may has come in with gleams of sunshine and gusty fits of tears: half the time that one is out-of-doors, one is being soaked; the other half, being dried by the sun and the boisterousness of west wind. the heavens, indeed, are like some wayward woman, scolding and stormy, then suddenly showing the divinest tenderness. ‘i didn’t mean it,’ say the sun and the west wind. ‘i only wet you for fun. oh, don’t go indoors and change; i will make you quite dry in a minute.’
but for as long as i live, i think, every may that comes round in the circle of months will be to me, not the may of the year whose course is now running, but the may of three years ago. so, too, when we come to june, you will find the june of two years ago. for to me now, and to me always, as i think, may will mean the things that happened then, and june will mean the things{100} that happened thirteen months later. i will tell you that story. it concerns three people only, and two of them are dead.
dick alington and i were very old friends: we had been at school together, and his father’s house was next to ours in the country, the woods belonging to each running contiguous, separated only by the park paling. in consequence, from our frequent passages the one to the other, a beaten track lay through the woods in a bee-line from house to house, and the paling at the particular point where the bee-line crossed it, was, from the frequent scrambling over it, broken and splintered, till after the lapse of some years it was no more than a stile, that could be walked over without any scrambling at all, and the path was known as the ‘boys’ path.’ we had remarkably kindred tastes, because we both of us liked practically everything except parsnips and being indoors, even down to london fogs, when we used to have games of hide-and-seek in berkeley square—where we also both lived—which for sheer mysterious excitement beat any pursuit in which i have ever been engaged, either before or since. the game itself is one of the{101} utmost simplicity. i stood in the porch of either house while dick was given ten seconds’ law. he had then, without leaving berkeley square, to remain uncaught for five minutes, while i pursued him blindly in the fog. we were not allowed to run nor to hide, but only to walk about the square, and we were properly dressed with tall hats and gloves, so that in case of the fog clearing rapidly we should appear respectable. of course, for the whole of that five minutes we were both utterly lost, and the hider was usually caught by walking straight into the seeker. hence the excitement: the pursued guiltily sneaked aside from every figure that loomed through the fog, the pursuer eagerly peered at such, to vanish precipitately again if this was not his quarry, to merely annex it if it was. at the end of the five minutes, if the pursued was yet uncaught, both returned—if they could find it—to the house from which they set out, and pursued and pursuer changed r?les.
i have not, indeed, yet heard of the employment with which we did not amuse ourselves, and we ranged from birds’ eggs to carpentering, from chess to squash-rackets, from football to the writing{102} of tennysonian lyrics, with equal fervour. we also revived the pentathlon as follows: dick won the toss and said ‘golf,’ and i retorted with ‘tennis.’ he then chose the hundred yards and i croquet. the odd event was, of course, selected by the winner of the toss. two games were barred, namely, single wicket at cricket, because we neither could ever get the other out, and long-jump, because dick could jump just about twice as far as i. the whole pentathlon had to be decided on one day, so that staying powers counted for something.
then a stormy day would come, too bad for man or beast to be abroad in, and we had pentathlons of the intellect, playing chess, draughts, backgammon, the poetry-game, and halma in feverish succession. here, too, games at cards were barred, because of dick’s strange inability to grasp the hang of any card-game whatever. he merely fell asleep over them, so that made it quits in the matter of the long-jump; in fact, the balance was in my favour, since there is only one long-jump, but there are many games of cards, and i could have named all the events of which i had the call from among them.{103}
so from school we passed out into life. dick went into the army, and i took up as a profession the work on which i am at this moment engaged. we had many mutual friends, and there never came, as long as dick was alive, any break in our intimacy; nor, until a certain day, did we either of us, as far as we were aware, grow any older. the pentathlons continued with unabated fervour, and i should be ashamed to say now how old we both were when we last played hide-and-seek in berkeley square. it would appear hardly credible to any serious and right-minded person, while those who did believe it would be filled with contempt for us; and, as it is bad to be contemptuous, i will not mention the ages.
now, there had always been in our lives a third person, a girl rather younger than either of us, a neighbour both in town and country and a distant cousin of dick’s. for years dick and i had liked margery, but had necessarily despised her because she was a girl. then there succeeded years when we had begun to be men, not boys, and margery not a girl, but a woman. the contempt ceased (that was so kind of us), and we{104} three formed what i may call an alliance of laughter. margery was always present at the pentathlons, acted as umpire in case of dispute, and was even allowed to join in them herself. then quite suddenly i became aware that i had fallen in love with her. and it was in this manner i knew it:
it was at the conclusion of the golf item in the pentathlon, and on the eighteenth green. dick had holed out his last putt and won from me. he had also won from margery, and margery had a long putt of ten yards to halve with me. she looked at it for some time. she was standing with her back to the sun, so that her brown hair was flushed and gilded with it; her eyes, very blue and vivid with thought, were intent on the line to the hole, her mouth was a little drooped, and the white line of her teeth showed below her lip.
suddenly she said, ‘yes, i see,’ and putted.
the ball travelled smoothly along the turf, and she threw her arms wide.
‘it’s going in,’ she cried. ‘what a darling!’ and as the ball dropped into the hole she looked up at me. then something caught in my breath,{105} and it was no longer the margery that i knew that stood there, but she. she who was completion and perfection—woman to me a man.
for a time the old intimacy of the alliance of laughter went on externally, i suppose, as before. i think we laughed no less. we contested as many pentathlons. we made plans for every day of dick’s leave, and usually abandoned them for subsequent improvisations. then, not more than a week afterwards, there came a day when margery had to go to town, and dick and i were left alone. she was coming back in the evening, and we were to go to the station to meet her, have tea there, and ride our bicycles back over the ridge of ashdown forest, down home in time to be exceedingly late for dinner.
the afternoon was very hot and sultry, and dick and i abandoned the game at tennis we had begun, for we were both slack and heavy-handed, and strolled through the woods up the ‘boys’ path’ for the coolness and shelter of the beech-trees. the ground rises rapidly near the broken paling, and, finding a suitable bed of bracken, we lay down and smoked, looking out from cover{106} over the great ridge of gorse and heather that stretched below us. the air was full of the innumerable murmurs of a hot day, and a warm heathery smell hung idly on the air. near at hand was a flaming bank of gorse, and as we lay there, far more silent than our wont, we could hear the popping of the ripened seeds. the birds, too, were very silent in the bushes; only the grasshopper chirped unweariedly in the grass. dick, i remember, was cleaning his pipe with yellow grass-stems, his straw hat tilted over his eyes. i, though lying there, was in reality waiting for the train at victoria, no. 6 platform. it started in five minutes, and had two hours’ run before it. then dick sat up.
‘look here,’ he said: ‘i’ve something to tell you. there’s no doubt about it—i’ve fallen in love.’
i think i knew, almost before he spoke, what he would say; certainly before he spoke again i knew what was coming.
‘yes, margery,’ he went on: ‘my god! i have fallen in love.’
he turned his brown eyes suddenly from the hot reeling landscape in front to me.{107}
‘why, jack,’ he said, ‘what’s the matter? you look queer, somehow.’
‘dick, are you—are you sure?’ i asked.
‘that you look queer?’
‘no—that you have fallen in love with margery?’
‘sure? you’ll be sure enough when you do the same. there’s no mistake about it, i can tell you. why, margery is the whole point of the pentathlons now.’
‘she has been so to me for the last week,’ said i.
dick said nothing for a minute. then, below his breath, ‘what do you mean?’ he asked.
‘that you and i are in the same boat,’ i said.
‘how long have you known this?’ he asked.
‘a week yesterday.’
‘and you didn’t tell me.’
‘no; i couldn’t. it has been too wonderful to speak of. i’m made like that. i should have told you, though, before long.’
‘have you spoken to margery?’ he asked. ‘no, of course you haven’t.{108}’
‘no; i haven’t spoken to anybody.’
dick got up.
‘come away,’ he said. ‘i don’t like this place. and what are we to do?’
i looked at my watch.
‘start for braceton at once,’ i said, ‘or the train will be in before we get there.’
dick put his arm in mine.
‘i say, jack,’ he said, ‘whatever happens, we’ll behave decently, won’t we?’
‘yes, probably,’ said i.
‘that’s all right, then. we must talk this over to-night. it must simmer a bit before we can get used to it. don’t let us say another word about it now.’
so we rode off through the heat to braceton, found the train already in, and margery waiting for us on the platform, looking, for all the oppressive stagnation of the day, like some nymph of grecian waterways. and dick and i looked thirstily on her, but feared to meet each other’s eye, for life and love were in the balance, and we were friends.
that evening, when the others had gone to bed,{109} we sat on in the chairs that had been taken for coolness out of the smoking-room on to the lawn. the odour of the hot summer night hung heavily, and nothing stirred in the windless air, except that from time to time a faint ghost of a tired breeze whispered from the bed of tobacco-plant, and brought with it a waft of the thick scent.
the sky had grown overcast, and from a bank of cloud which rose slowly in the west the fires of lightning flickered, and a drone of distant thunder answered. in the rooms downstairs the lights were already put out, but the bedrooms above showed illuminated squares of blind. nearly opposite us was margery’s room, and now and then her shadow crossed it. then that light was put out, and presently afterwards we heard the scream of the blind updrawn, and at the open window through the darkness her white figure glimmered dimly.
we could neither of us move nor speak, and in the silence i remember hearing the creak of dick’s shirt grow more rapid as his breathing quickened. then, in a bush close at hand, a nightingale suddenly burst into bubbling song{110}—no lament, as the greeks thought it, but the lyric passion of mating-time, when the stir of love goes through the world, and the lion seeks the lioness, and the libyan hills re-echo to the roaring of his irresistible need; when the feathered and bright-eyed birds lie breast to breast in their swaying habitations; when the man seeks the woman, and cannot rest till he has found her.
then a flash of lightning, somewhat more vivid, lit up for a moment the lawn and the house, and she must have seen us there, for from her window came a little stifled exclamation, and before the thunder answered she was gone.
‘the storm is coming up,’ said dick. ‘let’s go indoors, and talk there. besides, i’m as dry as dust, and i want a drink. we’ll go upstairs; all the lights are out down here.’
our rooms were next each other, communicating by a door, and, drawing our chairs up to the window for coolness, we sat down.
‘somehow or other we’ve got to settle it now,’ said he—‘settle it, that is, as far as we are able.’
how long we talked i do not know, but before we had finished we had to shut the window, for{111} the storm came nearer, and burst round us in sheets of heavy rain and violet fires of lightning. then it passed, and still we sat there, till at the end the moon came out, and rode high in a clean-washed heaven, with the stars clustering round her like swarming bees, while to the east the sky grew dove-coloured with the first hint of dawn. at last i rose.
‘it remains, then, just to toss,’ said i, and spun a coin.
‘heads!’ said he.
‘it is. you speak to margery first, then,’ i said.
he got up too, irresolute, and we looked at each other gravely, rivals in that which makes life sweet, but friends. and that makes life sweet, too.
‘and whatever happens, jack,’ he said rather huskily, ‘we will do our very utmost not to let this stand between us, and to keep all knowledge of it from her.’
‘yes, whatever happens,’ said i. ‘time to go to bed, dick. good-night.’
i went into my room, closing the door of com{112}munication; but before i was half undressed it opened, and dick came in.
‘one thing more,’ he said: ‘we didn’t settle when.’
‘that must be left to you,’ said i; ‘but oh, dick, for god’s sake let it be soon! surely it had better be soon.’
his face lit up with the unimaginable light of love.
‘yes; the sooner the better,’ he said.
i slept long and late that night, from the mere exhaustion, i suppose, of thought and suspense; did no more than turn and sleep again, when i was called; and woke finally to find it was after ten, and the calmness of the promise in the dawn had been fulfilled by a perfect day of unclouded blue. i went through into dick’s room, but he had already dressed and gone down, and even as i passed the window i saw him and margery come from the conservatory and out on to the lawn, surrounded, as was her wont, by a wave of dogs. but this morning it seemed that dick had no word for any of them; and thus they passed out of sight behind the bushes. i knew as surely as{113} if the thing had already happened that dick would have something to tell me when they came back, but what that should be i had no kind of idea. we three had played like children together for years: had margery her secret, even as dick and i had had? or had she none? were both of us her playmates?
it cannot have been very long before dick came back, for i was still in the dining-room, staring blankly at the morning paper, with my breakfast yet untasted. as soon as i saw him i knew.
‘so it is you,’ i said, and stopped. then our compact and our friendship aided me. ‘oh, make her happy, dick!’ said i.
the dear man sat down on the edge of the table.
‘jack, i’m cut in two about it all,’ he said, and never have i seen so intense a happiness on the face of living being. ‘really i am. oh, damn it all! and margery told me to come and tell you, and she wants to see you. she says she’ll see you alone first, and then we’ll all play the fool together, as we’ve always done. so i{114} had to lie to her. first thing i did was to lie to her, and i told her that you were not particularly fit this morning—thunderstorm kept you awake—and that i didn’t know if you’d be up to a pentathlon.’
he broke off suddenly.
‘my god, if it only wasn’t you!’ he said.
i remember feeling then as if i was a piece of mechanism external to myself. this mechanism saw dick sitting on the edge of the table, saw breakfast waiting and ate it, and spoke and moved in obedience to an instinct that seemed to have nothing to do with me. behind somewhere sat me, watching what went on.
‘no; a pentathlon by all means,’ said the tongue of the mechanism. ‘we’ve got to have one more to settle the last, and you go back to-morrow. it begins with croquet. margery chose that.’
dick’s eyebrows suddenly grew into a frown, and he bit his lip.
‘oh, jack!’ he said.
then for a moment i took possession of the mechanism.{115}
‘it’s no use talking,’ i said, ‘the thing is so, and all i can do at present is to behave with some semblance of decency—anyhow, so that margery shall not know. i can manage that perfectly, and it will give me something to do. it’s no use your being sorry for me. besides, it’s not humanly possible for you, nor would it be for me if i was in your place, to have sorrow predominant. margery fills the world for you—she does for me——’
‘no, not fills it,’ said he. ‘you don’t understand——’
‘i understand perfectly. you’re a decent sort of fellow, and—well, i am your friend. it’s no manner of good talking about it. all we settled last night i feel fully—fully! do you understand? i can only assure you it is so. whatever happens—do you remember saying that? i do, and—oh, for god’s sake, don’t worry!’
dick got off the table, turned his back to me, and blew his nose very long and loudly, and, drawing up a chair, sat down by me with a quivering lip.
‘i’ve made a fool of myself, i suppose,’ he said,{116} ‘and i’ve done not a particle of good, but only made it harder for you. that’s like me. i’m happier than i thought it was allowed for a man to be, and i’m wretcheder than i hoped was permitted. that’s all; there was no need to say it, because you knew it. but i had to.’
then again the mechanism moved, and i sat and watched. and now i find it is quite easy to write down what happened, for i only watched. but it was hard to write down what happened when, as on the last page, i was doing it myself. if you think of it you will see it must be so.
‘where is margery?’ i said. ‘oh, dick, don’t be a fool!’
again he blew his nose.
‘out in the garden,’ he said. ‘are you going now?’
‘yes. the pentathlon begins in ten minutes. nothing has happened. just the pentathlon!’
i walked out of the dining-room, leaving him still there, into the blinding blaze of sunshine. she—the she—was sitting in a chair at the end of the lawn, and my mother beside her. the latter got up as i came near.{117}
‘you have heard?’ she said; and in her beloved face there was that look which i have seen three or four times in my life, when great sorrow or great joy has brought us into that union which, so i verily believe, can only exist between mother and son. i knew that she had guessed what unspoken word to margery had been on my lips.
‘yes; dick told me,’ said i.
‘be a man, then,’ said she, seeing that i knew that she knew. ‘and god bless you, my darling, and comfort you.’
it was but a step to where margery sat, and i held out both hands.
‘oh, jack, i am so happy!’ she said, and with that she rose on tiptoe, put her arms round my neck, and kissed me. it was all right, you see, that she should do that now, for she was my friend, and i was dick’s friend, and she loved dick.
* * * * *
there is but little more to say about that may, since even in a diary one has to avoid certain depths of egotism, in order to avoid being un{118}bearable. the pentathlon was played, and i won. also i had ten minutes with my mother that night, while dick and margery were together. nothing much was said on either side, but i knew again, with the vividness that usually comes only with a thing heretofore unrealized, that she was my mother and that i was her son—part of her being, born from her body, indivisibly, while the ages lasted, hers. hers was every little effort that i made towards ordinary human decency of behaviour; hers was the resolve i made then, and have tried (with how many failures!) to keep since, to realize that these things could not have happened with any but a benignant purpose, blind and incomprehensible as it might seem to me or to her; and that to become in the least degree embittered, or to fail in the smallest particle of friendship to my friend, or of love to the woman whom i loved, was to miss the divine purpose, and to make of one’s self a senseless animal. for then, and even now as i write, and do know the human outcome of that love, who knows now what the meaning and the great{119} purpose of all this is? a flaw, a failure—can one say that? not so do i believe, for i know it is all a fragment of the circumference of that great circle, the centre of which and the whole of which—you and me, and the drunkard in the street, and the prostitute in the street, and summer rain, and love and death, are included, and none higher or lower than another—is god.
one word more; for the tired, puzzled entity which i know as myself turns back to the time when it was neither puzzled nor tired, and turned then in childlike faith to what never failed it, even as it now, mute, with its years of experience to back its childlike faith, turns to her whom it now knows can never fail it.
mother, mother! i hope you are asleep, for this is an unseasonable and timeless hour of night, but i know that before you slept you prayed for your child. you prayed that god of his great grace would continue to keep him unembittered, for he humbly hopes that no touch of that has ever come near him because of what may brought; you prayed that the wound in his heart would be{120} healed, and your prayer was heard; you prayed that some day he would find his margery—not she of whom june will tell you, for she was dick’s, but another—the one predestined in the eternal purpose of god.
