IX
NOW, do not be alarmed lest I shall attempt to describe a list offanciful unrealities that borrowed life from a passing emotionmerely; the emotion was permanent, the results enduring. Pleasebelieve the honest statement that, with the singing of that bird, thepent-up stress in me became measurably articulate. Some bird in myheart, long caged, rang out in answering inner song.
It is also true, I think, that there were no words in me at themoment, and certainly no desire for speech. Had a companion been withme, I should probably have merely lit my pipe and smoked in silence;if I spoke at all, I should have made some commonplace remark: "It'slate; we must be going in to dress for dinner...." As it was,however, the emotion in me, answering the singing of the bird, became,as I said, measurably articulate. I give you simple facts, as thoughthis were my monthly Report to the Foreign Office in days gone by. Ispoke no word aloud, of course. It was rather that my feelings foundutterance in the rapturous song I listened to, and that my thoughtsknew this relief of vicarious expression, though of inner andinaudible expression. The beauty of scene and moment were adequatelyrecorded, and for ever in that song. They were now part of me.
Unaware of its perfect mission the bird sang, of course because itcould not help itself; perhaps some mating thrush, perhaps a commonblackbird only; I cannot say; I only realized that no human voice, nohuman music, even of the most elaborate and inspired kind, could havemade this beauty, similarly articulate. And, for a moment I knew myformer pain that I could not share this joy, this beauty, with othersof my kind, that, except for myself, the loveliness seemed lost andwasted. There was no spectator, no other listener; the sweet springnight was lavish for no audience; the revelation had been repeated,would be repeated, a thousand thousand times without recognition andwithout reward.
Then, as I listened, memory, it seemed, took yearning by the hand, andled me towards that inner utterance I have mentioned. There was novoice, least of all that inner voice you surely have anticipated. Butthere was utterance, as though my whole being combined with nature inits birth.
Into the mould of familiar sentences of long ago it ran, yet nearer atlast to full disclosure, because the pregnant sentences had altered:
"I need your forgiveness born of love..." passed through me with thesinging of the bird.
I listened with the closest inner attention I have ever known. Ipaused. My heart brimmed with an expectant wonder that was happiness.And the happiness was justified. For the familiar sentence haltedbefore its first sorrowful completion; the poignant close remainedunuttered--because it was no longer true.
Out of deep love in me, new-born, that held the promise of fulfilment,the utterance concluded:
"... I have found a better way...."
Before I could think or question, and almost as though a whisper ofthe wind went past, there rose in me at once this answeringrecognition. It seemed authentically convincing; it was glorious; itwas full of joy:
"That beauty which was Marion lives on, and lives for me."
It was as though a blaze of light shone through me; somewhere in mybody there were tears of welcome; for this recognition was to mereunion.
It must seem astonishing for me, a mere soldier and Colonial Governor,to confess you that I stood there listening to the song for a longinterval of what I can only term, with utmost sincerity, communion.Beauty and love both visited me; I believe that truth and wisdomentered softly with them. As I wrote above, I saw my owninsignificance, yet, such was the splendour in me, I knew my right aswell. It could be ever thus. My attitude alone prevented. I was notexcluded, not cut off. This Beauty lay ready to my hand, alwaysavailable, for ever, now. It was not unharvested. But more--it couldbe shared with others; it was become a portion of myself, and thatwhich is part of my being must, inevitably and automatically, be givenout.
It was, thus, nowhere wasted or unharvested; it offered with prodigalopportunity a vehicle for that inspiration which is love, and beinglove of purest kind, is surely wisdom too. The dead, indeed, do notreturn, yet they are active, and those who lived beauty in theirlives are still, through that beauty, benevolently active.
I will give you now the change instantaneously produced in me:
There rose in me another, deeper point of view that dispelled as bymagic the disenchantment that had chilled these first days of myreturn. I stood here in this old-world garden, but I stood also inthe heart of that beauty, so carefully hidden, so craftily screenedbehind the obvious, that strong and virile beauty which is England.Within call of my voice, still studying by lamplight now the symbolsof her well-established strength, burning, moreover, with the steadyfaith which does not easily break across restraint, and loving theman as she had loved the little boy, sat one, not wondering perhapsat my unspoken misunderstanding, yet hoping, patiently and insilence, for its removal in due time. In the house of our boyhood, ofour earliest play and quarrels, unchanged and unchangeable, knowingsimply that I had "come home again to her," our mother waited....
I need not elaborate this for you, you for whom England and our motherwin almost a single, undivided love. I had misjudged, but the causeof my misjudgment was thus suddenly removed. A subtler understandinginsight, a sympathy born of deeper love, something of greater wisdom,in a word, awoke in me. The thrill had worked its magic as of old,but this time in its slower English fashion, deep, andcharacteristically sure. To my country (that is, to my firstexperience of impersonal love) and to my mother (that is, to myearliest acquaintance with personal love) I had been ready, in myimpatience, to credit an injustice. Unknown to me, thus, there hadbeen need of guidance, of assistance. Beauty, having cleared the way,had worked upon me its amazing alchemy.
There, in fewest possible words, is what had happened.
I remember that for a long time, then, I waited in the hush of mychildhood's garden, listening, as it were, with every pore, andconscious that some one who was pleased interpreted the beauty to mysoul. It seemed, as I said, a message of a personal kind. It wasregenerative, moveover, in so far that life was enlarged and liftedupon a nobler scale; new sources of power were open to me; I saw abetter way. Irresistibly it came to me again that beauty, far frombeing wasted, was purposive, that this purpose was of a redeemingkind, and that some one who was pleased co-operated with it for mypersonal benefit. No figure, thank God, was visible, no voice wasaudible, but a presence there indubitably was, and, whether Iresponded or otherwise, would be always there.
And the power was such that I felt as though the desire of the planetitself yearned through it for expression.