Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  In silence he held out both hands to her, and she rose. But she did not advance to him, or he to her.

  She felt her lip trembling as she spoke.

  “You should not have come,” she said.

  “You told me to come.”

  “But not to me. I told you to come to Edith.”

  He sat down in a chair near her.

  “You have got to hear what I have to say,” he said. “You have not heard it yet.”

  “Yes; you have written to me. I have answered you.”

  “I can’t express myself in writing. I can only write symbols of what I mean.”

  “I understood your symbols very well. I am sure you understood mine.”

  It seemed to her that the real struggle had only just begun. Even as he had said, what he wrote had only been symbols compared to the awful reality of his presence. The short, sharp sentence that each had spoken rang with keen hostility; in each love was up in arms, battling, as with an enemy, for a victory that must be hard won.

  “You speak as if you hated me for coming,” he said. “If you do, I can’t help it.”

  She raised her eyes to him.

  “Oh, my dear, don’t make it harder for me,” she said. “It’s hard enough already. I can’t bear much more.”

  “I am going to make it as hard for you as I possibly can,” said he. “I don’t care what it costs you, so long as I convince you.”

  “You won’t even convince me.”

  “I shall try my best. I believe your happiness as well as mine is at stake.”

  He paused a moment, and his voice, which had been low and quiet, like hers, suddenly raised itself.

  “I want you!” he cried. “Oh, can you know what it means to want like that? I don’t believe you can, or you could not resist. Do you realize what has happened? how, by a miracle of God-sent luck, we two have found each other? And you think that there can be an obstacle between us! There can’t be! There is nothing in the world that is real enough to come between us. You do love me. I was wrong when I said I didn’t believe you knew what it meant to want. When, for one moment, you clung to me, you knew. You were real then; you were yourself. But since then you have held up a barrier between us. I am here to tear it down.”

  “You can’t tear it down,” said Elizabeth.

  “You shall tear it down yourself. I didn’t know what love meant when I got engaged to Edith; that was because I hadn’t seen you. Oh, I know, two years ago I had set eyes on you, but I hadn’t seen you. It was obvious that I couldn’t love just because I hadn’t seen you. I couldn’t unlock my heart without the key. And you were the key. Elizabeth, oh, Elizabeth, I worship you! Oh, my darling, what is the use of torturing me as you have been doing during these awful days! You won’t go on — you won’t!”

  He had left his chair and was kneeling before her, with his hands clasped together on her lap. As he had said, his written words were but symbols compared to the reality; they were but as pictures of flames compared to the burning of authentic fire, as splashes of paint compared to actual sunshine. She could not speak just yet; only with the quivering semblance of a smile and eyes that were bright with tears could she answer him. But she did not shrink from him, nor move, and she laid her hands on his.

  “Edward!” she said at last, and again, “Edward!”

  Against some inward weight of unacknowledged conviction he allowed himself to hope, and, bending, he kissed the hands that lay on his. Not now, even, did she shrink, for she could not. It was as much as she could do not to respond. And she could not respond.

  “You see, then?” he whispered. “At last you see!”

  He looked up and faced the tender, inexorable love in her eyes.

  “I see more clearly than ever,” she said. “Please, dear, don’t interrupt me. Not by word or by look even. I can’t marry you unless — unless Edith voluntarily gives you up. I can’t. I can’t accept love that can be mine only through your disloyalty, through your breaking a promise you have given. And I can’t let you take my love on those terms. It would kill love; it would kill the most sacred thing there is. No; loyalty is as sacred. And you mustn’t ask her to set you free. Love can only give, only give — it cannot ask for itself.”

  He got up, wild with impotent yearning, inflamed to his inmost fibre.

  “But are you flesh and blood!” he cried, “or are you some — some unsubstantial phantom that does not feel?”

  She rose also with fire of loyalty to meet his fire of passion, and flung out her words with a strength that more than matched his violence.

  “No, I am flesh and blood,” she said, “and you know that I love you. But love is holier to me than to you. I can’t love you differently. We can never come together while a single thread of loyalty, of common honour, has to be snapped to let us.”

  He interrupted.

  “Trust your heart, my darling,” he said; “only trust that!”

  “I do trust it. And I trust yours. You know you are battling with not me alone, but yourself. There is something within you that tells you I am right.”

  “My cowardice. Nothing more. My fear of unpleasant things for which my real self does not care two straws.”

  She shook her head at him; then advanced and laid her long hands on his shoulders.

  “It is just your real self that does care,” she said. “Oh, my dear, I do not mean it is your false self that loves me. But it is your false self that has been urging me to-night. Edward” — and again her lips so trembled that she could scarcely speak— “Edward, I don’t want to spare you one moment of the wretchedness that has come upon us, nor would I spare myself. If we were not suffering so, we should not love so. All our suffering is part of our love. I don’t know why it has happened like this, why God didn’t allow us to meet sooner. And that doesn’t concern us. It is so. What does concern us is not to graft our love on to disloyalty and unfaithfulness. It is in our power to do right. I can’t deliberately choose to find happiness for you or for me in a crime.”

  “Crime!”

  “Yes, the worst sort of crime, for it is one that is a crime that we should commit against each other. I don’t think” — and a shadow of a smile hung round Elizabeth’s mouth— “I don’t think I should feel so very bad if I murdered some one whom I hate. But in this I should be murdering all that is best in the man I love.”

  “You are talking wildly!” he said. “Murder! What nonsense!”

  “I never spoke more deliberately,” said she.

  Again he was stung to a frenzy of impotence.

  “And you admit you love me!” he cried. “You admit it!”

  “But of course. Don’t — don’t be so silly!”

  “But I can’t do it. I can’t let you go!” he broke out again. “And would you have me marry Edith, you, who talk about the sacredness of love?”

  Elizabeth pushed him gently away from her.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t had room in me to think about that,” she said. “It has taken me, well — all my time to think about us.”

  He was silent a moment,

  “Do you think she will let me go, when she knows?” he asked.

  “I think she does know. At least I think she guesses.”

  “Well?”

  “I can’t tell. But I think she loves you. I am sure she loves you. And it is hard to let go a person one loves.”

  “It’s impossible!” he cried suddenly.

  “She may find it so.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of her,” said he.

  He stretched out his arms wide and towards her.

  “Elizabeth!” he cried.

  She wavered where she stood. Never yet had the balance hung so evenly, as when now he made his final appeal to her, wordless except for her own name, for into that his whole soul went. She felt dragged to him by a force almost irresistible. From him and her alike for the moment all the ties and considerations of loyalty and honour were loosed; he knew only his overmastering need, she, the int
ensity of a woman’s longing to give herself. Had the choice been then for the first time to be made, she would have flung herself to him. But the force of the choice she had made before had already made itself firm within her.

  “No, no, no!” she said, and the words were drops of blood. Then once more she had power to turn from him.

  She went back to the piano to close it, and mechanically shut up the music she had been playing from. Then, though she had heard nothing, she felt that some change had come into the room. From the edge of the field of vision she saw that Edward had turned towards the door, and she looked. The door was open, and Edith stood there.

  Elizabeth let the piano-lid slip from her hands, and it fell with a bang and jar of wires.

  “You are back early,” she said. “At least it is early, is it not? Has Aunt Julia come back?”

  “No. I telephoned for the car, and left almost immediately after dinner. My ankle began to hurt again.”

  The reaction after her struggle had begun in Elizabeth. Though it was for Edith’s advantage she had done battle, it was not for Edith’s sake, and the sight of her cousin suddenly filled her with bitter resentment. She felt perfectly sure also that this reason for her return was wholly fictitious; she had come back like this for an entirely different purpose. Elizabeth feigned an exaggerated sympathy.

  “Oh, I am so sorry,” she said, “and surely, Edith, it is madness to stand like that. I am sure you are in agonies. Of course you will go to bed at once. Shall not I ring for Filson? And then I will telephone and ask Dr. Frank to come round immediately. Is it very bad? Poor dear! But anyhow you have the pleasure of seeing Edward. You did not expect to find him here, did you? Did you?”

  Goaded and self-accused of a foolish attempt at deceit, Edith turned to her.

  “Yes, I did,” she said, “I thought it extremely probable.”

  “Ah, and can it have been for the sake of finding him here as much as for the sake of your ankle, which I see you still continue to stand on, that you came back? Edward, do you hear? Edith expected to find you here. So she is not disappointed. And I’m sure her ankle feels much better.”

  It was scarcely possible to believe that this jeering, scoffing girl was the same who five minutes before pleaded with her lover with such womanly strength, such splendid self-repression, or that she could have thus battled for the rights of her whom she now so bitterly taunted. And indeed the mere identity of Edith was but a casual accident; Elizabeth had ranged herself on the side of a principle rather than the instance of it. For the rest, after the scene in which she had called upon every ounce of her moral force to aid her, she had nervously, entirely collapsed with a jar like that of the fallen piano-lid. Then her collapse spread a little farther; the angry fire that burned in her for this pitiful subterfuge went out, and, swaying as she stood, she put her hands before her eyes.

  “I’m giddy!” she said. “I’m afraid I’m going to faint!”

  Edward took a quick step towards her, but she waved him aside and fell on to the sofa. Edith looked at her without moving.

  “You will be all right if you sit still a moment,” she said, “and then I think it is you who had better go to bed. As Edward is here, I want to talk to him privately. Leave her alone, Edward; she is better left alone.”

  He paid no attention to this, and went to the sofa.

  “Can I do anything for you?” he said. “Can’t I get you some water, or some brandy?”

  Elizabeth sat up.

  “I shall be all right,” she said. “I will just sit here a minute or two. Then I will go. Edith wants to talk to you. She — she has not seen you for so long.”

  Slowly her vitality returned, and with it for the second time that day the aching sense of the uselessness of her bitter, ironical words to her cousin, of the sheer stupidity of their wrangle. If Edith chose to tell a foolish tale about her ankle, it concerned nobody but herself. It did not matter, for one thing only in the world mattered. And with regard to that, for the present, she felt a total apathy. She had done her part; nobody, not even herself, could require anything more of her. She felt hugely and overwhelmingly tired, nothing more at all. She got up.

  “I shall take your advice, Edith, and go to bed,” she said. “If there is anything you want to tell me afterwards, please come up to my room. Good-night, Edward!”

  Not till her steps had passed away up the stairs did either of the two others speak. Edith’s face, firm, pretty, plump, showed not the slightest sign of emotion. She stood in front of the empty fire-place, waving her feather fan backwards and forwards opposite her knee, looking at it.

  “I think you had better tell me what has happened,” she said. “Or if you find a difficulty in doing that I will tell you. You imagine that you have fallen in love with Elizabeth.”

  An answer seemed superfluous. After a little pause she apparently thought so too, and went on, still in the same quiet, passionless tone.

  “I have often watched you and her,” she said. “She has used her music as an instrument to encourage you and draw you on — —”

  “That is not so!” said Edward.

  “Of course you are bound to defend her. It is manly of you, and what I should expect from you. But that does not matter.”

  “Yes, it does matter,” said he. “Throughout the fault has been entirely mine. You have got to believe that. You do not understand her at all if you think otherwise.”

  “I do not want to understand Elizabeth. Her nature and mine are so far apart that I do not attempt to understand her. What is perfectly clear to me is that she knew that you and I were engaged, and she has tried to come between us. So far I understand her, and for me that is far enough.”

  Edward looked at her. Half an hour ago he had wondered whether Elizabeth was flesh and blood. Now he wondered if Edith was.

  “You are absolutely mistaken about her,” he said. “It is she who has been unswervingly loyal to you. The disloyalty has been entirely mine. I know I can’t make you believe it, but it is so.”

  Edith met his eye looking at her steadily without tremor.

  “Yes, you can make me believe it, if you ask me to release you from your engagement to me,” she said. “Do you do that?”

  The waving of her fan ceased as she waited for his answer. She stood absolutely still, a marvel of self-control.

  “No, I don’t ask that,” he said. “All the same, you must believe what I tell you about your cousin.”

  “And if I can’t?”

  “I will force you to. I will tell you what happened on the night of the opera; I will tell you why I have kept away all these days. I will even show you the letter from her that brought me back. You will have to believe.”

  For the moment nothing seemed to matter to him except that Edith should believe this, and in the silence that followed he watched her face, and marvelled at the change that came there. It was as if it was possible to see the belief penetrating into her brain, and transforming her features, even as the thaws of the spring penetrate into the congealed ground, softening its outlines and bedewing the spear-heads of frozen grass with moisture, that percolates and liquefies the ice-bound tussocks. Even so, Edith, frozen with jealous hate for Elizabeth, melted at the words the truth of which it was impossible to doubt, for the nature of the proofs he offered was the guarantee for them. She had to believe. And this unfreezing melted her; the crust of her hardness was dissolved, and pitiful imperative yearnings welled up from the very springs of her, that pierced and flooded the ground that had been sealed to their outflow. As far as her will went, she banished her bitterness and blame of Elizabeth; she was herself alone with her lover and her love, that was more adamantine than this mere frozen surface of hatred and jealousy had been. Till that crust was dissolved, the inner springs could not flow; now it was melted and they flooded her.

  Her fan dropped unregarded at her feet, and she clasped her hands together.

  “I believe you,” she said. “It is you who — who are responsible
. But you don’t ask me to release you. That is well, for — for I can’t release you. You can refuse to marry me, I suppose. A man can always do that if he has made a girl love him and has asked her to marry him.”

  He did not answer, and she went on winding and unwinding her fingers.

  “You see I love you,” she said, “and I can’t let you go. And only a few weeks ago you liked me enough anyhow to want me to marry you. You thought you would be very well content to live with me always. I think that was about it. And I felt much the same towards you. Then immediately, when I found you wanted me, I began to love you. And I love you more and more. Before that nothing in the world had meant anything to me. Even if you asked me to let you go, I could not.”

  Still he said nothing, and she came up close to him, treading on her fan and breaking the ivory sticks of it.

  “It would be simply impossible for me,” she said. “Do you think that by my own act I could give you up, and let you marry Elizabeth — as I suppose you would do?”

  She pointed through the open window at his house next door.

  “Could I see you living there with her?” she asked. “Hear the gate clang as you went in on your return in the evening? See the lights lit in the house and quenched again at night, and know you were there with her, and that I had permitted it? Never, never! You can refuse to marry me, if you will; that is your affair. But don’t, Edward, don’t!” and her voice broke.

  He felt utterly humiliated by her sudden entreaty. It was pitiful, it was intolerable that she whom he had sought light-heartedly with a view to comfort and quiet happiness and domestic peace should abase herself to him, asking that he should not withdraw so paltry a gift. He had known and liked and admired her for years, and had offered her, not knowing how cheap and shabby was his devotion, what was wholly unworthy of her acceptance. In return now she gave him unreservedly all she had, all she was capable of, only asking that his rubbish should not be taken from her.

  And now as he sat there, full of cold pity for her, full of scorn for himself that he should give her pity and be unable to give her warmth, she knelt to him, clasping his knees. And her beseeching, so grovelling, so abandoned, seemed only to degrade him. Knowing now that he knew what love was, how royal was the gift she brought him, he saw himself bankrupt and abject, receiving the supplications of some noble petitioner.