E. F. Benson

“ 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 would part with her splendidly, and go back to his boat, where Edith would await him for their lifelong cruise in calm and pleasant waters.
He had made, so he honestly believed, the honest decision, and though honesty is a virtue which is so much taken for granted that it is ranked rather among the postulates of life than among its acquirements, honest decisions are not always made without struggle and difficulty. He felt for Elizabeth, the actual flesh and blood and spirit of her, what he had only hitherto imagined in the dreams which, a few months before, he had settled to have done with. ”

“ Elizabeth found herself laughing at that; it seemed so unnecessary to say that Mrs. Hancock must never know the true history of the evening. Nor must Edith herself ever know the true history of the evening—never, never. There was no question of "not for the present" about that. But that Mrs. Hancock should not know the mere fact that she and Edward went to the opera alone seemed a ludicrous stratagem, laughable.
"What a tangled web we are going to weave all about nothing," she said. "I warn you, Edith, I shall be sure to forget, and let it out!" ”

“ The commonest and greatest miracle of all was in process within; the waterpots were already reddening with the true grape.
"I never guessed," she said. "And, oh, Edward, if only caring made me less stupid! But be patient with me and wait for me to learn. I shall be able to learn if you will teach me. There is a whole great world round me, full of splendour and beauty, which somehow doesn't come in one's way at Heathmoor. I think"—and she laughed—"I think the asparagus, so to speak, shuts it out. But it is there; it's everywhere. ”

“ But Sir Henry, in spite of this, roused but little attention; the tired drovers slept; those who were more alert were but employed with jokes and snatches of song round the samovars and soup-cauldrons. The hills and the stars attended as little; everything and everybody was intent on his own inward calls, just as last night the Brahmin who lay by the wayside had no need of food, and but thought of the finding of that for which all his years had searched.
And then Elizabeth's questing soul suddenly gave up the pursuit of a hidden cause, and felt content with the obvious explanation. ”

“ Probably the meeting with Edward gave her the last crystal of the salt, took out from her love the grain of bitterness that still lurked there. That made her ready to receive the ultimate gift that music has to bring, namely, the identification of it with all other noble effort, the perception of its truth, which is one with the truth of everything that is beautiful, and is lit by the light that illuminates the whole world, and turns it into the garden of God. Never again in those on whom one gleam of the light has shone can it be wholly quenched. ”

“ Edward, you are a darling for taking me!"
Next minute she was alone in her bedroom, and there shot through her like fire a pain, agonizing and contemptible, which she had never known before; the intolerable torture of jealousy seized her, and she writhed in its grip. As clearly as if the scene was before her eyes, she knew what was happening next door. She could almost hear Edith saying in that quiet, sincere voice of hers, "Now we shall have a little time alone, Edward. I thought dear Elizabeth was never going. Is she not queer and excited to-night?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ She had awoke early on this day that she and Edith were going up to town to see the opera, woke with a sense of ecstatic joy in life, of intense and rapturous happiness. For the last week she had been living in a storm of emotion, that seemed not to come from within her, but from without, beating and buffeting her, but giving her, from time to time, serene and wonderful hours. She had wrestled with and worked over the transcript of "Siegfried" until she had made the music her own, and she seemed to have come into a heritage that was waiting ready for her to claim it. ”

“ The words of parting were short, and Edward, still tingling with music, still inflamed by that lambent fire, went back to his house. In musical matters, despite his own incompetence in matter of performance, he had an excellent judgment, and he knew that he had been listening that night to the real thing. There was no question as to the quality of Elizabeth's playing; she had authority, without which the most agile execution is no more than a mere facility of finger, acquirable like the nimble manoeuvres of a conjurer, and in itself as devoid of artistic merit. ”

“ But in England for the most part they wrap it up in nice soft thick clouds, so that it isn't a real sunset. And dear Aunt Julia wraps up her own life and the life of every one about her in the same way. She mops up every one's vitality as with a sponge by thinking exclusively about not getting wet or tired. Oh, how I love this naked, tired, wicked, mysterious land, with all its deadliness and its dust and its sunsets and its secrets, which I shall never fathom any more than I can fathom Schumann! I'm a savage, you know. I love wild, unhappy things——"
Elizabeth broke off suddenly. ”

“ Brahms had revealed what is possible to the wise mind of man, here in the great concerto Tschaikowsky poured out the inspired tale of its emotions; the splendour of their shining, the tenderness of their reveries. Instantly in the presence of this more concrete, more frail and human music the images leaped and danced again in Elizabeth's mind. The noonday shone on the innumerable smile of a blue sea; high above the sultry plain were fixed the spear-heads of Chitral; the dusk fell on the Indian garden with its tangle of Peshawar roses. More personal yet grew the appeal. ”

“ It had been distinctly hard to maintain an equable cheerfulness with Elizabeth. Sometimes for a little the girl was quite herself with a short-lived flood of high-spirited talk; sometimes from her sitting-room Mrs. Hancock would hear a flight of brilliant song-birds on the piano. But then suddenly the flood would cease from pouring, and the flight fail in mid-air. Once just after a silence had fallen on the ringing air she had come into the drawing-room to find Elizabeth sitting with her hands still resting on the keys, and her head bowed forward over them. ”

“ Mrs. Hancock had made so touching a tale of the help she had been to Mr. Martin, and of Mr. Martin's devotion to her, and how the chief reason for her contemplated marriage was that he might exercise a wise and fatherly care over Edward and Edith and Denton and Lind, that Mrs. Fanshawe lay awake for quite a considerable time that night in spite of the extreme comfort of her bed, vividly exercising her imagination to see how she might paint with an even nobler brush the loves of Henry and Birdie. ”

“ He liked and admired Edith, her firm and comely face, her serene content, her quiet capable ways. She was as fond of croquet and bridge as himself, and—this was a larger testimonial than he knew—really enjoyed his piano-playing. And if the lightnings and thunders of romance roused no reverberating glories in his heart, it must be remembered that romance is a shy rare bird, coming not to nest under every eave, and that there would be a very sensible diminution in marriage fees if every man delayed matrimony until the blinding ecstatic light fell upon his enraptured eyes. ”

“ She still kept her own head above water, not guessing that it is through the drowning, the asphyxiation of self, that the full life of love is born. A second cause of reticence, less dominant, was her belief in Edward's loyalty. It was overlaid with suspicion, which, ivy-like, covered it, and thrust pushing tendrils between the stones of its solidity, but beneath all this rank growth it was still there. She did not yet quite soberly believe all that she suspected. She sat silent a moment, to her mother's huge discomfort, weighing her pride in the balance and confusing it with her loyalty. ”

“ The two came back to dine at the end of the first act, full to the brim of music, intoxicated with the beady ferment of sound and drama, and both a little beside themselves with excitement. At present the music, and that alone, held them; in the flame of their common passion each as yet paid little heed to the other, except as a sharer in it. Elizabeth hardly touched any food; she was silent and bright-eyed, exploring her new kingdom. But with Edward, the return to the hotel, to the common needs of food and drink, above all, to Edith, took him poignantly back into the actual world again. ”

“ For a couple of days after her final rejection of Edward, when Edith's absolute determination not to give him up voluntarily had been known to her, the apathetic quiet of the step taken, of deliberate renunciation, had been hers. But it had not been, and the poor girl guessed it, the peace that is always eventually not only the reward but the consequence of self-abnegation, but only the exhaustion that follows a prolonged mental effort. Edith's choice, apart from the tremendous significance it had for herself, was incredible and monstrous to her nature. ”

“ There is a splendid world round us, and too much asparagus. I don't mean——"
She guessed just what he stopped himself from saying.
"But mother is such a dear," she said. "I love her comfortable little plans. They are as touching as a child's. I wouldn't spoil her pleasure for anything. Tell me about the 'Gotterdämmerung'; it is all that which I want to learn. There's love in it, and tragedy, all big. Music says what you feel. Isn't that it? I can see it does to you when you play. And what music says to you, you, the fact of you, say to me." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Jealous people never themselves feel the wantonness and cruelty of their unconfirmed suspicions; they only know that these are not suspicions at all, but certainties.
"I noticed that you had a letter from Edward again this morning," she said.
Elizabeth slightly shifted the blotting-book, and Edith registered the fact—for so it seemed to her—that the letter was lying there.
"Again?" said Elizabeth.
Edith felt that she was not being wise. But jealousy is of all passions the most pig-headed; it only says "I must know, I must know!" ”

“ But it was Edward who called to her, called loud, called closely and low, and she must be deaf not to listen to him, not hear him even. At whatever cost she had to approve of herself.
Black, empty aching, an intolerable loneliness. She had but one desire, apart from the desire of her heart, and that was to escape from it all, to go away as quickly as possible, to be out of sight of what she might not contemplate. Far away, across leagues of hot ocean and miles of plain baking from the summer solstice, was her father. ”

“ Hancock—Edith now was interested in it, not from wonder—like her mother—as to what they would say to each other, but because before the Prime Minister was a baby in his cradle, a man and a woman had looked with eyes of dawning love on each other. The whole world was vivified, a keener pleasure infused the common actions of life, she ate and drank with a new savour, she went to sleep with a more luxurious sense of that drowsy gulf, and, above all, she awoke with welcome for the day. She joined every morning the ranks of those living and sentient things to whom the knowledge of love had come ”

“ My days are so full with the care of the house, and with writing your dear father's Memoir, which all these weeks has been to me nothing less than a sacred duty. And even if I was quite free, it would be impossible for me, a little weak, silly, helpless woman, to supervise your growing up with the wisdom and large grasp of a man. I have been doing my best, I think I can say that, but I know how feeble and wanting my best has been."
There had been no opportunity, so continuous had been the prattle of this monologue, for Elizabeth to speak at all. ”

“ Fanshawe. The latter took Elizabeth's hand as it lay on the arm, and held it in both of hers.
"I have been thinking of you so much, dear," she said, "all the time dear Sir Henry was here. You have been in my mind every minute. Such a wise, kind man he is, and so full of sympathy and tenderness for me. And he shows it with such wonderful tact, not by dwelling on my great loss, but by encouraging me and cheering me up. I declare I laughed outright as I have not done for months at some of his delicious, droll stories. He is the sort of man to whom one can open one's heart completely. ”

“ By renunciation.
And what had he found? Life.
The moment had worn the vividness and splendour of a dream, and Elizabeth was again conscious of the heavy-headed flowers and the noonday heat. The wheels of the motor scraped on the gravel sweep at the other side of the house, and in another minute she would be plunged back in the deeds and the needs of every day. But she no longer felt so utterly alone and desolate; far behind the storm she had seen the snows, and for a moment the moonlight had shone on the face of the dying Brahmin. ”