_Wherein the Spring comes a-frolic into the Court_
Betty’s young blood danced to the blithe promise of Spring that was in
the March winds; and her heart leaped to the quickening whisper of the
awakening world.
The winter was over. Her sweet body sang to her of the gladness of the
world. Her light step spoke of the gaiety of young womanhood; and her
laughing eyes knew no fear of destiny--her quick ears caught no echo,
no whisper of the crack of doom, and had she heard it she would still
have gone with the calm effrontery of youth to meet it. She skipped
down the highway of life, all dainty and delighted and unafraid. The
orchestral universe made music for her feet. She was alive. All nature
smiled upon her, even through tears.
The rain that pelted with sharp icy particles or chill admixture of
snow upon the window-panes, and the gusts that thundered against the
shutters and plucked at their bolts, played but the castanets for her
dancing blood, sounded but the drums for her ready feet; she took her
walks abroad in frank ecstasy of health, and lifting her dear face to
the buffeting winds she breathed into her glowing body the emotional
air that rocked the tall trees against the swinging firmament, pulsing
the sluggish life-sap to their uttermost whistling twigs.
She was become a part of the motherhood of the world.
The protecting care that she had aforetime spent upon her disreputable
old father, she now wound about this youth. Her mother-heart was no
longer starved; forgot the suffering of rebuff; flinched no longer,
scared by dread of Shame. ’Tis true, at a sudden noise she would start
fearfully still, and her heart flutter sickeningly; yet, for the love
of a youth, she would have plucked the beard of a sulphur-stinking
devil, though the splendid insolence had scorched her sweet fingers to
the bone.
Her honeymoon was fragrant with the breath of Spring.
With Noll she haunted the picture-galleries of the Luxembourg and
roamed the polished oaken floors that are the slippery footway of the
Louvre--stood with him before the Venus of Milo, where, on gazing
awhile, the wondrous marble seems to breathe and move in all the
majesty of human life--wandered before the canvases whereon the
masters have wrought colour that makes music to the eyes--and loitered
spell-bound a-top the broad flight of steps where, poised on the prow
of an ancient battleship, the winged Nike of Samothrace stands like
aerial goddess alighting from flight.
Together they trudged the smiling streets of Paris that are the
drawing-room of the world--loitered at her shop-windows--clambered up
the steeps of Montmartre to the terrace, ill-kempt and weedy, where
arose the gaunt and vasty scaffolding of the great church that the
pious of France were building to the Sacred Heart in that strange
mystic agony that would hope, by taking thought upon it and building in
stone, to blot out the sins of the people--wandered about the banks of
Seine, poring over the booksellers’ boxes that line the walls of the
quays with evergreen hope of finding some good book or print--lingered
in the high vaulted aisles of the cathedral of Notre Dame, listening to
medieval litanies--loitered about the historic purlieus of the Rue St.
Honoré and the Rue de Rivoli, and sought cheap dinners in the courts
of the old dilapidated Palais Royal, all haunted with the ghosts of
the Revolution and rustling, to quick ears, with the silk and satin
of the seventeen hundreds. Careless of the elements, they sallied out
to hang about the book-shops and rummage in the print-sellers’ trays,
coming home with rare booty bought for a franc or so, to hang upon
their walls--little masterpieces by Steinlen and others who are keeping
alive the flame of art in France whilst the State is decorating the
mediocrities; and so, roaming homewards with their prizes, they would
make for their quarters in the lilac twilight to dine in some cheap
place where students dine--or not to dine--clambering up their six
flights of stairs at the end of all with jest and laughter and muddied
boots, singing a snatch of song amidst their pleasant weariness, just
from sheer gladness to be alive.
Loneliness was wholly gone from the girl; she had with her always now,
by her side, one to whom she could chatter, one who could share her
silences.
Her letters to Netherby and Julia at this time were love-lyrics.
From her balcony, Betty saw the spring peep shyly into the court below.
The silent snow that had fallen yesterweek, swirling softly, stealthily
covering the earth, lying muffling white in deeper and deeper carpet
to the foot that trod the courtyard, showing twigs and branches,
otherwise scarce suspected, in white array, bowing down the leaves
of evergreens--all in a night in solid whiteness fell to the ground,
sliding from tree and parapet and ivied wall, and sank into the earth
below, vanished beneath the gravel, leaving the damp cobbles shining
darkly wet. In the night the rain had swept the snow from the face
of the world--the morning laughed with sunlight--vasty white clouds
swung across the blue firmament. The fat little concierge sallied out
upon the high heap of gravel that had lain all winter in a corner of
the courtyard, and with a long shovel in her sinewy arms she flung
abroad the pebbles, spreading them wide over the whole space. Swish!
she sent them flying against the box-hedge that was the ragged border
of the flower-bed along the walls--and swish! they went spirting to the
furthest corners.
This devilish spreading of gravel satisfies the æsthetic sense of
concierges; and a run of the rake keeps it easily tidy. It is like the
speech of concierges--gritty and utilitarian.
It was more. It was a grim recognition that Spring had tripped in from
the country and glanced into the court; it gave the official sanction.
And lo! in the beds, almost in a day, bare bushes were straightway
sprinkled with emeralds, the desolate laurels and evergreens roused
from their drooping and showed a lighter greenness above their sombre
steadfast habit; the tall lilacs ventured upon timid unfoldings. A
hazel dangled catkins. The ivy on the walls, washed clean, glowed
darkly green, hiding in grotesquely bulky nests the consequences of
the loves of multitudinous sparrows. The sparrow no longer sat, one of
many, a brown huddle on bare branches, a confessed beggar and one of a
gang of greedy loafers, shamelessly indigent, but was become almost a
rare sight, shooting like clay pellet from a sling across the void of
the court and flinging into the green, his egoism lost in family cares,
his life no longer the killing of dull time nor recklessly planned for
the debauching of the years.
On the bare branches of the trees the impatient buds were swelling to
the bursting. Along the brown earth showed themselves diffidently the
rare wind-flowers. In the warmer corners, amongst much green of leaves,
peeped the occasional violet. The briar came into leaf. The branches of
most trees and bushes were bare, but in the corner an almond burst into
blossom, blushing to greet the rude kisses and boisterous onset of the
spring.
Then the concierge’s tortoiseshell cat, patched yellow and black
and white, alone suspicious of the elements, walking a-tiptoe in
dandified discomfort across the puddled court, flirting the loathed
sense of dampness from disgusted paw, blinking unemotionally even at
the sparrows, would show sudden uneasiness, turned and cantered home
again to the black hollow of the concierge’s doorway--went gliding
in--disappeared. A black cloud swung up across the blue, rolled out
beyond the chimney-pots and blotted out the sun; the wind, sneering
amongst the evergreens, lost its temper, leaped forward with a roar
and a yell and smote the ruffled ivy upon the walls--bombasting round
the empty court, bursting in at the windows, sending loose shutters
a-clattering, and viciously slamming doors. Rain came spitting upon the
city--hissed the hail.
Thus sadly and somewhat sullenly the twilight would fall. But Spring,
though hesitant, left a footprint even in the stony garden of the
concierge.
April came smiling.
The buddings of March gave place to the green leaf. May had not yet put
her pied bravery on.
The concierge would stand on the gravel and hold out a hand to the
sunshine, feeling it between her fingers.
Nay, there had been even lack of rain for a couple of days or more.
The pump in the court would tell with clanking report that the sinewy
arms of the stout little concierge were at work on the iron handle,
usurping the habit of the clouds and foster-mothering the narrow
garden. Waddling, bucket-laden, to the thirsty earth, she would lean
and fling sheets of water in the face of all green things--insolently,
lest nature might deem her servile--and, the roots holding firm each
hardy plant that had withstood the harsh winter’s enmities as it reeled
from the courtesies of her rude ministry, the concierge was moved
to ambitions of gardening, digged holes in the stony beds, brought
out potted plants and set them out in rigid rows into the quickening
earth--pansy and lily and anemone and daffodil--with, drill-sergeant to
their marshalled ranks, an occasional oleander bush.
The lilac came into bloom. The naked ash still showed black buds, but
all else was sprinkled with leaves. The horse-chestnut, coquetting with
the romping winds, unfolded little fans of green. And now, in the blue
heavens above, white clouds were lightly roaming. The sun had warmth in
his breath, and across the seething face of the awakening world flung
restless shadows. On a high chimney a couple of pigeons sat cooing.
There was the blithe song of birds.
The concierge’s tortoiseshell cat would come out and sit in a
comfortable huddle of drowsiness upon the sun-warmed ground. Indeed,
there had been strange, devilish, and Wagnerian music of late at
night, and her modest eyes and demure person knew full well whose
tortoiseshell lungs had been the source and set the key. Her nod could
incriminate the black tom that sang the throaty ill-timed contralto to
her shrill love-music--indeed, he sang under the whip. Even so might a
concierge tell her love.
And there were voices within open windows--and heads thrust out,
pretty heads amongst them--and lively chatter would pass across the
court, and jests were flung from story to story, and genial sarcasms
would reach the concierge, who flung back time-honoured repartee and
time-worn ironies. There was laughter and the singing of a snatch of
song--a piano would run up the gamut of a scale. From afar the tuneful
hum of the murmurous city sounded deeper, and there was increase in
the passing clatter of the nearer traffic. The air was astir with the
sayings of many mouths, the thrill of dancing thoughts.
Through the open window the setting sun, streaming into her room, would
find Betty at work, till Noll should come for her from the studio to
take her out. He had tacked prints upon the walls above her desk, and
there were books scattered about, and a pleasant picturesqueness held
the place.
From the early morning, when she arose blithely, put out her
rosy-tipped white feet upon the floor, and got to the warming of
the coffee at the cheerful stove and set the place astir with happy
industry, making up the wonderful sommier, the bed of the students’
quarter, into a lounge for the day, and the like offices, until the
twilight, when Noll came home, and they went out to dine at some cheap
place with other students, Horace and the Five Foolish Virgins and the
rest, Babette sitting next to her--all was one long delight of living.
The mid-day meal at the restaurants had soon had to go; but she was
well content enough, for she could make her own coffee, and he is a
glutton indeed who is not content with the bread of Paris.
As the sun’s amber light passed from the court and crept up the eastern
wall, and the grey shadow of the dusk began to fall, full of chill
other shadows, that took their stealthy stand in dark corners, and made
a conspiracy of silence at the heels of the dying day, the air was
filled with a mystic sense of evensong. For, when shutters were drawn
to, by silent hands, and windows one by one were closed, and lamps
gleamed yellow through the slats of close-shut jalousies, her lover’s
feet would be leaping up the stairs, and in the deepening blue of the
heavens a myriad white stars be set aflame.