Arundel

by E. F. Benson

For a moment only the doubt lasted, the next it was enough for her that so much was hers already; the unfolding of love was at work on the petals of her girlhood, and she did not even desire to hurry the hour of full-blowing.

That for the present was the apex of the mounting flame in her, which made the air round it quiver and glow, so that its heat and radiance were beginning to touch with lambency all the common things of every day around her, transforming them, as by the light of an Indian sunset, into opalescent brightnesses. Already to her the sun was of a wider light, the wind of May more caressing, the fields greener, the faces she passed in the street lit with a happiness and a humanity she had never noticed before. She saw and heard and apprehended all that touched her senses with a greater vividness; the paper she read from to Mrs. Hancock when she rested after her bath had a new significance, and as she conned aloud the list of surnames of those who had been born, married, and died—which was the opening chapter of the daily lecture, in case her mother knew any of them—she found herself wondering about the history of their loves. The most commonplace events filled her with reflections which, though delightfully commonplace themselves, were utterly new to her as material for thought. If the Prime Minister went to Balmoral—the kind of news that was particularly gratifying to Mrs. 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; she was struggling, yet the struggle was effortless, as if a new force invading her soul did the battle for her—on to the level of real existence, leaving the desert for fertile lands. She read the secret in the eyes and mouths of those she met in the street, for they knew it, even as did the wind and the sun, and the stars that wheeled. Sometimes she spoke of this new thing to her mother, who must be among the initiated, and then the wing of comedy shed a feather as it passed. Mrs. Hancock's reminiscences of her beautiful days were of the nature of pressed flowers; it seemed that their fragrance had departed, though they retained their outward form.

"Your father was a very handsome young man, dear," she would say—"very handsome, indeed, with a rather bluish chin, for at that time he had no beard. I don't think there can ever have been a more poetical lover, and scarcely a day passed when he did not bring me some volume of Tennyson's early poems, or Mr. Browning's. Edith, if you would put the window just an inch more up we can talk. Thank you, dear! He could understand all Mr. Browning wrote about different ways of love, and explained it most beautifully. There was 'One Way of Love' and 'Another Way of Love,' and one of them happened about the middle of June. I learned that one by heart in order to please him. He used to say the most wonderful of all was 'By the Fireside,' which was in November; but that was after they married. Oh, look, dear; what a tiresome dog! Some day it will be run over, and it won't be Denton's fault. Your father was very jealous, and, though I hope you will never give Edward any cause for that any more, I am sure, than I did, men are like that sometimes, and they don't seem to be able to help it. He was quite devoted to me, so it sprang from a good cause. Yes, he used to read Mr. Browning's poems, though he was very fond of Mrs. Browning's too. Mr. and Mrs. Browning! What a lot of poetry they must have read to each other—all made up by themselves! I wonder if she understood it as well as your father! He never found any difficulty about carrying on the sense between the lines, which I think is the hardest part. And to think that now you are going through the same happy time! Darling, look, it is half-past three; and we must turn at once, else we shall never get home in time for tea. Will you tell Denton down the tube to turn as soon as he possibly can? When we get home I will let you read the copies of Mr. Browning's poems which your father gave me. Have you heard from Edward this morning? When he comes I shall have to talk to him about business."

This business talk, which, so far as Mrs. Hancock was concerned, followed on the lines which she had laid down for herself in the matter of allowance for Edith, took place next morning. He had suggested the more usual course that their respective solicitors should represent their clients' views to each other, but Mrs. Hancock preferred a personal and direct interview. She felt that Edward, who was so generous, would understand the somewhat peculiar position that she fully intended to take up, whereas the more practical and less sympathetic mind of a solicitor might not see things in so romantic a light. So Edith was informed when it was twenty minutes to eleven and time that she should put her hat on, while Edward was told that it was quite excusable that he should not want to go to church after sitting in an airless office all the week. But it was a little chilly, and she asked him to shut completely the window of the sitting-room.

"And now, dear Edward," she said, "we must have a little business talk, which I am sure will soon be done, since I am as certain to approve of your plans about Edith as you are to approve of mine. And then, when we have talked it over, we can instruct our solicitors, and they will draw up the settlement. Please smoke a cigarette; you will be more comfortable so. There we are!"

Mrs. Hancock, indeed, felt perfectly comfortable. She had pictured her plans in such delicious grandmotherly colours to herself that they could not fail to touch Edward's heart. And she proceeded to lay them before him.

"I am what they call fairly off, my dear," she said, "and, indeed, I put by a little every year, though, as you know, to do that I live extremely simply, just with the ordinary little comforts of life to which I have been accustomed. Now at my death every penny of my fortune will go to Edith, with the exception of two or three little bequests to servants. At present it is something over a hundred thousand pounds. You and Edith will enjoy that for many, many years after I am gone."

Mrs. Hancock felt as if she was making some deed of tremendous generosity; the sense of that and the allusion to her own death caused her eyes to stand in moisture, which she wiped away with one of her new handkerchiefs, which were so expensive.

"But I am beginning at the end," she said, "and we must come back to the present. I mean, dear Edward, to give Edith the whole of her trousseau. I shall be very much vexed with you if you want not to let me have my way about that. Everything she can want, and, indeed, much more than I ever had, in the way of frocks and linen, shall be hers, and shall be paid for by me. Put your cigarette in your mouth, and don't think of interrupting me."

She beamed delightedly at him, sure that had she not positively forbidden it he would have protested against her munificence. Munificence, too, she really thought it, when she considered how much lace....