Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  “Ah, you think that?” asked Michael.

  Hermann put his hand on Michael’s shoulder.

  “Mike, you’re the best friend I have,” he said, “and soon, please God, you are going to marry the girl who is everything else in the world to me. You two make up my world really — you two and my mother, anyhow. No other individual counts, or is in the same class. You know that, I expect. But there is one other thing, and that’s my nationality. It counts first. Nothing, nobody, not even Sylvia or my mother or you can stand between me and that. I expect you know that also, for you saw, nearly a year ago, what Germany is to me. Perhaps I may be quite wrong about it all — about the gravity, I mean, of the situation, and perhaps in a few days I may come racing home again. Yes, I said ‘home,’ didn’t I? Well, that shows you just how I am torn in two. But I can’t help going.”

  Hermann’s hand remained on his shoulder gently patting it. To Michael the world, life, the whole spirit of things had suddenly grown sinister, of the quality of nightmare. It was true that all the ground of this ominous depression which had darkened round him, was conjectural and speculative, that diplomacy, backed by the horror of war which surely all civilised nations and responsible govermnents must share, had, so far from saying its last, not yet said its first word; that the wits of all the Cabinets of Europe were at this moment only just beginning to stir themselves so as to secure a peaceful solution; but, in spite of this, the darkness and the nightmare grew in intensity. But as to Hermann’s determination to go to Germany, which made this so terribly real, since it was beginning to enter into practical everyday life, he had neither means nor indeed desire to combat it. He saw perfectly clearly that Hermann must go.

  “I don’t want to dissuade you,” he said, “not only because it would be useless, but because I am with you. You couldn’t do otherwise, Hermann.”

  “I don’t see that I could. Sylvia agrees too.”

  A terrible conjecture flashed through Michael’s mind.

  “And she?” he asked.

  “She can’t leave my mother, of course,” said Hermann, “and, after all, I may be on a wild goose chase. But I can’t risk being unable to get to Germany, if — if the worst happens.”

  The ghost of a smile played round his mouth for a moment.

  “And I’m not sure that she could leave you, Mike,” he added.

  Somehow this, though it gave Michael a moment of intensest relief to know that Sylvia remained, made the shadow grow deeper, accentuated the lines of the storm which had begun to spread over the sky. He began to see as nightmare no longer, but as stern and possible realities, something of the unutterable woe, the divisions, the heart-breaks which menaced.

  “Hermann, what do you think will happen?” he said. “It is incredible, unfaceable—”

  The gentle patting on his shoulder, that suddenly and poignantly reminded him of when Sylvia’s hand was there, ceased for a moment, and then was resumed.

  “Mike, old boy,” said Hermann, “we’ve got to face the unfaceable, and believe that the incredible is possible. I may be all wrong about it, and, as I say, in a few days’ time I may come racing back. But, on the other hand, this may be our last talk together, for I go off this afternoon. So let’s face it.”

  He paused a moment.

  “It may be that before long I shall be fighting for my Fatherland,” he said. “And if there is to be fighting, it may be that Germany will before long be fighting England. There I shall be on one side, and, since naturally you will go back into the Guards, you will be fighting on the other. I shall be doing my best to kill Englishmen, whom I love, and they will be doing their best to kill me and those of my blood. There’s the horror of it, and it’s that we must face. If we met in a bayonet charge, Mike, I should have to do my best to run you through, and yet I shouldn’t love you one bit the less, and you must know that. Or, if you ran me through, I shall have to die loving you just the same as before, and hoping you would live happy, for ever and ever, as the story-books say, with Sylvia.”

  “Hermann, don’t go,” said Michael suddenly.

  “Mike, you didn’t mean that,” he said.

  Michael looked at him for a moment in silence.

  “No, it is unsaid,” he replied.

  Hermann looked round as the clock on the chimney-piece chimed.

  “I must be going,” he said, “I needn’t say anything to you about Sylvia, because all I could say is in your heart already. Well, we’ve met in this jolly world, Mike, and we’ve been great friends. Neither you nor I could find a greater friend than we’ve been to each other. I bless God for this last year. It’s been the happiest in my life. Now what else is there? Your music: don’t ever be lazy about your music. It’s worth while taking all the pains you can about it. Lord! do you remember the evening when I first tried your Variations? . . . Let me play the last one now. I want something jubilant. Let’s see, how does it go?”

  He held his hands, those long, slim-fingered hands, poised for a moment above the keys, then plunged into the glorious riot of the full chords and scales, till the room rang with it. The last chord he held for a moment, and then sprang up.

  “Ah, that’s good,” he said. “And now I’m going to say good-bye, and go without looking round.”

  “But might I see you off this afternoon?” asked Michael.

  “No, please don’t. Station partings are fussy and disagreeable. I want to say good-bye to you here in your quiet room, just as I shall say goodbye to Sylvia at home. Ah, Mike, yes, both hands and smiling. May God give us other meetings and talks and companionship and years of love, my best of friends. Good-bye.”

  Then, as he had said, he walked to the door without looking round, and next moment it had closed behind him.

  Throughout the next week the tension of the situation grew ever greater, strained towards the snapping-point, while the little cloud, the man’s hand, which had arisen above the eastern horizon grew and overspread the heavens in a pall that became ever more black and threatening. For a few days yet it seemed that perhaps even now the cataclysm might be averted, but gradually, in spite of all the efforts of diplomacy to loosen the knot, it became clear that the ends of the cord were held in hands that did not mean to release their hold till it was pulled tight. Servia yielded to such demands as it was possible for her to grant as an independent State; but the inflexible fingers never abated one jot of their strangling pressure. She appealed to Russia, and Russia’s remonstrance fell on deaf ears, or, rather, on ears that had determined not to hear. From London and Paris came proposals for conference, for arbitration, with welcome for any suggestion from the other side which might lead to a peaceful solution of the disputed demands, already recognised by Europe as a firebrand wantonly flung into the midst of dangerous and inflammable material. Over that burning firebrand, preventing and warding off all the eager hands that were stretched to put it out, stood the figure of the nation at whose bidding it had been flung there.

  Gradually, out of the thunder-clouds and gathering darkness, vaguely at first and then in definite and menacing outline, emerged the inexorable, flint-like face of Germany, whose figure was clad in the shining armour so well known in the flamboyant utterances of her War Lord, which had been treated hitherto as mere irresponsible utterances to be greeted with a laugh and a shrugged shoulder. Deep and patient she had always been, and now she believed that the time had come for her patience to do its perfect work. She had bided long for the time when she could best fling that lighted brand into the midst of civilisation, and she believed she had calculated well. She cared nothing for Servia nor for her ally. On both her frontiers she was ready, and now on the East she heeded not the remonstrance of Russia, nor her sincere and cordial invitation to friendly discussion. She but waited for the step that she had made inevitable, and on the first sign of Russian mobilisation she, with her mobilisation ready to be completed in a few days, peremptorily demanded that it should cease. On the Western frontier behind the Rhine she was ready also
; her armies were prepared, cannon fodder in uncountable store of shells and cartridges was prepared, and in endless battalions of men, waiting to be discharged in one bull-like rush, to overrun France, and holding the French armies, shattered and dispersed, with a mere handful of her troops, to hurl the rest at Russia.

  The whole campaign was mathematically thought out. In a few months at the outside France would be lying trampled down and bleeding; Russia would be overrun; already she would be mistress of Europe, and prepared to attack the only country that stood between her and world-wide dominion, whose allies she would already have reduced to impotence. Here she staked on an uncertainty: she could not absolutely tell what England’s attitude would be, but she had the strongest reason for hoping that, distracted by the imminence of civil strife, she would be unable to come to the help of her allies until the allies were past helping.

  For a moment only were seen those set stern features mad for war; then, with a snap, Germany shut down her visor and stood with sword unsheathed, waiting for the horror of the stupendous bloodshed which she had made inevitable. Her legions gathered on the Eastern front threatening war on Russia, and thus pulling France into the spreading conflagration and into the midst of the flame she stood ready to cast the torn-up fragments of the treaty that bound her to respect the neutrality of Belgium.

  All this week, while the flames of the flung fire-brand began to spread, the English public waited, incredulous of the inevitable. Michael, among them, found himself unable to believe even then that the bugles were already sounding, and that the piles of shells in their wicker-baskets were being loaded on to the military ammunition trains. But all the ordinary interests in life, all the things that busily and contentedly occupied his day, one only excepted, had become without savour. A dozen times in the morning he would sit down to his piano, only to find that he could not think it worth while to make his hands produce these meaningless tinkling sounds, and he would jump up to read the paper over again, or watch for fresh headlines to appear on the boards of news-vendors in the street, and send out for any fresh edition. Or he would walk round to his club and spend an hour reading the tape news and waiting for fresh slips to be pinned up. But, through all the nightmare of suspense and slowly-dying hope, Sylvia remained real, and after he had received his daily report from the establishment where his mother was, with the invariable message that there was no marked change of any kind, and that it was useless for him to think of coming to see her, he would go off to Maidstone Crescent and spend the greater part of the day with the girl.

  Once during this week he had received a note from Hermann, written at Munich, and on the same day she also had heard from him. He had gone back to his regiment, which was mobilised, as a private, and was very busy with drill and duties. Feeling in Germany, he said, was elated and triumphant: it was considered certain that England would stand aside, as the quarrel was none of hers, and the nation generally looked forward to a short and brilliant campaign, with the occupation of Paris to be made in September at the latest. But as a postscript in his note to Sylvia he had added:

  “You don’t think there is the faintest chance of England coming in, do you? Please write to me fully, and get Mike to write. I have heard from neither of you, and as I am sure you must have written, I conclude that letters are stopped. I went to the theatre last night: there was a tremendous scene of patriotism. The people are war-mad.”

  Since then nothing had been heard from him, and to-day, as Michael drove down to see Sylvia, he saw on the news-boards that Belgium had appealed to England against the violation of her territory by the German armies en route for France. Overtures had been made, asking for leave to pass through the neutral territory: these Belgium had rejected. This was given as official news. There came also the report that the Belgian remonstrances would be disregarded. Should she refuse passage to the German battalions, that could make no difference, since it was a matter of life and death to invade France by that route.

  Sylvia was out in the garden, where, hardly a month ago, they had spent that evening of silent peace, and she got up quickly as Michael came out.

  “Ah, my dear,” she said, “I am glad you have come. I have got the horrors. You saw the latest news? Yes? And have you heard again from Hermann? No, I have not had a word.”

  He kissed her and sat down.

  “No, I have not heard either,” he said. “I expect he is right. Letters have been stopped.”

  “And what do you think will be the result of Belgium’s appeal?” she asked.

  “Who can tell? The Prime Minister is going to make a statement on Monday. There have been Cabinet meetings going on all day.”

  She looked at him in silence.

  “And what do you think?” she asked.

  Quite suddenly, at her question, Michael found himself facing it, even as, when the final catastrophe was more remote, he had faced it with Falbe. All this week he knew he had been looking away from it, telling himself that it was incredible. Now he discovered that the one thing he dreaded more than that England should go to war, was that she should not. The consciousness of national honour, the thing which, with religion, Englishmen are most shy of speaking about, suddenly asserted itself, and he found on the moment that it was bigger than anything else in the world.

  “I think we shall go to war,” he said. “I don’t see personally how we can exist any more as a nation if we don’t. We — we shall be damned if we don’t, damned for ever and ever. It’s moral extinction not to.”

  She kindled at that.

  “Yes, I know,” she said, “that’s what I have been telling myself; but, oh, Mike, there’s some dreadful cowardly part of me that won’t listen when I think of Hermann, and . . .”

  She broke off a moment.

  “Michael,” she said, “what will you do, if there is war?”

  He took up her hand that lay on the arm of his chair.

  “My darling, how can you ask?” he said. “Of course I shall go back to the army.”

  For one moment she gave way.

  “No, no,” she said. “You mustn’t do that.”

  And then suddenly she stopped.

  “My dear, I ask your pardon,” she said. “Of course you will. I know that really. It’s only this stupid cowardly part of me that — that interrupted. I am ashamed of it. I’m not as bad as that all through. I don’t make excuses for myself, but, ah, Mike, when I think of what Germany is to me, and what Hermann is, and when I think what England is to me, and what you are! It shan’t appear again, or if it does, you will make allowance, won’t you? At least I can agree with you utterly, utterly. It’s the flesh that’s weak, or, rather, that is so strong. But I’ve got it under.”

  She sat there in silence a little, mopping her eyes.

  “How I hate girls who cry!” she said. “It is so dreadfully feeble! Look, Mike, there are some roses on that tree from which I plucked the one you didn’t think much of. Do you remember? You crushed it up in my hand and made it bleed.”

  He smiled.

  “I have got some faint recollection of it,” he said.

  Sylvia had got hold of her courage again.

  “Have you?” she asked. “What a wonderful memory. And that quiet evening out here next day. Perhaps you remember that too. That was real: that was a possession that we shan’t ever part with.”

  She pointed with her finger.

  “You and I sat there, and Hermann there,” she said. “And mother sat — why, there she is. Mother darling, let’s have tea out here, shall we? I will go and tell them.”

  Mrs. Falbe had drifted out in her usual thistledown style, and shook hands with Michael.

  “What an upset it all is,” she said, “with all these dreadful rumours going about that we shall be at war. I fell asleep, I think, a little after lunch, when I could not attend to my book for thinking about war.”

  “Isn’t the book interesting?” asked Michael.

  “No, not very. It is rather painful. I do not know why
people write about painful things when there are so many pleasant and interesting things to write about. It seems to me very morbid.”

  Michael heard something cried in the streets, and at the same moment he heard Sylvia’s step quickly crossing the studio to the side door that opened on to it. In a minute she returned with a fresh edition of an evening paper.

  “They are preparing to cross the Rhine,” she said.

  Mrs. Falbe gave a little sigh.

  “I don’t know, I am sure,” she said, “what you are in such a state about, Sylvia. Of course the Germans want to get into France the easiest and quickest way, at least I’m sure I should. It is very foolish of Belgium not to give them leave, as they are so much the strongest.”

  “Mother darling, you don’t understand one syllable about it,” said Sylvia.

  “Very likely not, dear, but I am very glad we are an island, and that nobody can come marching here. But it is all a dreadful upset, Lord — I mean Michael, what with Hermann in Germany, and the concert tour abandoned. Still, if everything is quiet again by the middle of October, as I daresay it will be, it might come off after all. He will be on the spot, and you and Michael can join him, though I’m not quite sure if that would be proper. But we might arrange something: he might meet you at Ostend.”

  “I’m afraid it doesn’t look very likely,” remarked Michael mildly.

  “Oh, and are you pessimistic too, like Sylvia? Pray don’t be pessimistic. There is a dreadful pessimist in my book, who always thinks the worst is going to happen.”

  “And does it?” asked Michael.

  “As far as I have got, it does, which makes it all the worse. Of course I am very anxious about Hermann, but I feel sure he will come back safe to us. I daresay France will give in when she sees Germany is in earnest.”

  Mrs. Falbe pulled the shattered remnants of her mind together. In her heart of hearts she knew she did not care one atom what might happen to armies and navies and nations, provided only that she had a quantity of novels to read, and meals at regular hours. The fact of being on an island was an immense consolation to her, since it was quite certain that, whatever happened, German armies (or French or Soudanese, for that matter) could not march here and enter her sitting-room and take her books away from her. For years past she had asked nothing more of the world than that she should be comfortable in it, and it really seemed not an unreasonable request, considering at how small an outlay of money all the comfort she wanted could be secured to her. The thought of war had upset her a good deal already: she had been unable to attend to her book when she awoke from her after-lunch nap; and now, when she hoped to have her tea in peace, and find her attention restored by it, she found the general atmosphere of her two companions vaguely disquieting. She became a little more loquacious than usual, with the idea of talking herself back into a tranquil frame of mind, and reassuring to herself the promise of a peaceful future.