by E. F. Benson
Michael knew that his mother’s steps were getting nearer and nearer to that border line which separates the sane from the insane, and with all the wearing strain of the days as they passed, had but the one desire in his heart, namely, to keep her on the right side for as long as was humanly possible. But something might happen, some new symptom develop which would make it impossible for her to go on living with him as she did now, and the dread of that moment haunted his waking hours and his dreams. Two months ago her doctor had told him that, for the sake of everyone concerned, it was to be hoped that the progress of her disease would be swift; but, for his part, Michael passionately disclaimed such a wish. In spite of her constant complaints and strictures, she was still possessed of her love for him, and, wearing though every day was, he grudged the passing of the hours that brought her nearer to the awful boundary line. Had a deed been presented to him for his signature, which bound him indefinitely to his mother’s service, on the condition that she got no worse, his pen would have spluttered with his eagerness to sign.
In consequence of his mother’s dislike to Sylvia, Michael had hardly seen her during this last month. Once, when owing to some small physical disturbance, Lady Ashbridge had gone to bed early on a Sunday evening, he had gone to one of the Falbes’ weekly parties, and had tried to fling himself with enjoyment into the friendly welcoming atmosphere. But for the present, he felt himself detached from it all, for this life with his mother was close round him with a sort of nightmare obsession, through which outside influence and desire could only faintly trickle. He knew that the other life was there, he knew that in his heart he longed for Sylvia as much as ever; but, in his present detachment, his desire for her was a drowsy ache, a remote emptiness, and the veil that lay over his mother seemed to lie over him also. Once, indeed, during the evening, when he had played for her, the veil had lifted and for the drowsy ache he had the sunlit, stabbing pang; but, as he left, the veil dropped again, and he let himself into the big, mute house, sorry that he had left it. In the same way, too, his music was in abeyance: he could not concentrate himself or find it worth while to make the effort to absorb himself in it, and he knew that short of that, there was neither profit nor pleasure for him in his piano. Everything seemed remote compared with the immediate foreground: there was a gap, a gulf between it and all the rest of the world.
His father wrote to him from time to time, laying stress on the extreme importance of all he was doing in the country, and giving no hint of his coming up to town at present. But he faintly adumbrated the time when in the natural course of events he would have to attend to his national duties in the House of Lords, and wondered whether it would not (about then) be good for his wife to have a change, and enjoy the country when the weather became more propitious. Michael, with an excusable unfilialness, did not answer these amazing epistles; but, having basked in their unconscious humour, sent them on to Aunt Barbara. Weekly reports were sent by Lady Ashbridge’s nurse to his father, and Michael had nothing whatever to add to these. His fear of him had given place to a quiet contempt, which he did not care to think about, and certainly did not care to express.
Every now and then Lady Ashbridge had what Michael thought of as a good hour or two, when she went back to her content and childlike joy in his presence, and it was clear, when presently she came downstairs as he still lingered in the garden, reading the daily paper in the sun, that one of these better intervals had visited her. She, too, it appeared, felt the waving of the magic wand of spring, and she noted the signs of it with a joy that was infinitely pathetic.
“My dear,” she said, “what a beautiful morning! Is it wise to sit out of doors without your hat, Michael? Shall not I go and fetch it for you? No? Then let us sit here and talk. It is spring, is it not? Look how the birds are collecting twigs for their nests! I wonder how they know that the time has come round again. Sweet little birds! How bold and merry they are.”
She edged her way a little nearer him, so that her shoulder leaned on his arm.
“My dear, I wish you were going to nest, too,” she said. “I wonder — do you think I have been ill-natured and unkind to your Sylvia, and that makes her not come to see me now? I do remember being vexed at her for not wanting to marry you, and perhaps I talked unkindly about her. I am sorry, for my being cross to her will do no good; it will only make her more unwilling than ever to marry a man who has such an unpleasant mamma. Will she come to see me again, do you think, if I ask her?”
These good hours were too rare in their appearances and swift in their vanishings to warrant the certainty that she would feel the same this afternoon, and Michael tried to turn the subject.
“Ah, we shall have to think about that, mother,” he said. “Look, there is a quarrel going on between those two sparrows. They both want the same straw.”
She followed his pointing finger, easily diverted.
“Oh, I wish they would not quarrel,” she said. “It is so sad and stupid to quarrel, instead of being agreeable and pleasant. I do not like them to do that. There, one has flown away! And see, the crocuses are coming up. Indeed it is spring. I should like to see the country to-day. If you are not busy, Michael, would you take me out into the country? We might go to Richmond Park perhaps, for that is in the opposite direction from Ashbridge, and look at the deer and the budding trees. Oh, Michael, might we take lunch with us, and eat it out of doors? I want to enjoy as much as I can of this spring day.”
She clung closer to Michael.
“Everything seems so fragile, dear,” she whispered. “Everything may break. . . . Sometimes I am frightened.”
The little expedition was soon moving, after a slight altercation between Lady Ashbridge and her nurse, whom she wished to leave behind in order to enjoy Michael’s undiluted society. But Miss Baker, who had already spoken to Michael, telling him she was not quite happy in her mind about her patient, was firm about accompanying them, though she obligingly effaced herself as far as possible by taking the box-seat by the chauffeur as they drove down, and when they arrived, and Michael and his mother strolled about in the warm sunshine before lunch, keeping carefully in the background, just ready to come if she was wanted. But indeed it seemed as if no such precautions were necessary, for never had Lady Ashbridge been more amenable, more blissfully content in her son’s companionship. The vernal hour, that first smell of the rejuvenated earth, as it stirred and awoke from its winter sleep had reached her no less than it had reached the springing grass and the heart of buried bulbs, and never perhaps in all her life had she been happier than on that balmy morning of early March. Here the stir of spring that had crept across miles of smoky houses to the gardens behind Curzon Street, was more actively effervescent, and the “bare, leafless choirs” of the trees, which had been empty of song all winter, were once more resonant with feathered worshippers. Through the tussocks of the grey grass of last year were pricking the vivid shoots of green, and over the grove of young birches and hazel the dim, purple veil of spring hung mistlike. Down by the water-edge of the Penn ponds they strayed, where moor-hens scuttled out of rhododendron bushes that overhung the lake, and hurried across the surface of the water, half swimming, half flying, for the shelter of some securer retreat. There, too, they found a plantation of willows, already in bud with soft moleskin buttons, and a tortoiseshell butterfly, evoked by the sun from its hibernation, settled on one of the twigs, opening and shutting its diapered wings, and spreading them to the warmth to thaw out the stiffness and inaction of winter. Blackbirds fluted in the busy thickets, a lark shot up near them soaring and singing till it became invisible in the luminous air, a suspended carol in the blue, and bold male chaffinches, seeking their mates with twittered songs, fluttered with burr of throbbing wings. All the promise of spring was there — dim, fragile, but sure, on this day of days, this pearl that emerged from the darkness and the stress of winter, iridescent with the tender colours of the dawning year.
They lunched in the open motor, Miss Baker again o
bligingly removing herself to the box seat, and spreading rugs on the grass sat in the sunshine, while Lady Ashbridge talked or silently watched Michael as he smoked, but always with a smile. The one little note of sadness which she had sounded when she said she was frightened lest everything should break, had not rung again, and yet all day Michael heard it echoing somewhere dimly behind the song of the wind and the birds, and the shoots of growing trees. It lurked in the thickets, just eluding him, and not presenting itself to his direct gaze; but he felt that he saw it out of the corner of his eye, only to lose it when he looked at it. And yet for weeks his mother had never seemed so well: the cloud had lifted off her this morning, and, but for some vague presage of trouble that somehow haunted his mind, refusing to be disentangled, he could have believed that, after all, medical opinion might be at fault, and that, instead of her passing more deeply into the shadows as he had been warned was inevitable, she might at least maintain the level to which she had returned to-day. All day she had been as she was before the darkness and discontent of those last weeks had come upon her: he who knew her now so well could certainly have affirmed that she had recovered the serenity of a month ago. It was so much, so tremendously much that she should do this, and if only she could remain as she had been all day, she would at any rate be happy, happier, perhaps, than she had consciously been in all the stifled years which had preceded this. Nothing else at the moment seemed to matter except the preservation to her of such content, and how eagerly would he have given all the service that his young manhood had to offer, if by that he could keep her from going further into the bewildering darkness that he had been told awaited her.
There was some little trouble, though no more than the shadow of a passing cloud, when at last he said that they must be getting back to town, for the afternoon was beginning to wane. She besought him for five minutes more of sitting here in the sunshine that was still warm, and when those minutes were over, she begged for yet another postponement. But then the quiet imposition of his will suddenly conquered her, and she got up.
“My dear, you shall do what you like with me,” she said, “for you have given me such a happy day. Will you remember that, Michael? It has been a nice day. And might we, do you think, ask Miss Falbe to come to tea with us when we get back? She can but say ‘no,’ and if she comes, I will be very good and not vex her.”
As she got back into the motor she stood up for a moment, her vague blue eyes scanning the sky, the trees, the stretch of sunlit park.
“Good-bye, lake, happy lake and moor-hens,” she said. “Good-bye, trees and grass that are growing green again. Good-bye, all pretty, peaceful things.”
Michael had no hesitation in telephoning to Sylvia when they got back to town, asking her if she could come and have tea with his mother, for the gentle, affectionate mood of the morning still lasted, and her eagerness to see Sylvia was only equalled by her eagerness to be agreeable to her. He was greedy, whenever it could be done, to secure a pleasure for his mother, and this one seemed in her present mood a perfectly safe one. Added to that impulse, in itself sufficient, there was his own longing to see her again, that thirst that never left him, and soon after they had got back to Curzon Street Sylvia was with them, and, as before, in preparation for a long visit, she had taken off her hat. To-day she divested herself of it without any suggestion on Lady Ashbridge’s part, and this immensely pleased her.
“Look, Michael,” she said. “Miss Falbe means to stop a long time. That is sweet of her, is it not? She is not in such a hurry to get away today. Sugar, Miss Falbe? Yes, I remember you take sugar and milk, but no cream. Well, I do think this is nice!”
Sylvia had seen neither mother nor son for a couple of weeks, and her eyes coming fresh to them noticed much change in them both. In Lady Ashbridge this change, though marked, was indefinable enough: she seemed to the girl to have somehow gone much further off than she had been before; she had faded, become indistinct. It was evident that she found, except when she was talking to Michael, a far greater difficulty in expressing herself, the channels of communication, as it were, were getting choked. . . . With Michael, the change was easily stated, he looked terribly tired, and it was evident that the strain of these weeks was telling heavily on him. And yet, as Sylvia noticed with a sudden sense of personal pride in him, not one jot of his patient tenderness for his mother was abated. Tired as he was, nervous, on edge, whenever he dealt with her, either talking to her, or watching for any little attention she might need, his face was alert with love. But she noticed that when the footman brought in tea, and in arranging the cups let a spoon slip jangling from its saucer, Michael jumped as if a bomb had gone off, and under his breath said to the man, “You clumsy fool!” Little as the incident was, she, knowing Michael’s courtesy and politeness, found it significant, as bearing on the evidence of his tired face. Then, next moment his mother said something to him, and instantly his love transformed and irradiated it.
To-day, more than ever before, Lady Ashbridge seemed to exist only through him. As Sylvia knew, she had been for the last few weeks constantly disagreeable to him; but she wondered whether this exacting, meticulous affection was not harder to bear. Yet Michael, in spite of the nervous strain which now showed itself so clearly, seemed to find no difficulty at all in responding to it. It might have worn his nerves to tatters, but the tenderness and love of him passed unhampered through the frayed communications, for it was he himself who was brought into play. It was of that Michael, now more and more triumphantly revealed, that Sylvia felt so proud, as if he had been a possession, an achievement wholly personal to her. He was her Michael — it was just that which was becoming evident, since nothing else would account for her claim of him, unconsciously whispered by herself to herself.
It was not long before Lady Ashbridge’s nurse appeared, to take her upstairs to rest. At that her patient became suddenly and unaccountably agitated: all the happy content of the day was wiped off her mind. She clung to Michael.
“No, no, Michael,” she said, “they mustn’t take me away. I know they are going to take me away from you altogether. You mustn’t leave me.”
Nurse Baker came towards her.
“Now, my lady, you mustn’t behave like that,” she said. “You know you are only going upstairs to rest as usual before dinner. You will see Lord Comber again then.”
She shrank from her, shielding herself behind Michael’s shoulder.
“No, Michael, no!” she repeated. “I’m going to be taken away from you. And look, Miss — ah, my dear, I have forgotten your name — look, she has got no hat on. She was going to stop with me a long time. Michael, must I go?”
Michael saw the nurse looking at her, watching her with that quiet eye of the trained attendant.
Then she spoke to Michael.
“Well, if Lord Comber will just step outside with me,” she said, “we’ll see if we can arrange for you to stop a little longer.”
“And you’ll come back, Michael,” said she.
Michael saw that the nurse wanted to say something to him, and with infinite gentleness disentangled the clinging of Lady Ashbridge’s hand.
“Why, of course I will,” he said. “And won’t you give Miss Falbe another cup of tea?”
Lady Ashbridge hesitated a moment.
“Yes, I’ll do that,” she said. “And by the time I’ve done that you will be back again, won’t you?”
Michael followed the nurse from the room, who closed the door without shutting it.
“There’s something I don’t like about her this evening,” she said. “All day I have been rather anxious. She must be watched very carefully. Now I want you to get her to come upstairs, and I’ll try to make her go to bed.”
Michael felt his mouth go suddenly dry.
“What do you expect?” he said.
“I don’t expect anything, but we must be prepared. A change comes very quickly.”
Michael nodded, and they went back together.
“Now, m
other darling,” he said, “up you go with Nurse Baker. You’ve been out all day, and you must have a good rest before dinner. Shall I come up and see you soon?”
A curious, sly look came into Lady Ashbridge’s face.
“Yes, but where am I going to?” she said. “How do I know Nurse Baker will take me to my own room?”
“Because I promise you she will,” said Michael.
That instantly reassured her. Mood after mood, as Michael saw, were passing like shadows over her mind.
“Ah, that’s enough!” she said. “Good-bye, Miss — there! the name’s gone again! But won’t you sit here and have a talk to Michael, and let him show you over the house to see if you like it against the time — Oh, Michael said I mustn’t worry you about that. And won’t you stop and have dinner with us, and afterwards we can sing.”
Michael put his arm around her.
“We’ll talk about that while you’re resting,” he said. “Don’t keep Nurse Baker waiting any longer, mother.”
She nodded and smiled.
“No, no; mustn’t keep anybody waiting,” she said. “Your father taught me to be punctual.”
When they had left the room together, Sylvia turned to Michael.
“Michael, my dear,” she said, “I think you are — well, I think you are Michael.”
She saw that at the moment he was not thinking of her at all, and her heart honoured him for that.
“I’m anxious about my mother to-night,” he said. “She has been so — I suppose you must call it — well all day, but the nurse isn’t easy about her.”
Suddenly all his fears and his fatigue and his trouble looked out of his eyes.
“I’m frightened,” he said, “and it’s so unutterably feeble of me. And I’m tired: you don’t know how tired, and try as I may I feel that all the time it is no use. My mother is slipping, slipping away.”
