Colin II: A Novel

by E. F. Benson

Colin stood very still. Was it really Violet who could laugh like that, with that pure abandonment to amusement? Was it she who shone with that serene and radiant love?...

She sat up again after that burst of laughter, and saw him. In an instant her face changed to the face he knew. It changed from the face of a mother, girlish still, though that big boy sprawled there, to the frozen beauty which she presented to the world. No faintest glint of laughter lingered on her mouth or in her eyes. And yet, amazingly, they were still alight with love. Something that had beamed there for Dennis still beamed there for him, though it was shrouded, like a gleam of fire through smoke, by the blight and the frost.

“Ah, Colin,” she said. “There you are! Get up, Dennis: here’s your father.”

For a moment, sharp as a stabbed nerve, and coming from some ice-bound cave of consciousness, a pang of regret shot through Colin that it was not in his nature, nor in theirs, that he could join the group of mother and son, and partake of their mood, their laughter and their ease, and all that it implied. They looked so jolly, and his hunger for pleasure always envied those who were enjoying themselves, for all enjoyment ought to belong to him. But the instantaneousness with which Violet’s care-free laughter had withered from her face, shewed that she instinctively recognized the inconceivableness of that. It was not to be wondered at, after all: she always froze in his presence.

And then he looked at the boy who had jumped to his feet, and pride at having begotten anyone so beautiful supplanted for the moment every other consideration. He was very tall for his age, already his head was nearly on a level with his mother’s, and, bred as he was on both sides from Stanier blood, he seemed the very flower of his race. Loose-limbed and lithe he stood there, with shoulders low and broad, and neck rising square from them, and there was the small head, yellow-haired and blue-eyed, the straight short nose, and the mouth as perfect as Violet’s own. Colin had not seen him since the Christmas holidays, in the interval he had greatly grown, and his boyhood had emerged from the sheath of its childish sexlessness: now the father saw in his son his own magnificent youth carried to a stage finer yet; physical perfection could go no further.... And, on the heels of that exultant pride in his son’s beauty, there came the vision again of going with Dennis up the corridor from his room and into the chapel. What a peerless offering to bring his Lord and Benefactor!

The boy had always been much fonder of his mother than of him, and here at once was a thing to be taken in hand. Dennis must learn to be at ease with him, to open his heart to him, and eagerly to receive what was good for him to learn. That was the first requisite: hitherto Dennis had been rather shy with him, and apt to be on his good behaviour. He must be charmed out of that and learn to be comfortable with him and lie on the floor and tell him stories about school.

He put his arm round Dennis’s neck and kissed him.

“Why, you dear boy,” he said. “This is nice. Dennis, you’ve grown in a perfectly indecent manner. Stand up there with your back to your mother——”

Suddenly he remembered that he had not yet said a word to Violet. Violet had Dennis’s heart at present, therefore Dennis must see how dear she was to his father, for that would predispose him favourably.

“Violet darling,” he said, kissing her. “How are you? I needn’t ask, though. You’re always well, thank God. And such shrieks of laughter, as I heard, when I came in! What was it all about? Dennis, I believe you’ve been telling your mother something quite unfit for a parent’s ears. So you must tell me too, and let me judge. My word, it is nice to be home again!”