One afternoon in March, more than three years after Mr. Treffry's death,
Christian was sitting at the window of a studio in St. John's Wood.
The sky was covered with soft, high clouds, through which shone little
gleams of blue. Now and then a bright shower fell, sprinkling the trees,
where every twig was curling upwards as if waiting for the gift of its
new leaves. And it seemed to her that the boughs thickened and budded
under her very eyes; a great concourse of sparrows had gathered on those
boughs, and kept raising a shrill chatter. Over at the far side of the
room Harz was working at a picture.
On Christian's face was the quiet smile of one who knows that she
has only to turn her eyes to see what she wishes to see; of one whose
possessions are safe under her hand. She looked at Harz with that
possessive smile. But as into the brain of one turning in his bed grim
fancies will suddenly leap up out of warm nothingness, so there leaped
into her mind the memory of that long ago dawn, when he had found her
kneeling by Mr. Treffry's body. She seemed to see again the dead face,
so gravely quiet, and furrowless. She seemed to see her lover and
herself setting forth silently along the river wall where they had
first met; sitting down, still silent, beneath the poplar-tree where the
little bodies of the chafers had lain strewn in the Spring. To see the
trees changing from black to grey, from grey to green, and in the dark
sky long white lines of cloud, lighting to the south like birds; and,
very far away, rosy peaks watching the awakening of the earth. And now
once again, after all that time, she felt her spirit shrink away from
his; as it had shrunk in that hour, when she had seemed hateful to
herself. She remembered the words she had spoken: “I have no heart left.
You've torn it in two between you. Love is all self—I wanted him to
die.” She remembered too the raindrops on the vines like a million tiny
lamps, and the throstle that began singing. Then, as dreams die out into
warm nothingness, recollection vanished, and the smile came back to her
lips.
She took out a letter.
“....O Chris! We are really coming; I seem to be always telling it to
myself, and I have told Scruff many times, but he does not care, because
he is getting old. Miss Naylor says we shall arrive for breakfast, and
that we shall be hungry, but perhaps she will not be very hungry, if it
is rough. Papa said to me: 'Je serai inconsolable, mais inconsolable!'
But I think he will not be, because he is going to Vienna. When we are
come, there will be nobody at Villa Rubein; Aunt Constance has gone a
fortnight ago to Florence. There is a young man at her hotel; she says
he will be one of the greatest playwriters in England, and she sent me a
play of his to read; it was only a little about love, I did not like it
very much.... O Chris! I think I shall cry when I see you. As I am quite
grown up, Miss Naylor is not to come back with me; sometimes she is sad,
but she will be glad to see you, Chris. She seems always sadder when it
is Spring. Today I walked along the wall; the little green balls of wool
are growing on the poplars already, and I saw one chafer; it will not be
long before the cherry blossom comes; and I felt so funny, sad and happy
together, and once I thought that I had wings and could fly away up the
valley to Meran—but I had none, so I sat on the bench where we sat the
day we took the pictures, and I thought and thought; there was nothing
came to me in my thoughts, but all was sweet and a little noisy, and
rather sad; it was like the buzzing of the chafer, in my head; and now I
feel so tired and all my blood is running up and down me. I do not mind,
because I know it is the Spring.
“Dominique came to see us the other day; he is very well, and is half
the proprietor of the Adler Hotel, at Meran; he is not at all different,
and he asked about you and about Alois—do you know, Chris, to myself I
call him Herr Harz, but when I have seen him this time I shall call him
Alois in my heart also.
“I have a letter from Dr. Edmund; he is in London, so perhaps you have
seen him, only he has a great many patients and some that he has 'hopes
of killing soon'. especially one old lady, because she is always wanting
him to do things for her, and he is never saying 'No,' so he does not
like her. He says that he is getting old. When I have finished this
letter I am going to write and tell him that perhaps he shall see me
soon, and then I think he will be very sad. Now that the Spring is come
there are more flowers to take to Uncle Nic's grave, and every day, when
I am gone, Barbi is to take them so that he shall not miss you, Chris,
because all the flowers I put there are for you.
“I am buying some toys without paint on for my niece.
“O Chris! this will be the first baby that I have known.
“I am only to stay three weeks with you, but I think when I am once
there I shall be staying longer. I send a kiss for my niece, and to Herr
Harz, my love—that is the last time I shall call him Herr Harz; and to
you, Chris, all the joy that is in my heart.—Your loving
“GRETA.”
Christian rose, and, turning very softly, stood, leaning her elbows on
the back of a high seat, looking at her husband.
In her eyes there was a slow, clear, faintly smiling, yet yearning look,
as though this strenuous figure bent on its task were seen for a moment
as something apart, and not all the world to her.
“Tired?” asked Harz, putting his lips to her hand.
“No, it's only—what Greta says about the Spring; it makes one want more
than one has got.”
Slipping her hand away, she went back to the window. Harz stood, looking
after her; then, taking up his palette, again began painting.
In the world, outside, the high soft clouds flew by; the trees seemed
thickening and budding.
And Christian thought:
'Can we never have quite enough?'
December 1890.