Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  Celia at that moment felt a pang of the profoundest envy. It was quite unmixed with jealousy: she could not be jealous of a thing as far off from her as the moon. But how easy, so she instantaneously reflected, must everything be, if in that was the central fact of your consciousness. And there, more perhaps than anywhere, she showed her incomprehension....

  “Ah, my dear, how real that is to you,” she said. He shook his head, smiling.

  “How miserably unreal it is to me,” he said, “if one considers the true reality of it. Clouds and darkness, darling: just the gleam.”

  Suddenly the human glory of the moment seized and enveloped him.

  “My God, my God!” he said. “You there in the dawn!”

  Then descent into silence came again, as from silence the ascent had come.

  “You oughtn’t to be up,” he said at length. “Even if you can’t sleep, you should lie down and rest. You must take tremendous care of yourself. Do get back into bed, dear. There are hours yet before you should be thinking of getting up.”

  “But where’s the use?” she said. “I don’t want to rest: I’m not tired.”

  “But I want you to. Shall I forage for you? Shall I get you some tea?”

  She drew a sheet and blanket over her. That would be some sort of outlet for him, an occupation, an activity.

  “Ah, do!” she said. “Tea is the very thing. But where are you to find anything?”

  He laughed.

  “I suppose I have the intelligence of the being, whoever it is, who makes tea for breakfast,” he said. “Breakfast isn’t an effect of genius every morning. Promise to lie quietly there till I bring you your tea.”

  Celia expected that she would have to wait some time, and though she had felt desperately wide-awake a few minutes before, she began to be drowsy now that she lay down again. Some climax had been reached by her with her resolution, by him with his dedication of love, and now the reaction came. A quarter of an hour later when he returned with a tray in his hands and the pride of service in his heart at having outwitted the clandestine habits of cooks and kitchen-maids in this minute ministry of love, he found her asleep. Very softly he withdrew again, closing to a chink the communicating door between the dressing-room and bedroom. If she stirred he would hear her. He wrapped up the teapot, in order to preserve its heat, in the quilt that had been folded over the end of his bed. If she did not wake soon he would empty that out, for she hated a stew of tea, and make it afresh.

  Waiting there, alert for service, he went over in his mind all the wonder of the night and of the parentage of these hours. In what strange ways did God fulfil his one purpose of love. To him it had begun in the mere curiosity to see that Greek head in the possession of a crabbed professor in Berlin. He had admired it, no more at first than that; then for its own sake and for his love of its beauty he had wanted it, and mixed with his desire to own it had come, inextricably intertwined, the fantastic notion of its significance to him. Through it all had run the undeviating thread of gold, his clue in this labyrinth of a world, which led to the holy places. There human love had blossomed for him, and in human love the divine, through ways most human, had become even more manifest. Seeking, he had found infinitely more than he had directly sought: worshipping, he had found a holiest within the holy, the best within the unutterably good, a dedication of himself enshrined in the mere devotion of man to woman. It did not cut across or render nugatory the common purposes of life; in themselves they merited an honest performance just as before. Only through them, sanctifying them as with incense, shone the inspiring glory. O bonum commercium!

  A late and straggling breakfast gave Mrs. Courthope and Vincent as companions to Celia when she came down. The cripples had not yet appeared, nor as yet had Violet. Bernard, on the other hand, had disappeared, having been seen from a bedroom window walking in the direction of the village; a top-hat indicated, so Vincent concluded, his fell intentions.

  “A clear survival of paganism,” said he, “a remnant of the instinct that makes savage scourge themselves and cut themselves with knives in order to propitiate their tribal god. In the same way we still make ourselves uncomfortable by way of keeping Sunday. There was Bernard on this particularly hot morning, in a black tail-coat and a black chamber of hot air on the top of his head, because he was going to church. Purely barbaric. The prophets of Baal were of Bernard’s school; so were the Spartans who used to whip to death their most promising youths on the altar of Zeus.”

  There was a certain normality about this which struck Celia as being comfortable after the high levels of the early morning. It was not that, by the broad light of day, she thought of that hour as having been exaggerated or too highly wrought, but she liked to feel that the world was proceeding in its familiar way. Vincent looked very comfortable in his white flannel suit: he was cool and large and easy; he radiated sense, robustness, vitality. She was glad to get back to the world of companionship and breakfast and the lightly handled topics and interests. She laughed.

  “Oh, you may always be trusted to assign the gloomiest interpretation to any conduct,” she said. “It’s only you, Vincent, who would see a remnant of barbarism in a top-hat.”

  “Gloomy?” he asked. “It’s not a gloomy interpretation: it’s interesting, it’s delightful. I hail any hint of primitive man in our debilitated civilization. Remnants of barbarism, wherever found, should be preserved, like wild birds, by Act of Parliament.”

  “I’m afraid you can’t bring top-hats under a wild bird scheme, except under the heading of wild goose. Top-hat is only a piece of best clothes, a formality. Stock-brokers, people in the City, wear them.”

  “That bears out my contention,” said he. “They are sacrificing comfort to their tribal god too. Mammon in this case. They hope he will bless their bargains. They mildly torture themselves. Don’t be so iconoclastic: top-hats are hideous, but you might allow me to find a picturesque origin.”

  “Eton boys wear them,” said Celia firmly.

  “As a commutation for the Spartan method of dealing with youths.”

  “Garden-parties,” continued Celia.

  “You are determined on destructive criticism, Celia,” said he, “but you choose your instances at random. There aren’t such things as garden-parties now; they are obsolete. The top-hats killed them. Cheers for the top-hats. I wish you would take things more seriously. You’re frivolous and superficial.”

  “My dear, I’m nothing of the kind,” said she. “I woke at dawn this morning, and had an hour’s extremely serious thought.”

  “Very well, you’re forgiven, for you are probably the victim of reaction now. I was awake too.”

  “So was I,” said Mrs. Courthope. “This terrible country air! So unrestful! So full of oxygen and ozone and all the things that destroy peace. The birds too! Such a squeaking and whistling! Never be permitted in London! No whistling for taxis now! Why should birds be allowed to disturb one?”

  “I would poison every bird in the world if I could,” said Vincent, “with’ the exception of those that are good for human food, and they should be fattened. All the rest ought to be exterminated.”

  “Why?”

  “On artistic grounds. To begin with, they make an infernal noise, as Florence says. And then they are hideous in appearance. Look at a bird’s eye! A black button, hard and expressionless. And their horrid, horny, toothless mouths. Fancy if women had mouths like birds! Look at their clawed feet and their scaly legs. Filthy objects! Feathers too! Supposing Bernard’s face was covered with feathers, you would never have dreamed of marrying him.” Celia did not take up this last topic.

  “Mamma and you are both hopeless cockneys,” she said.

  “Yes, because we’re progressive. If mankind hadn’t herded together into towns there would never have been any civilization at all. It’s the war of mankind against brute Nature that causes progress. We quite rightly stamp out Nature wherever we can. Nature is utterly heartless and cruel: every animal is greedy, an
d lives by preying on others. ‘Right is might’ is Nature’s sole motto. Poets draw lessons from Nature, I know. Wordsworth talks about the impulse from a vernal wood teaching you ‘more of man than all the sages can.’

  Certainly Nature teaches you a great deal about the wicked, cruel, selfish side of man, but Wordsworth didn’t mean that. What are the impulses from a vernal wood really? The vernal wood consists of trees that shut out the sunlight from the plants, of insects that eat the trees and birds that eat the insects. And then there’s the awful lack of humour in Nature, which is probably why Wordsworth liked it so much. The only humorous creature in the whole of Nature is the cuckoo. The cuckoo, I admit, is funny. To put your baby into somebody else’s nursery and make the other lady think it is her own is humorous. The other lady’s babies are shoved out of the nursery window by the newcomer and dashed to pieces on the pavement. I like that. But then, could a born humorist go on saying ‘cuckoo’ all day? There are only gleams of humour in the cuckoo.”

  “You ought to start a league for the suppression of open places in towns,” said Celia.

  “It seems to be on foot already. St. James’s Park, I am glad to see, is almost entirely covered with buildings. I only hope they won’t remove them when the war is over. The war now — the war is the most flagrant example of a return to Nature, a true impulse from a vernal wood. I am told the German Emperor seldom reads anything now except Wordsworth and the fiercer Psalms.”

  Mrs. Courthope had finished her breakfast, and, drawing a fur-lined cloak over her shoulders, had passed into the room next door, where she shut the windows and proceeded to write telegrams. Presently loud and cheerful voices heralded the arrival of the two boys, and Celia rose and rang the bell.

  “I shall just start them on their breakfast,” she said, “until Violet comes. Will you amuse yourself, Vincent? The papers have come, you will find them in the hall, and there are books. I recommend the garden.”

  “And will you act on your own recommendation before long?” he asked.

  “I expect so.”

  Vincent disappeared out of the long window opening to the ground, as Jimmie’s chair butted against the door outside.

  “Sony, I thought it wasn’t shut,” he said, when Tommy had groped for the handle and admitted him. “Good morning, Celia. I say, what a place for sleep!”

  He guided Tommy to a chair.

  “Sit down, and I’ll get you something to eat,” he said. “Eggs, how about eggs? Or fish?”

  “Both on one plate,” said Tommy. “Good morning, Celia. Have you have had breakfast? And where’s Violet? I say, my Braille book has come. I shall begin to read again. Who’s that coming in? It’s Violet: I hear her nurse’s dress. You’re extremely late, Violet. Jimmie and I have been down for ages.”

  “Yes, this is our second breakfast,” said Jimmie. “We have been to church. I walked there, and Tommy played the organ. Not very well.”

  “Liar!” said Tommy. “And Vincentoffski Douglasowitch was there in his Sunday samovar and a vodka buttonhole.”

  “What else?” said Celia. “My dear, that’s salt you’re putting on your toast, not butter.”

  “All right: don’t be impatient. How do you know I don’t like salt on my toast?”

  “What else happened in church?” asked Celia.

  “I can’t make up anything more till I have eaten. Then I shall be stronger. Where’s my teacup? It was here just now.”

  “Never, darling,” said Violet, speaking rather distinctly, as if Tommy was deaf. “There hasn’t been one.”

  “Why not? It’s breakfast—”

  “There’s some fresh tea just coming,” said Celia. “Hurrah! I want the teapot close here, and I want to pour it out myself when I’ve got a cup. If you put your other hand on to the outside of the cup, you can tell by the heat how much tea there is inside. You can do it quite neatly, leaving room for milk. Oh, is that the teapot? Now look.” Tommy poured the tea on to his hand and swore. “You can’t tell how much tea there is outside apparently,” said Jimmie.

  “No. Laugh at a blind man; that’s right. Oh, do put the spout of the teapot in position for me, somebody. Thanks, Celia. You’re the only person present with any sense of compassion.”

  It happened to be Violet who had directed the misdirected spout, but she only made signs to Celia to cover up the error.

  “I know,” she said. “But then I’ve got more time to attend to you. Violet and Jimmie haven’t had breakfast. Don’t be hard on them.”

  Tommy filled his teacup successfully.

  “I don’t see why I shouldn’t play croquet,” he said, “if some one will go to the nearest ball and whistle. Then I shall hit at the whistle. Very good chance. I can go in the direction anyhow, which is all that one ever did before.”

  “Pentathlon,” said Jimmie. “I challenge you.”

  “What’s a pentathlon?”

  “Games: general championship. We each choose a game in turn. I challenge you at croquet. Your turn.”

  “Bath-chair included?” asked Tommy.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Well then, I challenge you to race me round the garden path, from the door, round the lawn and back, keeping to the path.”

  “Right. Third item is... is lawn tennis.”

  “I’ve got you there,” said Tommy. “I know I can send a ball somewhere over the net when it’s my service, and you won’t be able to take it. I shall win all my services.”

  “That’ll be a draw then.”

  “No, it won’t. You won’t be able to send a ball over the net in your bath-chair. You’ll make nothing but faults. I shall win your services too. My turn to choose. I choose a hopping match. That’s stumped you.”

  “Give you that. I choose billiards.”

  Tommy broke into a cackle of laughter.

  “I choose high jump,” he said. “How long does this go on?”

  “I don’t know. I choose reading recitations from any ordinary volume opened at random.”

  “‘When the hounds of spring are on winter’s traces,’” said Tommy.

  “Yes, and what’s the chance of my opening that book at that page?”

  “Oh, some thousands to one against. But you might have.”

  “I certainly should not. I should have taken a volume of Dickens, and if you had said ‘the hounds of spring,’ I should have won.”

  “You wouldn’t!” shouted Tommy. “My Braille book is Dickens. Narrow it down to Dickens. Oh, Celia, I read Fanny Squeers before they plugged my eyes. Do you remember talking about Fanny Squeers? It was one day in your room in London. No, it wasn’t Fanny: it was Tilda. Oh, base and degrading Tilda! I had just got to that when the bulletin came along. Is Jimmie still guzzling? Stop it, Jimmie. Where’ll you be at lunch?”

  “Exactly where I am now. Anything more?”

  “Only marmalade, thanks. Somebody might do that for me, as it’s messy. What I want is a small piece of toast and a large piece of marmalade. But it mustn’t drip. Is this it? How — how dripping!”

  “Oh, for God’s sake don’t drivel so,” said Jimmie. “You make me tired.”

  “That’s why I do it. Now I shall plug along at my Braille for a bit, and then I should like some agreeable companionship. Will you take me for a walk, Celia, say in an hour?”

  Celia followed her own recommendation, and found Vincent established in a small settlement of chairs in the shade of the firs. Once again she had the sense of taking refuge, as it were, from great qualities: simplicity, bravery, of which the two boys were unaffected examples, in the cool, cynical sense of her new companion. Bernard’s love for her was another example of things that were “too high” for her. She knew its nobility, but the lack of her own emotional comprehension of it strained and irritated her. Once she had fled for shelter to it: now by an ironic inversion she was escaping from it, as from some prison. She told herself that this statement did not truly represent her: the will with which she had made her resolution this morni
ng at the hour of dawn did not yield, only... her attention wandered. Soon he would be back from church, soon she would take Tommy for his walk, and these things would brace her up again. But just for a little she would sit at ease, comprehend and be comprehended, be taken out of herself and distracted from efforts.

  Vincent laid down the paper as she appeared.

  “Well, how are the heroes?” he said. “Still on the dizzy heights of splendour?”

  “Yes, glorious,” said Celia, steadily ignoring the inflection she knew was there.

  He paused a moment, looking at her with a broad smile of amusement.

  “You said that very well,” he remarked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “As if you didn’t know! And what’s worse, as if I didn’t know. You can shut your eyes to the fact that you find it hard to live up to that high level, but you really can’t shut mine. But why conceal it from yourself or anybody else? You find them trying: you wince at their gloriousness. I know I do. I can’t bear it, simply because it’s utterly outside my comprehension.”

  Celia surrendered.

  “It’s awful of us,” she said. “But what is one to do if one can’t get hold of it?”

  “Drop it. There are lots of people who can. Violet can. Bernard can.”

  “But I hate seeing greatness and not glowing with it,” said she.