Sir Harry: A Love Story

by Archibald Marshall

But such thoughts as these were a very small part of what was rioting through his mind. His chief feeling about his immediate surroundings was one of strangeness that he should be sitting there quietly dining and talking upon unimportant matters which had nothing to do with Viola. It was to connect her with them that he took notice of them at all, and he looked out more often into the still starlit garden, because it was under the sky that he had met her and talked to her, and her alliance with the things of nature that he loved was already fixed and established. All beautiful aspects of the world, and of the fair places in his own world, connected themselves naturally with her. She filled every corner of his mind, and to whatever source of familiar delight he turned she seemed to be there before him.

After dinner, on summer nights, Harry often walked in the garden with his mother. Lady Brent never went out, but sat with her book in the drawing-room. Wilbraham spent half an hour in the library, smoking and reading, and then came into the drawing-room to play the piano or to talk until they went to bed at ten o'clock. When they heard the first notes of the piano, Harry and his mother would go indoors. If they lingered, Lady Brent would send Wilbraham out for them, on the plea of the night air being dangerous, or, if the night was so warm that that seemed too absurd, of its being time for Harry to go to bed. She did not like these garden confabulations between mother and son, but never showed it except by confining them thus to the half-hour after dinner.

To-night Harry half hoped that his mother would not come out with him. He wanted to be alone, but reproached himself for the desire as she asked him to fetch her shawl and smiled at him with the pleasure manifest in her face. He knew how much it meant to her to have him for this quiet half-hour to herself. It was the only one in the long day that she could call her own. He was left free to his own duties and devices, except for the times when all of them were together. With his youthful sense of fairness he knew that both his mother and grandmother left him free in this way for his sake and not for theirs. He must not grudge them the short time that he was expected to be with them. And he had taken a pleasure himself in these little garden wanderings with his mother that arose not only from the satisfaction of giving her pleasure. He loved her—more than he loved anybody—and had a man's sense of protection towards her. He did not know yet that he loved Viola. The idea of love had not yet occurred to him in connection with her. As he ran upstairs to get his mother's shawl, the thought crossed his mind that he had never yet wanted to get away from his mother for the time he was accustomed to devote himself to her, and puzzled him a little.

He was more than usually kind to her as they walked up and down the long bowling green together between the close-clipped yew hedges. He made an effort to dispossess his mind of what was filling it, and to be to her what he would have been but for the thrilling adventure that had befallen him. The only sign of all that was hidden from her—and she had no clue to its meaning—was when he said that the garden made him feel shut in, and asked her to walk in the park with him.

She felt his tenderness and palpitated with happiness over it. If she had but known that the time had come when she was less to him than she had ever been, and that his kindness and gentleness were but vicarious tributes meant, though all unconsciously, to take the place of the love that must soon be withdrawn from spending itself only on her, and given to another! But these wounds to a mother's love were spared her for to-night. She thought he was nearer than ever to her, and all thoughts of losing him were far from her.

She ventured to talk of her fear of the war taking him from her, and he soothed her, laughing at her fears. He did not tell her of his conviction that it would do so, nor feel any desire to tell her. What he did feel a half-shrinking desire to do was to tell her about Viola. But an instinct which he did not understand prevented him, and the moment they had parted he was glad that he had resisted the impulse. The secret was not his alone. It gave him joy to think that it was a secret, and that it was not his alone.

Wilbraham called out for them. They went in, and Harry said good-night at once and went upstairs. He was no longer sent to bed before the rest, but no objection was ever made if he went.

When he was alone in his room he breathed relief. His mother, perhaps, would come in on her way to bed, but otherwise he would be alone for the hours of the night, and yet so much not alone. He thought that to-night his mother would certainly come, and he undressed quickly so that when he should hear her he could get into bed and pretend to be asleep. This small piece of deception did not trouble him, since it would not trouble her. He had never given her what he owed her. Now he wanted to think uninterruptedly of Viola.

He leaned out of the window with his chin on his hands and gazed at the dark masses of trees in front of him and at the starry roof of the sky above them, which was above her, too. His window was on the same side of the house as that of the room in which Grant had slept the year before, but the trees were nearer to it. He gazed more at the sky than at the trees. Yes, in that direction, almost directly in front of him, lay the cottage in which she was—now at this very minute. It was a moving thought. Perhaps she was asleep, perhaps she was looking at the same stars as he was. Perhaps she was thinking of him, as he was thinking of her. That was a very stirring thought, and led him to shift his position. He wanted to be in motion as he thought of her. Later on, when the house was all asleep, he would dress and go out. For the present he could only walk about his room, when the waves of emotion that came to him stirred him from his place at the window.

But he could not think like that. He did not know what to think about. His impatience grew for the time to come when he should be alone and undisturbed. Then he would be able to think, out there under the stars. The trees oppressed him, as they had never done before. He got into bed. He would lie and think there until his mother had come and gone. But the moment he got into bed he fell asleep, and did not awake when she came in softly, shielding the light of her candle from his eyes.