Watersprings - Arthur Christopher Benson (short novels to read TXT) 📗

not even cried out passionately, demanded love, displayed an urgent need; there had been nothing either tragic or imperious, nothing that called for instant solution; she was just a girl, sweet, wayward, anxious-minded, living a trivial, simple, sheltered life. What had given her this awful power over him, which seemed to have rent and shattered all his tranquil contentment, and yet had offered no splendid opportunity, claimed no all-absorbing devotion, no magnificent sacrifice? It was a sort of monstrous spell, a magical enchantment, which had thus made havoc of all his plans and gentle schemes. Life, he felt, could never be the same for him again; he was in the grip of a power that made light of human arrangements. The old books were full of it; they had spoken of some hectic mystery, that seized upon warriors and sages alike, wasted their strength, broke their energies, led them into crime and sorrow. He had always rather despised the pale and hollow-eyed lovers of the old songs, and thought of them as he might think of men indulging in a baneful drug which filched away all manful prowess and vigour. It was like La Belle Dame sans merci after all, the slender faring child, whose kiss in the dim grotto had left the warrior 'alone and palely loitering,' burdened with sad thoughts in the wintry land. And yet he could not withstand it. He could see the reasonable and sensible course, a placid friendship, a long life full of small duties and quiet labours;--and then the thought of Maud would come across him, with her shining hair, her clear eyes, holding a book, as he had seen her last in the Vicarage, in her delicate hands, and looking out into the garden with that troubled inscrutable look; and all the prudent considerations fell and tumbled together like a house of cards, and he felt as though he must go straight to her and fall before her, and ask her to give him a gift the very nature of which he did not know, her girlish self, her lightly-ranging mind, her tiny cares and anxieties, her virginal heart--for what purpose? he did not know; just to be with her, to clasp her close, to hear her voice, to look into her eyes, to discourse with her some hidden secret of love. A faint sense of some infinite beauty and nearness came over him which, if he could win it, would put the whole of life into a different plane. Not a friendly combination, but an absolute openness and nakedness of soul, nothing hidden, nothing kept back, everything confessed and admitted, a passing of two streams of life into one.


XVIII


THE PICNIC

Jack arrived at Windlow in due course, and brought with him Guthrie to stay. Howard thought, and was ashamed of thinking, that Jack had some scheme on foot; and the arrival of Guthrie was embarrassing to him, as likely to complicate an already too complicated situation.

A plan was made for a luncheon picnic on the hill. There was a tower on the highest eminence of the down, some five miles away, a folly built by some wealthy squire among woodlands, and commanding wide views; it was possible to drive to a village at the foot, and to put up vehicles at a country inn; and it was proposed that they should take luncheon up to the tower, and eat it there. The Sandys party were to drive there, and Howard was to drive over with Miss Merry and meet them. Howard did not at all relish the prospect. He had a torturing desire for the presence of Maud, and yet he seemed unable to establish any communication with her; and he felt that the liveliness of the young men would reduce him to a condition of amiable ineffectiveness which would make him, as Marie Bashkirtseff naively said, hardly worth seeing. However, there was no way out, and on a delicious July morning, with soft sunlight everywhere, and great white clouds floating in a sky of turquoise blue, Howard and Miss Merry started from Windlow. The little lady was full of decorous glee, and her mirth, like a working cauldron, threw all her high-minded tastes to the surface. She asked Howard's opinion about quite a number of literary masterpieces, and she ingenuously gave utterance to her meek and joyful views of life, the privileges she enjoyed, and the inspiration which she derived from the ethical views of Robert Browning. Howard found himself wondering why it was all so dreadfully uninteresting and devoid of charm; he asked himself whether, if the little spinster had been personally more attractive, her optimistic chirpings would have seemed to have more significance. Miss Merry had a perfectly definite view of life, and she made life into a distinct success; she was a happy woman, sustained by an abundance of meek enthusiasm. She accepted everything that happened to her, whether good or evil, with the same eager interest. Suffering, according to Miss Merry, had an educative quality, and life was haunted for her by echoes of excellent literature, accurately remembered. But Howard had a feeling that one must not swallow life quite so uncritically, that there ought somehow to be more discrimination; and Miss Merry's eager adoration of everything and everybody reduced him to a flatness which he found it difficult to conceal. He could not think what was the matter with her views. She revelled in what she called problems, and the more incomplete that anything appeared, the more certain was Miss Merry of ultimate perfection. There did not seem any room for humanity, with its varying moods, in her outlook; and yet Howard had the grace to be ashamed of his own sullen dreariness, which certainly did not appear to lend any dignity to life. But he had not the heart to spoil the little lady's pleasure, and engaged in small talk upon moderately abstract topics with courteous industry. "Of course," said his companion confidingly, "all that I do is on a very small scale, but I think that the quality of it is what matters--the quality of one's ideal, I mean." Howard murmuringly assented. "I have sometimes even wished," she went on, "that I had some real trouble of my own--that seems foolish to you, no doubt, because my life is such an easy one--but I do feel that my happiness rather cuts me off from other people--and I don't want to be cut off from other people; I desire to know how and why they suffer."

"Ah," said Howard, "while you feel that, it is all right; but the worst of real suffering is, I believe, that it is apt to be entirely dreary--it is not at all romantic, as it seems from the outside; indeed it is the loss of all that sense of excitement which makes suffering what it is. But really I have no right to speak either, for I have had a very happy life too."

Miss Merry heard him moist-eyed and intent. "Yes, I am sure that is true!" she said. "I suppose we all have just as much as we can use--just as much as it is good for us to have."

They found that the others had arrived, and were unpacking the luncheon. Maud greeted Howard with a shy expectancy; but the sight of her, slender and fresh in her rough walking-dress, renewed his strange pangs. What did he want of her, he asked himself; what was this mysterious and unmanning sense, that made him conscious of every movement and every word of the girl? Why could he not meet her in a cheerful, friendly, simple way, and make the most of her enchanting company?

Mr. Sandys was in great spirits, revelling in arrangements and directions. But the wind was taken out of his sails by the two young men, who were engaged in enacting a bewildering kind of drama, a saga, of which the venerable Mr. Redmayne appeared to be the hero. Guthrie, who was in almost overpowering spirits, took the part of Mr. Redmayne, whom he imitated with amazing fidelity. He had become, it seemed, a man of low and degrading tastes--'Erb Redmayne, he was called, or old 'Erb, whose role was to lead the other authorities of the college into all kinds of disreputable haunts, to prompt them to absurd misdeeds, to take advantage of their ingenuousness, to make scapegoats of them, and to adroitly evade justice himself.

On this occasion 'Erb Redmayne seemed to have inveigled the Master, whose part was taken by Jack, to a race-meeting, to be introducing him to the Most unsatisfactory company, to force him to put money on certain horses, to evade the payment of debts incurred, to be detected in the act of absconding, and to leave the unfortunate Master to bear the brunt of public indignation. Guthrie seemed at first a little shy of enacting this drama before Howard, but Jack said reassuringly, "Oh, he won't give us away--it will amuse him!" This extravaganza continued with immense gusto and emphasis all the way to luncheon, 'Erb Redmayne treating the Master with undisguised contempt, and the Master performing meekly his bidding. Mr. Sandys was in fits of laughter. "Excellent, excellent!" he cried among his paroxysms. "You irreverent young rascals--but it was just the sort of thing we used to do, I am afraid!"

There was no doubt that it was amusing; in another mood Howard would have been enchanted by the performance, and even flattered at being allowed to overhear it. Mr. Redmayne was admirably rendered, and Jack's performance of the anxious and courteous Master, treading the primrose path reluctantly and yet subserviently, was very nearly as good. But Howard simply could not be amused, and it made it almost worse for him to see that Maud was delighted, while even Miss Merry was obviously though timidly enjoying the enlargement of her experience, and exulting in her freedom from any priggish disapproval.

They made their way to the top and found the tower, a shell of masonry, which could be ascended by a winding staircase in a turret. The view, from the platform at the summit, was certainly enchanting. The tower stood in an open heathery space, with woods enclosing it on every side; from the parapet they looked down over the steeply falling tree-tops to an immense plain, where a river widened to the sea. Howard, side by side with Maud, gazed in silence. Mr. Sandys identified landmarks with a map. "How nice it is to see a bit of the world!" said Maud, "and how happy and contented it all looks. It seems odd to think of men and women down there, creeping about their work, going to and fro as usual, and not aware that they are being looked down upon like this. It all seems a very simple business."

"Yes," said Howard, "that is the strange thing. It does seem so simple and tranquil! and yet one knows that down there people have their troubles and anxieties--people are ill, are dying--are wondering what it all means, why they are set just there, and why they have so short a time to stay!"

"I suppose it all fits into itself," said Maud, "somehow or other. I don't think that life really contradicts itself!"

"I don't know," said Howard, with a sudden access of dreariness; "that is exactly what it DOES seem to do--that's the misery of it!"

The girl looked at him but did not speak; he gave her an uneasy smile, and she presently turned away and looked over her father's map.

They went down and lunched on a green bank among the fern, under some old oaks. The sunlight fell among the glades; a flock of tits, chirruping and hunting, rushed past them and plunged downward into the wood. They