Читать книгу The Coward - Robert Hugh Benson - Страница 19

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The conflict of emotions was indescribable that night; for a boy, in the exaltation of a falling in love, will pose and attitudinise interiorly in a manner almost inconceivable to a maturer mind. He will, that is to say, group himself and his beloved, rehearse conversations, enact dramas—all in a scenery which the imagination contrives out of the material at its disposal—with a vividness and a dramatic power wholly unattainable by him in less emotional moods. Curiously enough, too, these dramas usually end in tragedy so moving and so poignant as to bring tears to the creator’s eyes; and Val was no exception. More than once that night, before he fell asleep, he was on the point of an actual sob, as he lingered over some exquisite parting scene between himself and Gertie—or over some meeting, years hence, between himself as a homeless, stern-faced wanderer and her as a rich and important personage. These, however, came later, when the simpler situations had been exhausted—when he had perished of cold in the high Alps, after having covered her with his coat and waistcoat; when he had toiled homewards, bearing her inanimate form on his shoulders, himself to fall dead as the applauding crowds gathered round in the moonlight....

He awoke with a start, to find the man in his room and the daylight streaming in.

“It’s half-past five, Master Val; and Mr. Austin’s in the bathroom,” said fresh-faced Charles, who waited on the boys.

He still lay a minute or two re-sorting his emotions.

There had been something almost dramatic and appealing, last night, in the thought of his departure this morning (while she still lay sleeping in her beauty) to face the perils of the high Alps; but the drama seemed gone now, and dreariness to have taken its place. It suddenly seemed to him that it was by a peculiarly malevolent stroke of Providence that he had made the discovery that she was so lovable, only last night. Why, what a blind ass he had been not to have seen it before! What might not those past three weeks have been ... those long afternoons, those rides? And he had let Austin open gates, and May walk with her in the woods.... And he had actually not ridden at all, for this last fortnight.

Then, with a pang, he remembered again the catastrophe of last night—the dropped candlestick, the clumsy gestures....

It was a stern and moody Val who strode down to the early breakfast, who went into his mother’s room as requested, on the way down, to wish her good-bye, who made rather more noise than he need on going past the door of the beloved. At the corner of the passage he even turned for one instant to watch that door. What if it were to open, and a sleep-flushed face look out! ...

“You must buck up,” said Austin, with his mouth full of kidney. “Brougham’ll be round in ten minutes.”

Val said nothing. He inspected the cold ham with the frown of a truculent despot. What did he want with ham?

He was, however, interiorly, slowly arranging the situation; and he saw himself now, once again, as a romantic lover whom severe duty called away to face dangers unspeakable. He was to go out and conquer; he was to return a fortnight hence, brown and determined and infinitely modest, to ... to find her, no doubt, detained by some unforeseen accident, and still in his home. And if not? Well, if not, she should see the newspapers, that by that time would have some startling news from Switzerland.

“There are the wheels,” said Austin. “Got your things down?”

“I suppose so,” said Val. “Charles said——”

“Good Lord! don’t trust to Charles.”

“Better see after your own, hadn’t you?” said Val offensively.

Well, the impossible happened.

He stood in his tweed suit, bare-headed, on the steps by the carriage, in something of an attitude, it must be confessed; while Austin, practical and efficient, as always, counted the pieces of luggage which Charles was setting on the top of the brougham. Val’s left leg was advanced a little; his right hand was on his hip, grasping his hat; his left hand held a walking-stick. He was aware that the morning sunlight fell on him from over the shrubbery by the house, and that he stood, with a faint resemblance to a youthful Napoleon, exactly at that point where his figure showed to the best advantage. It was at this moment that the immense poignancy of his situation struck him again with renewed force. She was sleeping; he was taking his last look—and all the rest—before setting out to meet in a hand-to-hand struggle the elemental forces of nature.

He turned then for one last look at the sleeping house, carrying his eye slowly along the front, from the north wing where his own room was to the south wing where the girls slept. And as his eyes rested there the impossible happened—that which was now his last hope. The curtain drew back and dropped again; but not before he had time to see, as in a flash, a face crowned with dark hair tumbling about the shoulders and a glimmer of white....

“When you’ve done looking like a stuck pig,” said Austin with peculiar vehemence from within the brougham (it must be remembered that he had had to do all the overseeing), “perhaps you’ll get in and let us go. We’re ten minutes late already.”

The brothers did not speak after that until they reached the station.