Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  The house was very still with that curious stillness that comes with such a waiting. Outside the warm May wind blew in at the window laden with the scent of the wallflowers that grew just outside, and the air was full of the fragrance and chirrupings of spring. At the gate stood Mrs. Hancock’s motor, which had just brought down a doctor from London, who at this moment was holding a consultation with Edith’s doctor in the dining-room. Elizabeth had propped open the door of the room where she sat, so that she might hear him come out, and get a word with him, but she had been told there was no hope that her cousin would live. Above her head, from the room where Edith lay, came an occasional footstep, sounding dim and muffled, and she could hear the slow tick of the clock in the hall outside. She guessed, she believed with certainty, what it was Edith wanted to say to her, namely, to repeat the question that had been cut short by the coming of her pains two days before. And Elizabeth knew how she would answer it.

  She sat there long in silence, alert for any noise that should come from the house. Then the dining-room door, where the physicians were consulting, opened, and she went out to meet them in the hall. A couple of sentences told her all, and the London specialist walked out to the motor waiting for him, while the other went upstairs again to the silent room. From outside came the whirr of the engines as Denton started them again.

  Elizabeth sat down on the bottom step of the stairs, her mind quite still and inactive. Occasionally, like a cloud taking substance suddenly in a serene sky, some remembered scene, some sentence, some trivial happening connected with Edith, appeared there, forming itself and vanishing again, and more than once Edith’s voice sounded in her ears as she said, “Let no one say that I did not love him.” But for the most part the imminence of the great silent event that they were all waiting for kept her mind vacant. In that presence she could not think of anything else; those little things that kept occurring to her seemed to come from outside.

  Then she heard a stir above her, the click of an opened door, and, looking round and up, she saw Edward beckoning to her.

  “She has asked for you,” he said, as she entered.

  Edith was lying on her bed, looking with wide-open eyes at the ceiling. She did not seem to notice Elizabeth’s entrance, but the doctor beckoned to her, and she knelt down at the right of the bed. Then he went back and stood some little distance off by the window. The breeze streamed in through the open sash, making the blind tassel rattle and tap against the wall, but otherwise there was dead silence.

  Then suddenly Edith spoke.

  “I want to see Elizabeth,” she said. “Will not Elizabeth come?”

  Elizabeth got up.

  “I am here, Edith,” she said.

  “I want to speak to you alone,” she said. “Nobody else must hear.”

  She had turned her eyes to the girl as she bent over her, and waited, looking at her with a fixed, anxious expression, till the others had gone into the dressing-room adjoining.

  “We are alone?” she asked. “Then tell me. Did you love him?”

  Elizabeth bent lower over her and kissed her.

  “Yes, dear Edith,” she said. “I always loved him.”

  “Then — then you must get him to forgive me. Perhaps he will forgive me? Do you think he will?”

  Elizabeth took hold of the white, wet hand that lay outside the coverlet.

  “Oh, my dear!” she said.

  “Ask him to come, then,” said Edith faintly. “Quickly, quickly!”

  Next moment they stood together by the bed. Her lips moved once, but no sound came from them. Only her eyes, over which lay the deepening shadow, looked from one to the other and back again.

  MIKE

  OR, MICHAEL

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  CHAPTER V

  CHAPTER VI

  CHAPTER VII

  CHAPTER VIII

  CHAPTER IX

  CHAPTER X

  CHAPTER XI

  CHAPTER XII

  CHAPTER XIII

  CHAPTER XIV

  CHAPTER XV

  CHAPTER XVI

  CHAPTER XVII

  CHAPTER I

  Though there was nothing visibly graceful about Michael Comber, he apparently had the art of giving gracefully. He had already told his cousin Francis, who sat on the arm of the sofa by his table, that there was no earthly excuse for his having run into debt; but now when the moment came for giving, he wrote the cheque quickly and eagerly, as if thoroughly enjoying it, and passed it over to him with a smile that was extraordinarily pleasant.

  “There you are, then, Francis,” he said; “and I take it from you that that will put you perfectly square again. You’ve got to write to me, remember, in two days’ time, saying that you have paid those bills. And for the rest, I’m delighted that you told me about it. In fact, I should have been rather hurt if you hadn’t.”

  Francis apparently had the art of accepting gracefully, which is more difficult than the feat which Michael had so successfully accomplished.

  “Mike, you’re a brick,” he said. “But then you always are a brick. Thanks awfully.”

  Michael got up, and shuffled rather than walked across the room to the bell by the fireplace. As long as he was sitting down his big arms and broad shoulders gave the impression of strength, and you would have expected to find when he got up that he was tall and largely made. But when he rose the extreme shortness of his legs manifested itself, and he appeared almost deformed. His hands hung nearly to his knees; he was heavy, short, lumpish.

  “But it’s more blessed to give than to receive, Francis,” he said. “I have the best of you there.”

  “Well, it’s pretty blessed to receive when you are in a tight place, as I was,” he said, laughing. “And I am so grateful.”

  “Yes, I know you are. And it’s that which makes me feel rather cheap, because I don’t miss what I’ve given you. But that’s distinctly not a reason for your doing it again. You’ll have tea, won’t you?”

  “Why, yes,” said Francis, getting up, also, and leaning his elbow on the chimney-piece, which was nearly on a level with the top of Michael’s head. And if Michael had gracefulness only in the art of giving, Francis’s gracefulness in receiving was clearly of a piece with the rest of him. He was tall, slim and alert, with the quick, soft movements of some wild animal. His face, brown with sunburn and pink with brisk-going blood, was exceedingly handsome in a boyish and almost effeminate manner, and though he was only eighteen months younger than his cousin, he looked as if nine or ten years might have divided their ages.

  “But you are a brick, Mike,” he said again, laying his long, brown hand on his cousin’s shoulder. “I can’t help saying it twice.”

  “Twice more than was necessary,” said Michael, finally dismissing the subject.

  The room where they sat was in Michael’s flat in Half Moon Street, and high up in one of those tall, discreet-looking houses. The windows were wide open on this hot July afternoon, and the bourdon hum of London, where Piccadilly poured by at the street end, came in blended and blunted by distance, but with the suggestion of heat, of movement, of hurrying affairs. The room was very empty of furniture; there was a rug or two on the parquet floor, a long, low bookcase taking up the end near the door, a table, a sofa, three or four chairs, and a piano. Everything was plain, but equally obviously everything was expensive, and the general impression given was that the owner had no desire to be surrounded by things he did not want, but insisted on the superlative quality of the things he did. The rugs, for instance, happened to be of silk, the bookcase happened to be Hepplewhite, the piano bore the most eminent of makers’ names. There were three mezzotints on the walls, a dragon’s-blood vase on the high, carved chimney-piece; the whole bore the unmistakable stamp of a fine, individual taste.

  “But there’s something else I want to talk to you about, Francis,” said Michael, as presently afte
rwards they sat over their tea. “I can’t say that I exactly want your advice, but I should like your opinion. I’ve done something, in fact, without asking anybody, but now that it’s done I should like to know what you think about it.”

  Francis laughed.

  “That’s you all over, Michael,” he said. “You always do a thing first, if you really mean to do it — which I suppose is moral courage — and then you go anxiously round afterwards to see if other people approve, which I am afraid looks like moral cowardice. I go on a different plan altogether. I ascertain the opinion of so many people before I do anything that I end by forgetting what I wanted to do. At least, that seems a reasonable explanation for the fact that I so seldom do anything.”

  Michael looked affectionately at the handsome boy who lounged long-legged in the chair opposite him. Like many very shy persons, he had one friend with whom he was completely unreserved, and that was this cousin of his, for whose charm and insouciant brilliance he had so adoring an admiration.

  He pointed a broad, big finger at him.

  “Yes, but when you are like that,” he said, “you can just float along. Other people float you. But I should sink heavily if I did nothing. I’ve got to swim all the time.”

  “Well, you are in the army,” said Francis. “That’s as much swimming as anyone expects of a fellow who has expectations. In fact, it’s I who have to swim all the time, if you come to think of it. You are somebody; I’m not!”

  Michael sat up and took a cigarette.

  “But I’m not in the army any longer,” he said. “That’s just what I am wanting to tell you.”

  Francis laughed.

  “What do you mean?” he asked. “Have you been cashiered or shot or something?”

  “I mean that I wrote and resigned my commission yesterday,” said Michael. “If you had dined with me last night — as, by the way, you promised to do — I should have told you then.”

  Francis got up and leaned against the chimney-piece. He was conscious of not thinking this abrupt news as important as he felt he ought to think it. That was characteristic of him; he floated, as Michael had lately told him, finding the world an extremely pleasant place, full of warm currents that took you gently forward without entailing the slightest exertion. But Michael’s grave and expectant face — that Michael who had been so eagerly kind about meeting his debts for him — warned him that, however gossamer-like his own emotions were, he must attempt to ballast himself over this.

  “Are you speaking seriously?” he asked.

  “Quite seriously. I never did anything that was so serious.”

  “And that is what you want my opinion about?” he asked. “If so, you must tell me more, Mike. I can’t have an opinion unless you give me the reasons why you did it. The thing itself — well, the thing itself doesn’t seem to matter so immensely. The significance of it is why you did it.”

  Michael’s big, heavy-browed face lightened a moment. “For a fellow who never thinks,” he said, “you think uncommonly well. But the reasons are obvious enough. You can guess sufficient reasons to account for it.”

  “Let’s hear them anyhow,” said Francis.

  Michael clouded again.

  “Surely they are obvious,” he said. “No one knows better than me, unless it is you, that I’m not like the rest of you. My mind isn’t the build of a guardsman’s mind, any more than my unfortunate body is. Half our work, as you know quite well, consists in being pleasant and in liking it. Well, I’m not pleasant. I’m not breezy and cordial. I can’t do it. I make a task of what is a pastime to all of you, and I only shuffle through my task. I’m not popular, I’m not liked. It’s no earthly use saying I am. I don’t like the life; it seems to me senseless. And those who live it don’t like me. They think me heavy — just heavy. And I have enough sensitiveness to know it.”

  Michael need not have stated his reasons, for his cousin could certainly have guessed them; he could, too, have confessed to the truth of them. Michael had not the light hand, which is so necessary when young men work together in a companionship of which the cordiality is an essential part of the work; neither had he in the social side of life that particular and inimitable sort of easy self-confidence which, as he had said just now, enables its owner to float. Except in years he was not young; he could not manage to be “clubable”; he was serious and awkward at a supper party; he was altogether without the effervescence which is necessary in order to avoid flatness. He did his work also in the same conscientious but leaden way; officers and men alike felt it. All this Francis knew perfectly well; but instead of acknowledging it, he tried quite fruitlessly to smooth it over.

  “Aren’t you exaggerating?” he asked.

  Michael shook his head.

  “Oh, don’t tone it down, Francis!” he said. “Even if I was exaggerating — which I don’t for a moment admit — the effect on my general efficiency would be the same. I think what I say is true.”

  Francis became more practical.

  “But you’ve only been in the regiment three years,” he said. “It won’t be very popular resigning after only three years.”

  “I have nothing much to lose on the score of popularity,” remarked Michael.

  There was nothing pertinent that could be consoling here.

  “And have you told your father?” asked Francis. “Does Uncle Robert know?”

  “Yes; I wrote to father this morning, and I’m going down to Ashbridge to-morrow. I shall be very sorry if he disapproves.”

  “Then you’ll be sorry,” said Francis.

  “I know, but it won’t make any difference to my action. After all, I’m twenty-five; if I can’t begin to manage my life now, you may be sure I never shall. But I know I’m right. I would bet on my infallibility. At present I’ve only told you half my reasons for resigning, and already you agree with me.”

  Francis did not contradict this.

  “Let’s hear the rest, then,” he said.

  “You shall. The rest is far more important, and rather resembles a sermon.”

  Francis appropriately sat down again.

  “Well, it’s this,” said Michael. “I’m twenty-five, and it is time that I began trying to be what perhaps I may be able to be, instead of not trying very much — because it’s hopeless — to be what I can’t be. I’m going to study music. I believe that I could perhaps do something there, and in any case I love it more than anything else. And if you love a thing, you have certainly a better chance of succeeding in it than in something that you don’t love at all. I was stuck into the army for no reason except that soldiering is among the few employments which it is considered proper for fellows in my position — good Lord! how awful it sounds! — proper for me to adopt. The other things that were open were that I should be a sailor or a member of Parliament. But the soldier was what father chose. I looked round the picture gallery at home the other day; there are twelve Lord Ashbridges in uniform. So, as I shall be Lord Ashbridge when father dies, I was stuck into uniform too, to be the ill-starred thirteenth. But what has it all come to? If you think of it, when did the majority of them wear their smart uniforms? Chiefly when they went on peaceful parades or to court balls, or to the Sir Joshua Reynolds of the period to be painted. They’ve been tin soldiers, Francis! You’re a tin soldier, and I’ve just ceased to be a tin soldier. If there was the smallest chance of being useful in the army, by which I mean standing up and being shot at because I am English, I would not dream of throwing it up. But there’s no such chance.”

  Michael paused a moment in his sermon, and beat out the ashes from his pipe against the grate.

  “Anyhow the chance is too remote,” he said. “All the nations with armies and navies are too much afraid of each other to do more than growl. Also I happen to want to do something different with my life, and you can’t do anything unless you believe in what you are doing. I want to leave behind me something more than the portrait of a tin soldier in the dining-room at Ashbridge. After all, isn’t an arti
stic profession the greatest there is? For what counts, what is of value in the world to-day? Greek statues, the Italian pictures, the symphonies of Beethoven, the plays of Shakespeare. The people who have made beautiful things are they who are the benefactors of mankind. At least, so the people who love beautiful things think.”

  Francis glanced at his cousin. He knew this interesting vital side of Michael; he was aware, too, that had anybody except himself been in the room, Michael could not have shown it. Perhaps there might be people to whom he could show it but certainly they were not those among whom Michael’s life was passed.

  “Go on,” he said encouragingly. “You’re ripping, Mike.”

  “Well, the nuisance of it is that the things I am ripping about appear to father to be a sort of indoor game. It’s all right to play the piano, if it’s too wet to play golf. You can amuse yourself with painting if there aren’t any pheasants to shoot. In fact, he will think that my wanting to become a musician is much the same thing as if I wanted to become a billiard-marker. And if he and I talked about it till we were a hundred years old, he could never possibly appreciate my point of view.”

  Michael got up and began walking up and down the room with his slow, ponderous movement.

  “Francis, it’s a thousand pities that you and I can’t change places,” he said. “You are exactly the son father would like to have, and I should so much prefer being his nephew. However, you come next; that’s one comfort.”

  He paused a moment.

  “You see, the fact is that he doesn’t like me,” he said. “He has no sympathy whatever with my tastes, nor with what I am. I’m an awful trial to him, and I don’t see how to help it. It’s pure waste of time, my going on in the Guards. I do it badly, and I hate it. Now, you’re made for it; you’re that sort, and that sort is my father’s sort. But I’m not; no one knows that better than myself. Then there’s the question of marriage, too.”