, he had permitted himself to take great pleasure in the contemplation — it was really hardly more than that — of Madge’s beauty, and he felt secretly, for no shadow obscured the genuineness of his congratulations, a certain surprise and sense of being ill-used. He was not the least in love with Madge, but even in so short a time they had fallen into ways of comradeship, and her engagement, he felt, curtailed the liberties of that delightful relationship. And again this evening, having cut out of a bridge table, he wandered with her in the perfect dusk. Lady Ellington this time observed their exit, but cheerfully permitted it; no harm could be done now. It received, in fact, her direct and conscious sanction, since Philip had suggested to Madge that Evelyn should paint her portrait. He knew that Evelyn was more than willing to do so, and left the arrangement of sitting to sitter and artist. In point of fact, it was this subject that occupied the two as they went out.

  “We shall be in London for the next month, Mr. Dundas,” Madge was saying, “and of course I will try to suit your convenience. It is so good of you to say you will begin it at once.”

  Evelyn’s habitual frankness did not desert him.

  “Ah, I must confess, then,” he said. “It isn’t at all good of me. You see, I want to paint you, and I believe I can. And I will write to-morrow to a terrible railway director to say that in consequence of a subsequent engagement I cannot begin the — the delineation of his disgusting features for another month.”

  Madge laughed; as is the way of country-house parties, the advance in intimacy had been very rapid.

  “Oh, that would be foolish,” she said. “Delineate his disgusting features if you have promised. My disgusting features will wait.”

  “Ah, but that is just what they won’t do,” said Evelyn.

  “Do you mean they will go bad, like meat in hot weather? Thank you so much.”

  “My impression will go bad,” said he. “No, I must paint you at once. Besides” — and still he was perfectly frank— “besides Philip is, I suppose, my oldest friend. He has asked me to do it, and friendship comes before cheques.”

  They walked in silence a little while.

  “I am rather nervous,” said Madge. “I watched you painting this afternoon for a bit.”

  “Oh, a silly sketch,” said he, “flowers, terrace, woods behind; it was only a study for a background.”

  “Well, it seemed to affect you. You frowned and growled, and stared and bit the ends of your brushes. Am I going to be stuck up on a platform to be growled at and stared at? I don’t think I could stand it; I should laugh.”

  Evelyn nodded his head in strong approval.

  “That will be what I want,” he said. “I will growl to any extent if it will make you laugh. I shall paint you laughing, laughing at all the ups and downs of the world. I promise you you shall laugh. With sad eyes, too,” he added. “Did you know you had sad eyes?”

  Madge slightly entrenched herself at this.

  “I really haven’t studied my own expression,” she said. “Women are supposed to use mirrors a good deal, but they use them, I assure you, to see if their hair is tidy.”

  “Your’s never is quite,” said he. “And it suits you admirably.”

  Again the gravel sounded crisply below their feet, without the overscore of human voices.

  Then he spoke again.

  “And please accept my portrait of you as my wedding present to you — and Philip,” he said with boyish abruptness.

  Madge for the moment was too utterly surprised to speak.

  “But, Mr. Dundas,” she said at length, “I can’t — I — how can I?”

  He laughed.

  “Well, I must send it to Philip, then,” he said, “if you won’t receive it. But — why should you not? You are going to marry my oldest friend. I can’t send him an ivory toothbrush.”

  This reassured her.

  “It is too kind of you,” said she. “I had forgotten that. So send it to him.”

  “Certainly. But help me to make it then as good as I can.”

  “Tell me how?” she asked, feeling inexplicably uneasy.

  “Why, laugh,” he said. “That is how I see you. You laugh so seldom, and you might laugh so often. Why don’t you laugh oftener?”

  Then an impulse of simple honesty came to her.

  “Because I am usually bored,” she said.

  “Ah, you really mustn’t be bored while I am painting you,” he said. “I could do nothing with it if you were bored. Besides, it would be so uncharacteristic.”

  “How is that, when I am bored so often?” she asked.

  “Oh, it isn’t the things we do often that are characteristic of us,” said he. “It is the things we do eagerly, with intention.”

  She laughed at this.

  “Then you are right,” she said. “I am never eagerly bored. And to tell you the truth, I don’t think I shall be bored when I sit to you. Ah, there is Philip. He does not see us; I wonder whether he will?”

  Philip’s white-fronted figure had appeared at this moment at the French window lea
ding out of the drawing-room, and his eyes, fresh from the bright light inside, were not yet focussed to the obscurity of the dusk. At that moment Madge found herself suddenly wishing that he would go back again. But as soon as she was conscious she wished that, she resolutely stifled the wish and called to him.

  “Evelyn there, too?” he asked. “Evelyn, you’ve got to go in and take my place.”

  “And you will take mine,” said he with just a shade of discontent in his voice.

  “No, my dear fellow,” said Philip. “I shall take my own.”

  He laughed.

  “I congratulate you again,” he said, and left them.

  Philip stood for a moment in silence by the girl, looking at her with a sort of shy, longing wonder.

  “Ah, what luck!” he said at length. “What stupendous and perfect luck.”

  “What is luck, Philip?” she asked.

  “Why, this. You and me. Think of the chances against my meeting you in this big world, and think of the chances against your saying ‘Yes.’ But now — now that it has happened it couldn’t have been otherwise.”

  Some vague, nameless trouble took possession of the girl, and she shivered slightly.

  “You are cold, my darling?” he said quickly.

  She had been leaning against the stone balustrade of the terrace, but stood upright, close to him.

  “No, not in the least,” she said.

  “What is it, then?” he asked.

  “It is nothing. Only I suppose I feel it is strange that in a moment the whole future course of one’s life is changed like this.”

  He took her hands in his, and the authentic fire of love burned in his eyes.

  “Strange?” he said. “Is it not the most wonderful of miracles? I never knew anything so wonderful could happen. It makes all the rest of my life seem dim. There is just this one huge beacon of light. All the rest is in shadow.”

  She raised her face to him half imploringly.

  “Oh, Philip, is it all that to you?” she asked. “I — I am afraid.”

  “Because you have made me the happiest man alive?”

  A sudden, inevitable impulse of honesty prompted Madge to speak out.

  “No, but because I have perhaps meddled with great forces about which I know nothing. I like you immensely; I have never liked anyone so much. I esteem you and respect you. I am quite willing to lead the rest of my life with you; I want nothing different. But will that do? Is that enough? I have never loved as I believe you love me. I do not think it is possible to me. There, I have told you.”

  Philip raised her hands to his lips and kissed them.

  “Ah, my dearest, you give me all you have and are, and yet you say, ‘Is that enough?’” he whispered. “What more is possible?”

  She looked at him a moment, the trouble not yet quite gone from her face. Then she raised it to his.

  “Then take it,” she said.

  The night was very warm and windless, and for some time longer they walked up and down, or stood resting against the terrace wall looking down over the hushed woods. A nightingale, the same perhaps that had been charmed to Tom’s finger two evenings ago, poured out liquid melody, and the moon began to rise in the East. Gradually their talk veered to other subjects, and Madge mentioned that Evelyn was willing to do her portrait.

  “He will begin at once,” she said, “because it appears his impression of me isn’t a thing that will keep. He is putting off another order for it.”

  “That is dreadfully immoral,” said Philip, “but I am delighted to hear it.”

  “Oh, and another thing. He gives it us — to you and me I think he said — as a wedding present.”

  “Ah, I can’t have that,” said Philip quickly. “That is Evelyn all over. There never was such an unthinking, generous fellow. But it is quite impossible. Why, it would mean a sixth part of his year’s income.”

  “I know; I felt that.”

  Philip laughed rather perplexedly.

  “I really don’t know what is to be done with him,” he said. “Last year he gave my mother a beautiful pearl brooch. That sort of thing is so embarrassing. And if she had not accepted it, he would have been quite capable of throwing it into the Thames. Indeed he threatened to do so. And he will be equally capable of throwing his cheque into the fire.”

  “All the same, I like it enormously,” she said; “his impulse, I mean.”

  “I know, but it offends my instincts as a man of business. I might just as well refuse to charge interest on loans. However, I will see what I can do.”

  They went in again soon after this, for it was growing late, and found Lady Ellington preparing to leave the table of her very complete conquests. It had fallen to Evelyn to provide her with a no-trump hand containing four aces, and she was disposed to be gracious. The news, furthermore, that he would begin her daughter’s portrait at once was gratifying to her, and she was anxious that the sittings should begin at once. As both they and he would be in town for the next month, the matter was easily settled, and it was arranged that the thing should be put in hand immediately.

  Philip followed Evelyn to the billiard-room as soon as the women went upstairs, and found him alone there.

  “The Hermit has gone to commune with Nature,” he said. “He will die of natural causes if he doesn’t look out. He called me a Pagan this morning, Philip. Wasn’t it rude? And the fact that it is true seems to me to make it ruder.”

  Philip lit his cigarette.

  “I’m going to be rude too, old chap,” said he. “Evelyn, you really mustn’t make a present of the portrait to Madge and me. It is awfully good of you, and just like you, but I simply couldn’t accept it.”

  Evelyn shrugged his shoulders.

  “Then there will be no portrait at all,” he said shortly. “I tell you I won’t paint it as an order.”

  Philip held out his hand.

  “I appreciate it tremendously,” he said. “It is most awfully good of you. But it’s your profession. Hullo, here’s the Hermit back.”

  Tom Merivale entered at this moment.

  “Aren’t we going to sit out to-night?” he said.

  Evelyn rose.

  “Yes, let’s go out,” he said. “Well, Philip, not a line will I draw unless you take it. Or I’ll give it to Miss Ellington and not you.”

  “You really musn’t,” said Philip.

  “But don’t you see I want to paint her? I said so to you only the other day. Hang it all, I tell you that I do it for pleasure. I shall also be the vast gainer artistically. I’ve got an idea about her, in fact, and if you don’t let me paint her I shall do it from memory, in which case it will not be so good.”

  An idea struck Philip.

  “Well, paint me as well,” he said, “and let me pay you for that.”

  Evelyn followed Tom out.

  “Oh, I can’t haggle,” he said. “Yes, I’ll paint you if you like. But I will paint Miss Ellington first. In fact, you shall be painted when I’ve nothing else to do. Well, Hermit, seen Pan to-day?”

  “No, you scoffer,” said Tom.

  “Call me when you do. I should like to see him, too. Let’s see, he was a man with goat’s legs; sort of things you see in Barnum’s.”

  Tom shifted in his chair.

  “Some day, perhaps, you may think it serious,” he said.

  “I daresay; a man with goat’s legs is not to be taken lightly,” said Evelyn. “And he sits by the roadside, doesn’t he, or so Browning says, playing the pipes? What pipes, I wonder? Bagpipes, do you suppose?”

  Tom laughed; his equanimity was quite undisturbed even by chaff upon what was to him the most serious subject in the world.

  “Ah, who was frightened at a nightingale coming to sit on my finger a few nights ago? Evelyn, if you are not serious, I’ll frighten you again.”

  “Well, but is it bagpipes?” asked he.

  Tom suddenly got grave.

  “No, it sounded more like a glass flute very far off,” he said. �
�No explanations are forthcoming, because I haven’t got any.”

  Evelyn was silent a moment.

  “And when did you hear this glass flute very far off?” he asked.

  “Two mornings ago, up above the house in that big clearing in the woods,” he answered. “I know nothing more about it. It frightened me rather, and then it stopped.”

  “What did it play?” asked Philip.

  “A world-without-end tune,” he said. “The catechising is now over. I shall go to bed, I think. I must leave to-morrow, Philip.”

  “I hoped you would stop a day or two longer. Must you really go?”

  “I must, I find.”

  “Appointment with Pan in the New Forest,” remarked Evelyn, dodging the cushion that was thrown at him.

  Philip had to spend the inside of the next day in London, and left with Tom Merivale by an early train, leaving Evelyn alone with his mother, Lady Ellington, and Madge. It came about very naturally that Lady Ellington gravitated to Mrs. Home, and Evelyn, finishing his background sketch in front of a great clump of purple clematis, found Madge on the terrace when he went out, with an unopened book on her lap.