Hidden by the shade of rose-bushes Greta lay stretched at length, cheek
on arm, sleeping the sleep of the unrighteous. Through the flowers the
sun flicked her parted lips with kisses, and spilled the withered petals
on her. In a denser islet of shade, Scruff lay snapping at a fly. His
head lolled drowsily in the middle of a snap, and snapped in the middle
of a loll.
At three o'clock Miss Naylor too came out, carrying a basket and pair
of scissors. Lifting her skirts to avoid the lakes of water left by the
garden hose, she stopped in front of a rose-bush, and began to snip off
the shrivelled flowers. The little lady's silvered head and thin, brown
face sustained the shower of sunlight unprotected, and had a gentle
dignity in their freedom.
Presently, as the scissors flittered in and out of the leaves, she,
began talking to herself.
“If girls were more like what they used to be, this would not have
happened. Perhaps we don't understand; it's very easy to forget.”
Burying her nose and lips in a rose, she sniffed. “Poor dear girl! It's
such a pity his father is—a—”
“A farmer,” said a sleepy voice behind the rosebush.
Miss Naylor leaped. “Greta! How you startled me! A farmer—that is—an—an
agriculturalist!”
“A farmer with vineyards—he told us, and he is not ashamed. Why is it a
pity, Miss Naylor?”
Miss Naylor's lips looked very thin.
“For many reasons, of which you know nothing.”
“That is what you always say,” pursued the sleepy voice; “and that is
why, when I am to be married, there shall also be a pity.”
“Greta!” Miss Naylor cried, “it is not proper for a girl of your age to
talk like that.”
“Why?” said Greta. “Because it is the truth?”
Miss Naylor made no reply to this, but vexedly cut off a sound rose,
which she hastily picked up and regarded with contrition. Greta spoke
again:
“Chris said: 'I have got the pictures, I shall tell her'. but I shall
tell you instead, because it was I that told the story.”
Miss Naylor stared, wrinkling her nose, and holding the scissors wide
apart....
“Last night,” said Greta slowly, “I and Chris went to his studio and
took his pictures, and so, because the gate was shut, I came back to
tell it; and when you asked me where Chris was, I told it; because she
was in the studio all night, and I and Scruff sat up all night, and in
the morning we brought the pictures, and hid them under our beds, and
that is why—we—are—so—sleepy.”
Over the rose-bush Miss Naylor peered down at her; and though she was
obliged to stand on tiptoe this did not altogether destroy her dignity.
“I am surprised at you, Greta; I am surprised at Christian, more
surprised at Christian. The world seems upside down.”
Greta, a sunbeam entangled in her hair, regarded her with inscrutable,
innocent eyes.
“When you were a girl, I think you would be sure to be in love,” she
murmured drowsily.
Miss Naylor, flushing deeply, snipped off a particularly healthy bud.
“And so, because you are not married, I think—”
The scissors hissed.
Greta nestled down again. “I think it is wicked to cut off all the good
buds,” she said, and shut her eyes.
Miss Naylor continued to peer across the rosebush; but her thin face,
close to the glistening leaves, had become oddly soft, pink, and
girlish. At a deeper breath from Greta, the little lady put down her
basket, and began to pace the lawn, followed dubiously by Scruff. It was
thus that Christian came on them.
Miss Naylor slipped her arm into the girl's and though she made no
sound, her lips kept opening and shutting, like the beak of a bird
contemplating a worm.
Christian spoke first:
“Miss Naylor, I want to tell you please—”
“Oh, my dear! I know; Greta has been in the confessional before you.”
She gave the girl's arm a squeeze. “Isn't it a lovely day? Did you ever
see 'Five Fingers' look so beautiful?” And she pointed to the great
peaks of the Funffingerspitze glittering in the sun like giant crystals.
“I like them better with clouds about them.”
“Well,” agreed Miss Naylor nervously, “they certainly are nicer with
clouds about them. They look almost hot and greasy, don't they.... My
dear!” she went on, giving Christian's arm a dozen little squeezes, “we
all of us—that is, we all of us—”
Christian turned her eyes away.
“My dear,” Miss Naylor tried again, “I am far—that is, I mean, to all of
us at some time or another—and then you see—well—it is hard!”
Christian kissed the gloved hand resting on her arm. Miss Naylor bobbed
her head; a tear trickled off her nose.
“Do let us wind your skein of woof!” she said with resounding gaiety.
Some half-hour later Mrs. Decie called Christian to her room.
“My dear!” she said; “come here a minute; I have a message for you.”
Christian went with an odd, set look about her mouth.
Her aunt was sitting, back to the light, tapping a bowl of goldfish with
the tip of a polished finger-nail; the room was very cool. She held a
letter out. “Your uncle is not coming back tonight.”
Christian took the letter. It was curtly worded, in a thin, toppling
hand:
“DEAR CON—Can't get back to-night. Sending Dominique for things. Tell
Christian to come over with him for night if possible.—Yr. aff. brother,
NICLS. TREFFRY.”
“Dominique has a carriage here,” said Mrs. Decie. “You will have nice
time to catch the train. Give my love to your uncle. You must take
Barbi with you, I insist on that.” She rose from her chair and held
Christian's hand: “My dear! You look very tired—very! Almost ill. I
don't like to see you look like that. Come!” She thrust her pale lips
forward, and kissed the girl's paler cheek.
Then as Christian left the room she sank back in her chair, with
creases in her forehead, and began languidly to cut a magazine. 'Poor
Christian!' she thought, 'how hardly she does take it! I am sorry
for her; but perhaps it's just as well, as things are turning out.
Psychologically it is interesting!'
Christian found her things packed, and the two servants waiting. In a
few minutes they were driving to the station. She made Dominique take
the seat opposite.
“Well?” she asked him.
Dominique's eyebrows twitched, he smiled deprecatingly.
“M'mselle, Mr. Treffry told me to hold my tongue.”
“But you can tell me, Dominique; Barbi can't understand.”
“To you, then, M'mselle,” said Dominique, as one who accepts his fate;
“to you, then, who will doubtless forget all that I shall tell you—my
master is not well; he has terrible pain here; he has a cough; he is not
well at all; not well at all.”
A feeling of dismay seized on the girl.
“We were a caravan for all that night,” Dominique resumed. “In the
morning by noon we ceased to be a caravan; Signor Harz took a mule path;
he will be in Italy—certainly in Italy. As for us, we stayed at San
Martino, and my master went to bed. It was time; I had much trouble with
his clothes, his legs were swollen. In the afternoon came a signor
of police, on horseback, red and hot; I persuaded him that we were at
Paneveggio, but as we were not, he came back angry—Mon Die! as angry
as a cat. It was not good to meet him—when he was with my master I was
outside. There was much noise. I do not know what passed, but at
last the signor came out through the door, and went away in a hurry.”
Dominique's features were fixed in a sardonic grin; he rubbed the palm
of one hand with the finger of the other. “Mr. Treffry made me give
him whisky afterwards, and he had no money to pay the bill—that I know
because I paid it. Well, M'mselle, to-day he would be dressed and very
slowly we came as far as Auer; there he could do no more, so went to
bed. He is not well at all.”
Christian was overwhelmed by forebodings; the rest of the journey was
made in silence, except when Barbi, a country girl, filled with the
delirium of railway travel, sighed: “Ach! gnadige Fraulein!” looking at
Christian with pleasant eyes.
At once, on arriving at the little hostel, Christian went to see her
uncle. His room was darkened, and smelt of beeswax.
“Ah! Chris,” he said, “glad to see you.”
In a blue flannel gown, with a rug over his feet, he was lying on a
couch lengthened artificially by chairs; the arm he reached out issued
many inches from its sleeve, and showed the corded veins of the wrist.
Christian, settling his pillows, looked anxiously into his eyes.
“I'm not quite the thing, Chris,” said Mr. Treffry. “Somehow, not quite
the thing. I'll come back with you to-morrow.”
“Let me send for Dr. Dawney, Uncle?”
“No—no! Plenty of him when I get home. Very good young fellow, as
doctors go, but I can't stand his puddin's—slops and puddin's, and all
that trumpery medicine on the top. Send me Dominique, my dear—I'll put
myself to rights a bit!” He fingered his unshaven cheek, and clutched
the gown together on his chest. “Got this from the landlord. When you
come back we'll have a little talk!”
He was asleep when she came into the room an hour later. Watching his
uneasy breathing, she wondered what it was that he was going to say.
He looked ill! And suddenly she realised that her thoughts were not of
him.... When she was little he would take her on his back; he had built
cocked hats for her and paper boats; had taught her to ride; slid
her between his knees; given her things without number; and taken his
payment in kisses. And now he was ill, and she was not thinking of him!
He had been all that was most dear to her, yet before her eyes would
only come the vision of another.
Mr. Treffry woke suddenly. “Not been asleep, have I? The beds here are
infernal hard.”
“Uncle Nic, won't you give me news of him?”
Mr. Treffry looked at her, and Christian could not bear that look.
“He's safe into Italy; they aren't very keen after him, it's so long
ago; I squared 'em pretty easily. Now, look here, Chris!”
Christian came close; he took her hand.
“I'd like to see you pull yourself together. 'Tisn't so much the
position; 'tisn't so much the money; because after all there's always
mine—” Christian shook her head. “But,” he went on with shaky emphasis,
“there's the difference of blood, and that's a serious thing; and
there's this anarch—this political affair; and there's the sort of
life, an' that's a serious thing; but—what I'm coming to is this,
Chris—there's the man!”
Christian drew away her hand. Mr. Treffry went on:
“Ah! yes. I'm an old chap and fond of you, but I must speak out what
I think. He's got pluck, he's strong, he's in earnest; but he's got a
damned hot temper, he's an egotist, and—he's not the man for you. If
you marry him, as sure as I lie here, you'll be sorry for it. You're not
your father's child for nothing; nice fellow as ever lived, but soft as
butter. If you take this chap, it'll be like mixing earth and ironstone,
and they don't blend!” He dropped his head back on the pillows, and
stretching out his hand, repeated wistfully: “Take my word for it, my
dear, he's not the man for you.”
Christian, staring at the wall beyond, said quietly: “I can't take any
one's word for that.”
“Ah!” muttered Mr. Treffry, “you're obstinate enough, but obstinacy
isn't strength.
“You'll give up everything to him, you'll lick his shoes; and you'll
never play anything but second fiddle in his life. He'll always be first
with himself, he and his work, or whatever he calls painting pictures;
and some day you'll find that out. You won't like it, and I don't like
it for you, Chris, and that's flat.”
He wiped his brow where the perspiration stood in beads.
Christian said: “You don't understand; you don't believe in him; you
don't see! If I do come after his work—if I do give him everything, and
he can't give all back—I don't care! He'll give what he can; I don't
want any more. If you're afraid of the life for me, uncle, if you think
it'll be too hard—”
Mr. Treffry bowed his head. “I do, Chris.”
“Well, then, I hate to be wrapped in cotton wool; I want to breathe. If
I come to grief, it's my own affair; nobody need mind.”
Mr. Treffry's fingers sought his beard. “Ah! yes. Just so!”
Christian sank on her knees.
“Oh! Uncle! I'm a selfish beast!”
Mr. Treffry laid his hand against her cheek. “I think I could do with a
nap,” he said.
Swallowing a lump in her throat, she stole out of the room.