Robin Linnet

by E. F. Benson

She slid off into the darkness, feeling more alive than she had felt for the many weeks past, during which she had tried to banish all thought of the war, and remove from her surroundings anything that might remind her of it. She had tried to get isolation in the country; she had sought out others who, like herself, wished to forget, yet into the shut room, through closed windows and well-fitting doors, the war, like the drift of some London fog, had always made its way, poisoning the ill-ventilated atmosphere that already had no briskness in it. But to-night, for the first time, she had left her stuffy room, and gone out and let fresh air, with whatever else it might be laden, flow round her. She had expected to come home with an added pang of miserable presage, with a heart that ached, and eyes that even more strenuously refused to look into the future. It was only in response to Robin’s urging that she had gone out at all, expecting at the best to see forced gaiety and sombre lapses from it on the part of him and his friend. Having settled to take them to the theatre and sup with them, she had determined to do her best to “keep it up,” to pretend that everything was laughable and amusing. Instead, it was she who had been “kept up”; she had expected a trial of her fortitude, and had been given the most tremendous tonic in place of that....

She had found herself encompassed by the New Spirit that possessed Robin and his friend and thousands like him. It had not changed him; it had merely brought out the light and the fire that was in him, even as under the wheel of the cutter and polisher the glory of the diamond is developed. The New Spirit was doing that for the whole nation, and for her now it was lambent through the darkness, and hung like a rainbow across the menace of the thunder-cloud.

The moment of illumination grew bright to blinding-point, then faded again, and she was like one on whom some great light has flashed but for a second, leaving her in darkness again with the phantom of the light still swimming on her retina. For an instant she had seen it, as across waste waters is seen the revolving beam of a lighthouse. But it had passed, and, between her and it, was the tempest bellowing across the windswept surges. All the youth and triumphant young manhood of England was being snatched away and shovelled into the burning Moloch across that sea.

As she stepped on to the pavement in front of her house, she found that her foot hurt her, and remembered that as they drove to the Ritz Robin had very heartily stamped on it. His design had clearly been to stamp on Jim’s foot, in order to stop him saying something, and in the sharp pain that came to her now she wished that the darling had stamped on Jim’s foot and not on hers. She remembered also that this brutal caution was in the nature of locking the stable door after the steed had been stolen, for Jim had certainly already said that which Robin had wanted to stop him saying. His question had completely reached her; he had supposed that she was “awfully busy” doing some sort of war-work.

That was the topic that Robin had wanted to suppress. He knew that she was doing no sort of war-work, and either for himself he disliked that being alluded to, or he supposed that she would not like it. It was probable that both reasons were in his mind. As regards herself, she really did not care whether people knew she was very completely abstaining from war-work or not. She had tried to take a hand in it at Gracie’s ridiculous establishment, but she was not made for that sort of thing. She preferred to buy her scarves ready made, and no doubt the recipients would prefer that also. She was quite willing to spend freely for the sake of those who needed these and similar comforts; but to sit among pessimistic females and knit was alien to her.... And then some suppressed part of her mind insisted on asking her a rather inconvenient question: “Supposing Robin wanted a scarf, would you not prefer to suffer some sacrifice of your time or inclination in order to give it him, rather than give him something that cost you nothing?”

The question really needed no answer. It was so obvious that you must delight in giving something of yourself to those whom you loved. There was no joy in giving to the beloved a thing you could get in any shop. If you had to get it at a shop, love insisted that you should send some little message with it, in order to give it the touch of the sender. And that was precisely what Gracie and her weary choir of elderly pessimists were doing. They were sending to strangers, to unknown men and boys, whom they had never seen, gifts that had the touch of the giver. It was precisely that which she was not doing.

She began to wonder whether she would not prefer, as regards herself alone, that this should not be alluded to....

There was another possible reason for Robin’s belated and misdirected signal to Jim. It was possible that he did not want it alluded to. Was it an unpleasant topic for him, as well as her? Was he, perhaps, a little ashamed of her? Once, on the subject of his staff-appointment, they had talked about love implying respect. She could have instanced a sort of love which could despise and yet continue to exist, but that was the sort of love that wanted to take, and not to give. But was that love? Cynical philosophers held that the main ingredient in love was the sense of possession. She had never really believed that, and now, thinking just of Robin, she knew that not only was that incredible, but the truth lay somewhere in the region of its very opposite. The main ingredient in love did not consist in possessing, but in giving....

There were half a dozen letters waiting for her on the hall table, and with them unopened in her hand, she went upstairs. She had told her maid that she need not sit up for her, and as she unclasped her pearl collar, the image of Mommer with her great badge depending from her collar of impossible rubies, suddenly came into her mind. Mommer was engaged on some sort of charitable war-work, then. Would Miss Diana Coombe be ashamed of her, if she was not?

Suddenly, and again without warning, the wave of utter loneliness swept over her, and her pearls fell rattling to the ground. Once before when it had risen and smothered her, she had thought to prevent a re-visitation of it by surrounding herself with diversion and interests, and above all, by shutting herself off from the thought of the war and the suffering that it brought, and the menace that it threatened her with. But the experiment had not been very successful. Not for an hour, perhaps, until this evening when she was sitting at that absurd revue, between those two gay boys, had the thought of it been entirely lifted off her. Had that happened because, being with them, their acceptation of it had infected her?