The Challoners

by E. F. Benson

“I shall, of course, write to him,” he said, “and congratulate him. She is a very charming girl. I think Martin is most fortunate.”

“Martin is very charming, too, remember,” said she.

Mr. Challoner walked swiftly homewards after Helen had left him, feeling strangely and deeply moved by the news. He felt somehow that his children were his children no longer; all the responsibility for them had passed into other hands, and they themselves, light-heartedly, eagerly, were now taking on themselves the responsibility for others. He had thought of them always as a boy and a girl, each bound to obedience to his will, dependent on him, without any real, individual existence of their own. But within the last year first one and now the other was passing out of his reach. Helen first and then Martin had acted for themselves in direct defiance not only of his wish, but of that which was the mainspring and motive of his life. She, it is true, by these months of quiet, normal life at home had made a great change in him; her disobedience to him personally had vanished from his mind, and, as he had told her last night, though he believed no less strongly than before that his conviction with regard to her marriage was the will of God for him, he believed also, though he could not understand how, that she, too, was acting consonantly to that same will. But with regard to Martin, however he looked at his conduct, or whatever possible interpretation he tried to put on it, he could not see light. He was trivial, superficial, not in earnest about religious matters, just as he had been in the rest of his education. Nothing, except music, which Mr. Challoner could not frankly bring himself to regard as anything but a mere æsthetic fringe, a mere ornament of life, had ever touched him deeply. He had no depth, no seriousness. And now that boy, that child, was going to be married, to take upon himself with the same light-hearted insouciance all the responsibilities of a husband and a father.

How strange that they were twins! Helen developing every day in patience, dutifulness, love; and Martin, still thoughtless, bent only on the personal gratification of his musical tastes, and willing, so Mr. Challoner bitterly put it to himself, to leave the English Church, the mother of his faith, for the sake of a hymn-tune! He would write to him, as he had said, but even now he could not see him. For he knew himself well, and recognised, though he scarcely wished to cure his own impatience, his anger at one who seemed to him to be going wrong wilfully. On a point like this he could make no concession, for any concession implied a failure of loyalty on his own part to his creed.

He had by this time entered the woods round Chartries, where the path was wet and a little slippery under the trees, causing him to abate the briskness of his pace. How different, how utterly different Helen had proved herself. If only she could see the question of her marriage as he saw it, how would his whole heart rise up in thankfulness. For though he admitted here that both he and she might be right, he was still full of disquietude and anxiety about it. Then suddenly, turning a corner, he found himself face to face with her lover.

For a moment neither spoke. To Frank it seemed that if words even of commonplace greeting were to pass between them it must be for Mr. Challoner to make the beginning, while to the elder man the sudden shock of seeing him inevitably awakened again, for the moment, the horror and bitterness of their last interview. Under that his mouth was compressed and tightened, a gleam almost of elemental enmity shone in his eyes, and it seemed to himself that he would pass by Frank with averted head. But then over that, veiling and softening it, there rose all that he had been learning this winter, all that Helen had been teaching him, and as he came close to Frank he paused. Then, with an effort that cost the proud man something, he put his lesson into practice, and held out his hand. And the strength and the big loveableness of the man was offered with it, whole-heartedly.

“We shook hands last time we met, Lord Yorkshire,” he said. “Will you not let me shake hands with you again?”

That done, that effort made, the rest was easier, for all that was generous and sympathetic in Frank responded.

“Thank you,” he said, simply. “And I am not exaggerating, Mr. Challoner, when I tell you that I know nothing in the world that could have happened to me which could give me so much pleasure as this.”

Mr. Challoner still retained his hand.