The wind, stirring among trees and bushes, flung the young leaves
skywards. The trembling of their silver linings was like the joyful
flutter of a heart at good news. It was one of those Spring mornings
when everything seems full of a sweet restlessness—soft clouds chasing
fast across the sky; soft scents floating forth and dying; the notes of
birds, now shrill and sweet, now hushed in silences; all nature striving
for something, nothing at peace.
Villa Rubein withstood the influence of the day, and wore its usual
look of rest and isolation. Harz sent in his card, and asked to see “der
Herr.” The servant, a grey-eyed, clever-looking Swiss with no hair on
his face, came back saying:
“Der Herr, mein Herr, is in the Garden gone.” Harz followed him.
Herr Paul, a small white flannel cap on his head, gloves on his hands,
and glasses on his nose, was watering a rosebush, and humming the
serenade from Faust.
This aspect of the house was very different from the other. The sun fell
on it, and over a veranda creepers clung and scrambled in long scrolls.
There was a lawn, with freshly mown grass; flower-beds were laid out,
and at the end of an avenue of young acacias stood an arbour covered
with wisteria.
In the east, mountain peaks—fingers of snow—glittered above the mist. A
grave simplicity lay on that scene, on the roofs and spires, the valleys
and the dreamy hillsides, with their yellow scars and purple bloom, and
white cascades, like tails of grey horses swishing in the wind.
Herr Paul held out his hand: “What can we do for you?” he said.
“I have to beg a favour,” replied Harz. “I wish to paint your daughters.
I will bring the canvas here—they shall have no trouble. I would paint
them in the garden when they have nothing else to do.”
Herr Paul looked at him dubiously—ever since the previous day he had
been thinking: 'Queer bird, that painter—thinks himself the devil of
a swell! Looks a determined fellow too!' Now—staring in the painter's
face—it seemed to him, on the whole, best if some one else refused this
permission.
“With all the pleasure, my dear sir,” he said. “Come, let us ask these
two young ladies!” and putting down his hose, he led the way towards the
arbour, thinking: 'You'll be disappointed, my young conqueror, or I'm
mistaken.'
Miss Naylor and the girls were sitting in the shade, reading La
Fontaine's fables. Greta, with one eye on her governess, was stealthily
cutting a pig out of orange peel.
“Ah! my dear dears!” began Herr Paul, who in the presence of Miss
Naylor always paraded his English. “Here is our friend, who has a very
flattering request to make; he would paint you, yes—both together,
alfresco, in the air, in the sunshine, with the birds, the little
birds!”
Greta, gazing at Harz, gushed deep pink, and furtively showed him her
pig.
Christian said: “Paint us? Oh no!”
She saw Harz looking at her, and added, slowly: “If you really wish it,
I suppose we could!” then dropped her eyes.
“Ah!” said Herr Paul raising his brows till his glasses fell from
his nose: “And what says Gretchen? Does she want to be handed up to
posterities a little peacock along with the other little birds?”
Greta, who had continued staring at the painter, said:
“Of—course—I—want—to—be.”
“Prrt!” said Herr Paul, looking at Miss Naylor. The little lady indeed
opened her mouth wide, but all that came forth was a tiny squeak, as
sometimes happens when one is anxious to say something, and has not
arranged beforehand what it shall be.
The affair seemed ended; Harz heaved a sigh of satisfaction. But Herr
Paul had still a card to play.
“There is your Aunt,” he said; “there are things to be considered—one
must certainly inquire—so, we shall see.” Kissing Greta loudly on both
cheeks, he went towards the house.
“What makes you want to paint us?” Christian asked, as soon as he was
gone.
“I think it very wrong,” Miss Naylor blurted out.
“Why?” said Harz, frowning.
“Greta is so young—there are lessons—it is such a waste of time!”
His eyebrows twitched: “Ah! You think so!”
“I don't see why it is a waste of time,” said Christian quietly; “there
are lots of hours when we sit here and do nothing.”
“And it is very dull,” put in Greta, with a pout.
“You are rude, Greta,” said Miss Naylor in a little rage, pursing her
lips, and taking up her knitting.
“I think it seems always rude to speak the truth,” said Greta. Miss
Naylor looked at her in that concentrated manner with which she was in
the habit of expressing displeasure.
But at this moment a servant came, and said that Mrs. Decie would be
glad to see Herr Harz. The painter made them a stiff bow, and followed
the servant to the house. Miss Naylor and the two girls watched his
progress with apprehensive eyes; it was clear that he had been offended.
Crossing the veranda, and passing through an open window hung with silk
curtains, Hart entered a cool dark room. This was Mrs. Decie's sanctum,
where she conducted correspondence, received her visitors, read the
latest literature, and sometimes, when she had bad headaches, lay for
hours on the sofa, with a fan, and her eyes closed. There was a scent of
sandalwood, a suggestion of the East, a kind of mystery, in here, as
if things like chairs and tables were not really what they seemed, but
something much less commonplace.
The visitor looked twice, to be quite sure of anything; there were many
plants, bead curtains, and a deal of silverwork and china.
Mrs. Decie came forward in the slightly rustling silk which—whether in
or out of fashion—always accompanied her. A tall woman, over fifty, she
moved as if she had been tied together at the knees. Her face was long,
with broad brows, from which her sandy-grey hair was severely waved
back; she had pale eyes, and a perpetual, pale, enigmatic smile.
Her complexion had been ruined by long residence in India, and might
unkindly have been called fawn-coloured. She came close to Harz, keeping
her eyes on his, with her head bent slightly forward.
“We are so pleased to know you,” she said, speaking in a voice which had
lost all ring. “It is charming to find some one in these parts who
can help us to remember that there is such a thing as Art. We had Mr.
C—-here last autumn, such a charming fellow. He was so interested in
the native customs and dresses. You are a subject painter, too, I think?
Won't you sit down?”
She went on for some time, introducing painters' names, asking
questions, skating round the edge of what was personal. And the young
man stood before her with a curious little smile fixed on his lips. 'She
wants to know whether I'm worth powder and shot,' he thought.
“You wish to paint my nieces?” Mrs. Decie said at last, leaning back on
her settee.
“I wish to have that honour,” Harz answered with a bow.
“And what sort of picture did you think of?”
“That,” said Harz, “is in the future. I couldn't tell you.” And he
thought: 'Will she ask me if I get my tints in Paris, like the woman
Tramper told me of?'
The perpetual pale smile on Mrs. Decie's face seemed to invite his
confidence, yet to warn him that his words would be sucked in somewhere
behind those broad fine brows, and carefully sorted. Mrs. Decie, indeed,
was thinking: 'Interesting young man, regular Bohemian—no harm in that
at his age; something Napoleonic in his face; probably has no dress
clothes. Yes, should like to see more of him!' She had a fine eye for
points of celebrity; his name was unfamiliar, would probably have been
scouted by that famous artist Mr. C—-, but she felt her instinct urging
her on to know him. She was, to do her justice, one of those “lion”
finders who seek the animal for pleasure, not for the glory it
brings them; she had the courage of her instincts—lion-entities were
indispensable to her, but she trusted to divination to secure them;
nobody could foist a “lion” on her.
“It will be very nice. You will stay and have some lunch? The
arrangements here are rather odd. Such a mixed household—but there is
always lunch at two o'clock for any one who likes, and we all dine at
seven. You would have your sittings in the afternoons, perhaps? I should
so like to see your sketches. You are using the old house on the wall
for studio; that is so original of you!”
Harz would not stay to lunch, but asked if he might begin work that
afternoon; he left a little suffocated by the sandalwood and sympathy of
this sphinx-like woman.
Walking home along the river wall, with the singing of the larks and
thrushes, the rush of waters, the humming of the chafers in his ears, he
felt that he would make something fine of this subject. Before his eyes
the faces of the two girls continually started up, framed by the sky,
with young leaves guttering against their cheeks.
V
Three days had passed since Harz began his picture, when early in the
morning, Greta came from Villa Rubein along the river dyke and sat down
on a bench from which the old house on the wall was visible. She had not
been there long before Harz came out.
“I did not knock,” said Greta, “because you would not have heard, and it
is so early, so I have been waiting for you a quarter of an hour.”
Selecting a rosebud, from some flowers in her hand, she handed it to
him. “That is my first rosebud this year,” she said; “it is for you
because you are painting me. To-day I am thirteen, Herr Harz; there is
not to be a sitting, because it is my birthday; but, instead, we are all
going to Meran to see the play of Andreas Hofer. You are to come too,
please; I am here to tell you, and the others shall be here directly.”
Harz bowed: “And who are the others?”
“Christian, and Dr. Edmund, Miss Naylor, and Cousin Teresa. Her husband
is ill, so she is sad, but to-day she is going to forget that. It is not
good to be always sad, is it, Herr Harz?”
He laughed: “You could not be.”
Greta answered gravely: “Oh yes, I could. I too am often sad. You are
making fun. You are not to make fun to-day, because it is my birthday.
Do you think growing up is nice, Herr Harz?”
“No, Fraulein Greta, it is better to have all the time before you.”
They walked on side by side.
“I think,” said Greta, “you are very much afraid of losing time. Chris
says that time is nothing.”
“Time is everything,” responded Harz.
“She says that time is nothing, and thought is everything,” Greta
murmured, rubbing a rose against her cheek, “but I think you cannot have
a thought unless you have the time to think it in. There are the others!
Look!”
A cluster of sunshades on the bridge glowed for a moment and was lost in
shadow.
“Come,” said Harz, “let's join them!”
At Meran, under Schloss Tirol, people were streaming across the meadows
into the open theatre. Here were tall fellows in mountain dress, with
leather breeches, bare knees, and hats with eagles' feathers; here were
fruit-sellers, burghers and their wives, mountebanks, actors, and every
kind of visitor. The audience, packed into an enclosure of high boards,
sweltered under the burning sun. Cousin Teresa, tall and thin, with
hard, red cheeks, shaded her pleasant eyes with her hand.
The play began. It depicted the rising in the Tyrol of 1809: the village
life, dances and yodelling; murmurings and exhortations, the warning
beat of drums; then the gathering, with flintlocks, pitchforks, knives;
the battle and victory; the homecoming, and festival. Then the second
gathering, the roar of cannon; betrayal, capture, death. The impassive
figure of the patriot Andreas Hofer always in front, black-bearded,
leathern-girdled, under the blue sky, against a screen of mountains.
Harz and Christian sat behind the others. He seemed so intent on the
play that she did not speak, but watched his face, rigid with a kind of
cold excitement; he seemed to be transported by the life passing before
them. Something of his feeling seized on her; when the play was over she
too was trembling. In pushing their way out they became separated from
the others.
“There's a short cut to the station here,” said Christian; “let's go
this way.”
The path rose a little; a narrow stream crept alongside the meadow, and
the hedge was spangled with wild roses. Christian kept glancing shyly
at the painter. Since their meeting on the river wall her thoughts had
never been at rest. This stranger, with his keen face, insistent eyes,
and ceaseless energy, had roused a strange feeling in her; his words had
put shape to something in her not yet expressed. She stood aside at a
stile to make way for some peasant boys, dusty and rough-haired, who
sang and whistled as they went by.
“I was like those boys once,” said Harz.
Christian turned to him quickly. “Ah! that was why you felt the play, so
much.”
“It's my country up there. I was born amongst the mountains. I looked
after the cows, and slept in hay-cocks, and cut the trees in winter.
They used to call me a 'black sheep,' a 'loafer' in my village.”
“Why?”
“Ah! why? I worked as hard as any of them. But I wanted to get away. Do
you think I could have stayed there all my life?”
Christian's eyes grew eager.
“If people don't understand what it is you want to do, they always call
you a loafer!” muttered Harz.
“But you did what you meant to do in spite of them,” Christian said.
For herself it was so hard to finish or decide. When in the old days
she told Greta stories, the latter, whose instinct was always for the
definite, would say: “And what came at the end, Chris? Do finish it
this morning!” but Christian never could. Her thoughts were deep, vague,
dreamy, invaded by both sides of every question. Whatever she did, her
needlework, her verse-making, her painting, all had its charm; but
it was not always what it was intended for at the beginning. Nicholas
Treffry had once said of her: “When Chris starts out to make a hat, it
may turn out an altar-cloth, but you may bet it won't be a hat.” It was
her instinct to look for what things meant; and this took more than all
her time. She knew herself better than most girls of nineteen, but it
was her reason that had informed her, not her feelings. In her
sheltered life, her heart had never been ruffled except by rare fits of
passion—“tantrums” old Nicholas Treffry dubbed them—at what seemed to
her mean or unjust.
“If I were a man,” she said, “and going to be great, I should have
wanted to begin at the very bottom as you did.”
“Yes,” said Harz quickly, “one should be able to feel everything.”
She did not notice how simply he assumed that he was going to be great.
He went on, a smile twisting his mouth unpleasantly beneath its dark
moustache—“Not many people think like you! It's a crime not to have been
born a gentleman.”
“That's a sneer,” said Christian; “I didn't think you would have
sneered!”
“It is true. What is the use of pretending that it isn't?”
“It may be true, but it is finer not to say it!”
“By Heavens!” said Harz, striking one hand into the other, “if more
truth were spoken there would not be so many shams.”
Christian looked down at him from her seat on the stile.
“You are right all the same, Fraulein Christian,” he added suddenly;
“that's a very little business. Work is what matters, and trying to see
the beauty in the world.”
Christian's face changed. She understood, well enough, this craving
after beauty. Slipping down from the stile, she drew a slow deep breath.
“Yes!” she said. Neither spoke for some time, then Harz said shyly:
“If you and Fraulein Greta would ever like to come and see my studio, I
should be so happy. I would try and clean it up for you!”
“I should like to come. I could learn something. I want to learn.”
They were both silent till the path joined the road.
“We must be in front of the others; it's nice to be in front—let's
dawdle. I forgot—you never dawdle, Herr Harz.”
“After a big fit of work, I can dawdle against any one; then I get
another fit of work—it's like appetite.”
“I'm always dawdling,” answered Christian.
By the roadside a peasant woman screwed up her sun-dried face, saying in
a low voice: “Please, gracious lady, help me to lift this basket!”
Christian stooped, but before she could raise it, Harz hoisted it up on
his back.
“All right,” he nodded; “this good lady doesn't mind.”
The woman, looking very much ashamed, walked along by Christian; she
kept rubbing her brown hands together, and saying; “Gracious lady, I
would not have wished. It is heavy, but I would not have wished.”
“I'm sure he'd rather carry it,” said Christian.
They had not gone far along the road, however, before the others passed
them in a carriage, and at the strange sight Miss Naylor could be seen
pursing her lips; Cousin Teresa nodding pleasantly; a smile on Dawney's
face; and beside him Greta, very demure. Harz began to laugh.
“What are you laughing at?” asked Christian.
“You English are so funny. You mustn't do this here, you mustn't do that
there, it's like sitting in a field of nettles. If I were to walk with
you without my coat, that little lady would fall off her seat.” His
laugh infected Christian; they reached the station feeling that they
knew each other better.
The sun had dipped behind the mountains when the little train steamed
down the valley. All were subdued, and Greta, with a nodding head, slept
fitfully. Christian, in her corner, was looking out of the window, and
Harz kept studying her profile.
He tried to see her eyes. He had remarked indeed that, whatever their
expression, the brows, arched and rather wide apart, gave them a
peculiar look of understanding. He thought of his picture. There was
nothing in her face to seize on, it was too sympathetic, too much like
light. Yet her chin was firm, almost obstinate.
The train stopped with a jerk; she looked round at him. It was as though
she had said: “You are my friend.”
At Villa Rubein, Herr Paul had killed the fatted calf for Greta's Fest.
When the whole party were assembled, he alone remained standing; and
waving his arm above the cloth, cried: “My dears! Your happiness! There
are good things here—Come!” And with a sly look, the air of a conjurer
producing rabbits, he whipped the cover off the soup tureen:
“Soup-turtle, fat, green fat!” He smacked his lips.
No servants were allowed, because, as Greta said to Harz:
“It is that we are to be glad this evening.”
Geniality radiated from Herr Paul's countenance, mellow as a bowl of
wine. He toasted everybody, exhorting them to pleasure.
Harz passed a cracker secretly behind Greta's head, and Miss Naylor,
moved by a mysterious impulse, pulled it with a sort of gleeful horror;
it exploded, and Greta sprang off her chair. Scruff, seeing this,
appeared suddenly on the sideboard with his forelegs in a plate of soup;
without moving them, he turned his head, and appeared to accuse
the company of his false position. It was the signal for shrieks of
laughter. Scruff made no attempt to free his forelegs; but sniffed the
soup, and finding that nothing happened, began to lap it.
“Take him out! Oh! take him out!” wailed Greta, “he shall be ill!”
“Allons! Mon cher!” cried Herr Paul, “c'est magnifique, mais, vous
savez, ce nest guere la guerre!” Scruff, with a wild spring, leaped past
him to the ground.
“Ah!” cried Miss Naylor, “the carpet!” Fresh moans of mirth shook the
table; for having tasted the wine of laughter, all wanted as much more
as they could get. When Scruff and his traces were effaced, Herr Paul
took a ladle in his hand.
“I have a toast,” he said, waving it for silence; “a toast we will
drink all together from our hearts; the toast of my little daughter, who
to-day has thirteen years become; and there is also in our hearts,”
he continued, putting down the ladle and suddenly becoming grave, “the
thought of one who is not today with us to see this joyful occasion; to
her, too, in this our happiness we turn our hearts and glasses because
it is her joy that we should yet be joyful. I drink to my little
daughter; may God her shadow bless!”
All stood up, clinking their glasses, and drank: then, in the hush that
followed, Greta, according to custom, began to sing a German carol; at
the end of the fourth line she stopped, abashed.
Heir Paul blew his nose loudly, and, taking up a cap that had fallen
from a cracker, put it on.
Every one followed his example, Miss Naylor attaining the distinction
of a pair of donkey's ears, which she wore, after another glass of wine,
with an air of sacrificing to the public good.
At the end of supper came the moment for the offering of gifts. Herr
Paul had tied a handkerchief over Greta's eyes, and one by one they
brought her presents. Greta, under forfeit of a kiss, was bound to
tell the giver by the feel of the gift. Her swift, supple little hands
explored noiselessly; and in every case she guessed right.
Dawney's present, a kitten, made a scene by clawing at her hair.
“That is Dr. Edmund's,” she cried at once. Christian saw that Harz had
disappeared, but suddenly he came back breathless, and took his place at
the end of the rank of givers.
Advancing on tiptoe, he put his present into Greta's hands. It was a
small bronze copy of a Donatello statue.
“Oh, Herr Harz!” cried Greta; “I saw it in the studio that day. It stood
on the table, and it is lovely.”
Mrs. Decie, thrusting her pale eyes close to it, murmured: “Charming!”
Mr. Treffry took it in his fingers.
“Rum little toad! Cost a pot of money, I expect!” He eyed Harz
doubtfully.
They went into the next room now, and Herr Paul, taking Greta's bandage,
transferred it to his own eyes.
“Take care—take care, all!” he cried; “I am a devil of a catcher,” and,
feeling the air cautiously, he moved forward like a bear about to hug.
He caught no one. Christian and Greta whisked under his arms and left
him grasping at the air. Mrs. Decie slipped past with astonishing
agility. Mr. Treffry, smoking his cigar, and barricaded in a corner,
jeered: “Bravo, Paul! The active beggar! Can't he run! Go it, Greta!”
At last Herr Paul caught Cousin Teresa, who, fattened against the wall,
lost her head, and stood uttering tiny shrieks.
Suddenly Mrs. Decie started playing The Blue Danube. Herr Paul dropped
the handkerchief, twisted his moustache up fiercely, glared round the
room, and seizing Greta by the waist, began dancing furiously, bobbing
up and down like a cork in lumpy water. Cousin Teresa followed suit with
Miss Naylor, both very solemn, and dancing quite different steps. Harz,
went up to Christian.
“I can't dance,” he said, “that is, I have only danced once, but—if you
would try with me!”
She put her hand on his arm, and they began. She danced, light as a
feather, eyes shining, feet flying, her body bent a little forward. It
was not a great success at first, but as soon as the time had got
into Harz's feet, they went swinging on when all the rest had stopped.
Sometimes one couple or another slipped through the window to dance on
the veranda, and came whirling in again. The lamplight glowed on the
girls' white dresses; on Herr Paul's perspiring face. He constituted in
himself a perfect orgy, and when the music stopped flung himself, full
length, on the sofa gasping out:
“My God! But, my God!”
Suddenly Christian felt Harz cling to her arm.
Glowing and panting she looked at him.
“Giddy!” he murmured: “I dance so badly; but I'll soon learn.”
Greta clapped her hands: “Every evening we will dance, every evening we
will dance.”
Harz looked at Christian; the colour had deepened in her face.
“I'll show you how they dance in my village, feet upon the ceiling!” And
running to Dawney, he said:
“Hold me here! Lift me—so! Now, on—two,” he tried to swing his feet
above his head, but, with an “Ouch!” from Dawney, they collapsed, and
sat abruptly on the floor. This untimely event brought the evening to an
end. Dawney left, escorting Cousin Teresa, and Harz strode home humming
The Blue Danube, still feeling Christian's waist against his arm.
In their room the two girls sat long at the window to cool themselves
before undressing.
“Ah!” sighed Greta, “this is the happiest birthday I have had.”
Cristian too thought: 'I have never been so happy in my life as I have
been to-day. I should like every day to be like this!' And she leant out
into the night, to let the air cool her cheeks.