The Angel of Pain

by E. F. Benson

In another respect also it had failed, for to-day by the mid-day post there had come for him communications of the greatest importance from the City, information which was valuable, provided only he acted on it without delay. There was no difficulty about it, the question had no complications; he himself had only to send off instructions which ten minutes’ thought could easily frame. Yet he sat with paper and pens in front of him, doing nothing, for he had asked himself a very simple question instead. “Is it all worth while?” was what he said to himself. And apparently it was not.

Now, if this had happened a month ago, it would have been equivalent to a surrender; it would have been a confession that he was beaten. But now the whole nature of his doubt was changed. Work, it is true, had done something for him; it had got him through a month in which he was incapable of anything else, it had got him, in fact, to the point which was indicated two days ago by his little anxiety about Merivale. And had he known it, that was much the most important things that had happened to him for weeks. Something within him had instinctively claimed kinship again with mankind.

How hollow and objectless to-day seemed the results of the last month! “Home’s August,” as it was already ruefully known on the Stock Exchange, had plentifully enriched Home, but though the gold had poured in like a fountain, yet, mixed with it, indissolubly knitted into the success, had come a leanness. What did it all amount to? And lean above all was his paltry triumph over Evelyn, who, as he had since ascertained, had sold out Metiekull when things were at their very worst, only to realise that if he had left it alone, he would have made a handsome profit. But what then? What good did that pin-prick of a vengeance do? What gratification had it brought to Philip’s most revengeful and hating mood? The wedding-tour had been cut short: Evelyn and Madge had come back to London, but that to-day gave him not the smallest feeling of satisfaction in that, however feebly, he had hit back at them. It was all so useless: the futility and childishness of his revenge made him feel sick. If he had a similar chance to-day, he would not have stirred a finger.

But all this emptiness, and the intolerable depression that still enveloped him, was, somehow, of different character to what it had been before. It was all bad and hopeless enough, but his eyes, so to speak, had begun to veer round; they were no longer drearily fixed on the storms and wreckage of the past, but were beginning, however, ineffectually as yet, to peer into the mists of the future. It was exactly this which was indicative of the change that had come, and the indication was as significant as the slow shifting of a weather-cock that tells that the blackening east wind is over, and a kindlier air is breathing, one that perhaps in due time shall call up from the roots below the earth the sap that shall again burst out in mist and spray of young green leaf, and put into the heart of the birds that mating-time has come again. And that first hint of change, though lisped about while yet the darkness before dawn was most black, is better than all the gold that had poured in through the hours of the night.

Not all day nor when night fell did the rain cease, but the air was very warm, and the two dined out as usual in the verandah. The candles burned steadily in the windless air, casting squares of uncertain light on to the thick curtain of the night which was hung round them. Merivale, it appeared, had passed a day of high festival even for him; the rain of which the thirsty earth was drinking so deeply suited him no less.

“Ah, there is no mood of Nature,” he cried, “which I do not love. This hot, soaking rain falling windlessly, which other people find so depressing, is so wonderful. The earth lies beneath it, drinking like a child at its mother’s breast. The trees stand with drooping leaves, relaxing themselves, making no effort, just drinking, recuperating. The moths and winged things creep close into crevices in their bark—I saw a dozen such to-day—or cling to the underside of the leaves, where they are dry and cool. Everything is sleeping to-day, and to watch the earth sleep is like watching a child sleep: however lovely and winsome it is when it is awake, yet its sleep is even more beautiful. There is not a wrinkle on its face: it is as young as love, and with closed eyes and mouth half-open it rests.”

Philip was looking at him with a sort of dumb envy, which at length found voice.

“I would give all I have for just one day of your life,” he said, pushing back his plate and putting his elbows on the table, a characteristic movement when he wanted to talk, as Merivale knew.

“Ah, my dear fellow,” he cried, “it is something very substantial gained already, if you wish that. To want to be happy is a very sensible step towards it.”

“It is true that a fortnight ago I don’t think I even wanted to be happy,” said Philip.