After many days of hot, still weather, the wind had come, and whirled
the dust along the parched roads. The leaves were all astir, like tiny
wings. Round Villa Rubein the pigeons cooed uneasily, all the other
birds were silent. Late in the afternoon Christian came out on the
veranda, reading a letter:
“DEAR CHRIS,—We are here now six days, and it is a very large place with
many churches. In the first place then we have been to a great many, but
the nicest of them is not St. Stephan's Kirche, it is another, but I do
not remember the name. Papa is out nearly all the night; he says he is
resting here, so he is not able to come to the churches with us, but I
do not think he rests very much. The day before yesterday we, that is,
Papa, I, and Miss Naylor, went to an exhibition of pictures. It was
quite beautiful and interesting (Miss Naylor says it is not right to say
'quite' beautiful, but I do not know what other word could mean
'quite' except the word 'quite,' because it is not exceedingly and not
extremely). And O Chris! there was one picture painted by him; it was
about a ship without masts—Miss Naylor says it is a barge, but I do not
know what a barge is—on fire, and, floating down a river in a fog.
I think it is extremely beautiful. Miss Naylor says it is very
impressionistick—what is that? and Papa said 'Puh!' but he did not know
it was painted by Herr Harz, so I did not tell him.
“There has also been staying at our hotel that Count Sarelli who came
one evening to dinner at our house, but he is gone away now. He sat all
day in the winter garden reading, and at night he went out with Papa.
Miss Naylor says he is unhappy, but I think he does not take enough
exercise; and O Chris! one day he said to me, 'That is your sister,
Mademoiselle, that young lady in the white dress? Does she always wear
white dresses?' and I said to him: 'It is not always a white dress; in
the picture, it is green, because the picture is called 'Spring.' But
I did not tell him the colours of all your dresses because he looked so
tired. Then he said to me: 'She is very charming.' So I tell you this,
Chris, because I think you shall like to know. Scruff' has a sore toe;
it is because he has eaten too much meat.
“It is not nice without you, Chris, and Miss Naylor says I am improving
my mind here, but I do not think it shall improve very much, because
at night I like it always best, when the shops are lighted and the
carriages are driving past; then I am wanting to dance. The first night
Papa said he would take me to the theatre, but yesterday he said it was
not good for me; perhaps to-morrow he shall think it good for me again.
“Yesterday we have been in the Prater, and saw many people, and some
that Papa knew; and then came the most interesting part of all, sitting
under the trees in the rain for two hours because we could not get a
carriage (very exciting).
“There is one young lady here, only she is not any longer very young,
who knew Papa when he was a boy. I like her very much; she shall soon
know me quite to the bottom and is very kind.
“The ill husband of Cousin Teresa who went with us to Meran and lost her
umbrella and Dr. Edmund was so sorry about it, has been very much worse,
so she is not here but in Baden. I wrote to her but have no news, so I
do not know whether he is still living or not, at any rate he can't get
well again so soon (and I don't think he ever shall). I think as the
weather is very warm you and Uncle Nic are sitting much out of doors. I
am sending presents to you all in a wooden box and screwed very firm,
so you shall have to use again the big screw-driver of Fritz. For Aunt
Constance, photographs; for Uncle Nic, a green bird on a stand with a
hole in the back of the bird to put his ashes in; it is a good green and
not expensif please tell him, because he does not like expensif presents
(Miss Naylor says the bird has an inquiring eye—it is a parrat); for
you, a little brooch of turquoise because I like them best; for Dr.
Edmund a machine to weigh medicines in because he said he could not get
a good one in Botzen; this is a very good one, the shopman told me so,
and is the most expensif of all the presents—so that is all my money,
except two gulden. If Papa shall give me some more, I shall buy for
Miss Naylor a parasol, because it is useful and the handle of hers is
'wobbley' (that is one of Dr. Edmund's words and I like it).
“Good-bye for this time. Greta sends you her kiss.
“P. S.—Miss Naylor has read all this letter (except about the parasol)
and there are several things she did not want me to put, so I have
copied it without the things, but at the last I have kept that copy
myself, so that is why this is smudgy and several words are not spelt
well, but all the things are here.”
Christian read, smiling, but to finish it was like dropping a talisman,
and her face clouded. A sudden draught blew her hair about, and from
within, Mr. Treffry's cough mingled with the soughing of the wind;
the sky was fast blackening. She went indoors, took a pen and began to
write:
“MY FRIEND,—Why haven't you written to me? It is so, long to wait. Uncle
says you are in Italy—it is dreadful not to know for certain. I feel you
would have written if you could; and I can't help thinking of all the
things that may have happened. I am unhappy. Uncle Nic is ill; he will
not confess it, that is his way; but he is very ill. Though perhaps you
will never see this, I must write down all my thoughts. Sometimes I feel
that I am brutal to be always thinking about you, scheming how to be
with you again, when he is lying there so ill. How good he has always
been to me; it is terrible that love should pull one apart so. Surely
love should be beautiful, and peaceful, instead of filling me with
bitter, wicked thoughts. I love you—and I love him; I feel as if I were
torn in two. Why should it be so? Why should the beginning of one life
mean the ending of another, one love the destruction of another? I
don't understand. The same spirit makes me love you and him, the same
sympathy, the same trust—yet it sometimes seems as if I were a criminal
in loving you. You know what he thinks—he is too honest not to have
shown you. He has talked to me; he likes you in a way, but you are a
foreigner—he says-your life is not my life. 'He is not the man for you!'
Those were his words. And now he doesn't talk to me, but when I am in
the room he looks at me—that's worse—a thousand times; when he talks it
rouses me to fight—when it's his eyes only, I'm a coward at once; I feel
I would do anything, anything, only not to hurt him. Why can't he see?
Is it because he's old and we are young? He may consent, but he will
never, never see; it will always hurt him.
“I want to tell you everything; I have had worse thoughts than
these—sometimes I have thought that I should never have the courage to
face the struggle which you have to face. Then I feel quite broken; it
is like something giving way in me. Then I think of you, and it is over;
but it has been there, and I am ashamed—I told you I was a coward. It's
like the feeling one would have going out into a storm on a dark night,
away from a warm fire—only of the spirit not the body—which makes it
worse. I had to tell you this; you mustn't think of it again, I mean to
fight it away and forget that it has ever been there. But Uncle
Nic—what am I to do? I hate myself because I am young, and he is old and
weak—sometimes I seem even to hate him. I have all sorts of thoughts,
and always at the end of them, like a dark hole at the end of a passage,
the thought that I ought to give you up. Ought I? Tell me. I want
to know, I want to do what is right; I still want to do that, though
sometimes I think I am all made of evil.
“Do you remember once when we were talking, you said: 'Nature always
has an answer for every question; you cannot get an answer from laws,
conventions, theories, words, only from Nature.' What do you say to me
now; do you tell me it is Nature to come to you in spite of everything,
and so, that it must be right? I think you would; but can it be Nature
to do something which will hurt terribly one whom I love and who loves
me? If it is—Nature is cruel. Is that one of the 'lessons of life'.
Is that what Aunt Constance means when she says: 'If life were not
a paradox, we could not get on at all'. I am beginning to see that
everything has its dark side; I never believed that before.
“Uncle Nic dreads the life for me; he doesn't understand (how should
he?—he has always had money) how life can be tolerable without money—it
is horrible that the accident of money should make such difference in
our lives. I am sometimes afraid myself, and I can't outface that
fear in him; he sees the shadow of his fear in me—his eyes seem to see
everything that is in me now; the eyes of old people are the saddest
things in the world. I am writing like a wretched coward, but you will
never see this letter I suppose, and so it doesn't matter; but if you
do, and I pray that you may—well, if I am only worth taking at my best,
I am not worth taking at all. I want you to know the worst of me—you,
and no one else.
“With Uncle Nic it is not as with my stepfather; his opposition only
makes me angry, mad, ready to do anything, but with Uncle Nic I feel so
bruised—so sore. He said: 'It is not so much the money, because there
is always mine.' I could never do a thing he cannot bear, and take his
money, and you would never let me. One knows very little of anything in
the world till trouble comes. You know how it is with flowers and trees;
in the early spring they look so quiet and self-contained; then all in
a moment they change—I think it must be like that with the heart. I used
to think I knew a great deal, understood why and how things came about;
I thought self-possession and reason so easy; now I know nothing. And
nothing in the world matters but to see you and hide away from that look
in Uncle Nic's eyes. Three months ago I did not know you, now I write
like this. Whatever I look at, I try to see as you would see; I feel,
now you are away even more than when you were with me, what your
thoughts would be, how you would feel about this or that. Some things
you have said seem always in my mind like lights—”
A slanting drift of rain was striking the veranda tiles with a cold,
ceaseless hissing. Christian shut the window, and went into her uncle's
room.
He was lying with closed eyes, growling at Dominique, who moved about
noiselessly, putting the room ready for the night. When he had finished,
and with a compassionate bow had left the room, Mr. Treffry opened his
eyes, and said:
“This is beastly stuff of the doctor's, Chris, it puts my monkey up;
I can't help swearing after I've taken it; it's as beastly as a vulgar
woman's laugh, and I don't know anything beastlier than that!”
“I have a letter from Greta, Uncle Nic; shall I read it?”
He nodded, and Christian read the letter, leaving out the mention of
Harz, and for some undefined reason the part about Sarelli.
“Ay!” said Mr. Treffry with a feeble laugh, “Greta and her money! Send
her some more, Chris. Wish I were a youngster again; that's a beast of
a proverb about a dog and his day. I'd like to go fishing again in the
West Country! A fine time we had when we were youngsters. You don't
get such times these days. 'Twasn't often the fishing-smacks went out
without us. We'd watch their lights from our bedroom window; when they
were swung aboard we were out and down to the quay before you could
say 'knife.' They always waited for us; but your Uncle Dan was the
favourite, he was the chap for luck. When I get on my legs, we might
go down there, you and I? For a bit, just to see? What d'you say, old
girl?”
Their eyes met.
“I'd like to look at the smack lights going to sea on a dark night; pity
you're such a duffer in a boat—we might go out with them. Do you a power
of good! You're not looking the thing, my dear.”
His voice died wistfully, and his glance, sweeping her face, rested on
her hands, which held and twisted Greta's letter. After a minute or two
of silence he boomed out again with sudden energy:
“Your aunt'll want to come and sit with me, after dinner; don't let
her, Chris, I can't stand it. Tell her I'm asleep—the doctor'll be here
directly; ask him to make up some humbug for you—it's his business.”
He was seized by a violent fit of pain which seemed to stab his breath
away, and when it was over signed that he would be left alone. Christian
went back to her letter in the other room, and had written these words,
when the gong summoned her to dinner:
“I'm like a leaf in the wind, I put out my hand to one thing, and it's
seized and twisted and flung aside. I want you—I want you; if I could
see you I think I should know what to do—”