L'Arrabiata and Other Tales Part 22

The state in which this dark spirit left the blond, is not to be described. But the tumult of Walter's mind arose from such conflicting sources, that the one appeared to balance the other, and to produce a sort of silent stupefaction; only here and there, a word or two stood out from the chaos, and sounded after all, more strange than ominous.

He sometimes thought his comrade had amused himself by stringing together his own fanciful speculations, which in no way concerned him, and that the best thing he could do would be to laugh at and forget them.

He walked on, therefore, through the forest very cheerfully till he reached the villa; he entered the sunny gallery of which the great gla.s.s doors stood open to admit the mild spring-air, and having appointed the two boys their tasks, he climbed up to the scaffolding.

He fastened the engraving before him, and proceeded without delay to sketch in the landscape on the white grounding. As before said, he was quick at architectural drawing, and very soon the temple stood out in correct proportions from the high elms and plane-trees that surrounded it.

Meanwhile, Peter Lars's disclosures had lain dormant in his mind, in a sort of unconscious twilight. But when he had finished his temple, and began to wonder whether the Meister would be pleased with it, he suddenly recollected that the Meister had promised to come out himself, and see what he had been doing. Yes, he would come--presently he would walk in by that door----how should he address him?--how call him?--Meister, as before?

The blood rushed to his forehead, and danced before his eyes. He sat down upon the ladder, and covered his face with his hands. He recalled his past life, and wondered what it would turn to now.

Every one of those words of Peter Lars recurred to him--he could have put down every syllable in writing--in characters cut deep into his heart. He read them over again from beginning to end--and the end made him hesitate. What he had said of Helen appeared improbable--inconceivable--impossible! Yet what could he remember to oppose to it?--how much rather in corroboration of these conclusions?--

His blood was hammering violently at his temples, he dropped the charcoal, for he could not hold it The deep depression of the first few moments began rapidly to give way to a feeling of rapture, to which he had almost given voice in a shout of ecstasy.

He looked down from his scaffolding, away over the sunny gardens, where the discolored turf was rapidly changing to green velvet, and the young leaves, still folded in their opening buds, were only waiting for one drop of rain to burst forth full length. He heard the singing-birds warbling in the transparent air, and under the roof of the semicircle that formed the gallery, he saw the swallows busy about their nests.

His mood was glad and tender; he no longer thought how he should meet his father; or how he should act in furtherance of his darling wish to turn his back on paintpot and plaster.

He saw nothing but her earnest face, now with an unwonted look of tenderness; and those ivory arms and shoulders; and heard her voice with that accent in which she had said, as she had kissed him on the forehead; "so spoiled a creature can afford to laugh."

He could not tell how long he had been dreaming, until the two boys reminded him that it was time to eat his dinner. And he let them eat it, and remained where he was. He wanted neither meat nor drink.

Presently he started violently, on hearing the old pensioner who kept the gardens, say in answer to somebody's question: "You will find Mr.

Walter in the sh.e.l.l-gallery. I scarcely think he means to leave his work to-day, so long as the light lasts."

His knees shook as he got up; and all his self-possession left him at the thought that he was about to see his father for the first time, consciously.

Only it was not the heavy uneven gait he expected that he heard coming up the steps, though the eyes that looked up through the tall windows in search of him upon his scaffolding were not less familiar to him.

"Helen!" he cried. "What brings you here?" and running down the steps, he was by her side in a moment.

Never had he seen her look so charming. A rose on her cheek with the air and exercise--her dark hair blown back in slight disorder under her little hat; her eyes radiant with gaiety, a crimson handkerchief loosely tied about her throat, and on her arm, a basket carefully closed.

"No, no;" she said, as Walter attempted to take it from her; "that is to come afterwards, and is only to be considered as an appendix to my real mission. So first of all I must deliver myself of that: know therefore, Claude Lorraine and his temple and his sunrise are all to be thrown over, and your laudable labours of the morning wasted. It will all have to be rubbed out and done over again. The Burgermeister has just sent to say that he has other projects wherewith to astonish the weak minds of his admiring friends. They are to have Naples and the Mediterranean above their heads, and Vesuvius spouting lava over them.

Of coa.r.s.e the Meister was indignant at any man's presuming to meddle with his business; but you know his worship has his peculiar ideas about the fine arts, and a not so peculiar intolerance of contradiction. And then a most impudent letter from Peter Lars came to make the measure full; and this shock seems to have fallen on the Meister's limbs, so that he is quite unable to walk, or to come himself to look after you, as he proposed; so I said I would come instead, and tell you what I could--and, to-night, he will tell you the rest.

"So there is a truce for you, meanwhile; that is, as far as regards the ceiling. But I don't see, young sir, that you have been so very busy all this time--one or two of those Cupids I see over there have scarcely a leg to stand on, and there are many gaps among the sh.e.l.ls and wreaths."

While her bright eyes were roving over the walls, he stood mute before her, lost in contemplation.

"You are not communicative this morning; I rather think curiosity concerning the contents of my little basket must have struck you dumb.

Know then, that my sense of my maternal duties was too strong to let me set out on my diplomatic mission without having made a previous raid into the store-room; for though art may profess to live on bread and water, I never saw that it had any particular objection to meat and wine. And as I don't deny that my walk has made me hungry, we will proceed to explore our basket without farther ado. Only you must find a breakfast-table for us--where it does not smell of plaster and fresh paint, but rather, more seasonably, of spring violets. Let us walk through the gardens till we find a shady spot and a bench. Every other essential of an idyll is here already."

He laughed, though he did not seem to have heard; he answered half shyly, half absently, in monosyllables.

As they walked down the steps of the gallery together, the greybearded pensioner doffed his cap and nodded, with a sort of complacency and paternal admiration of the handsome young couple, that made the young man flush to his temples, as though he had heard the most hidden secrets of his heart proclaimed from all the tree-tops.

He walked beside his companion without offering her his arm. He had silently possessed himself of the basket, in spite of her resistance; and she had slung her hat upon her arm in its place.

"It is not yet time for the sun to be dangerous," she said, and looked steadily upwards at it; her face was radiant with unwonted gaiety.

"Don't we feel as if we had broken loose from prison," she said, "when once we fairly escape from the town? A person who has always lived in such a place as this need never grow old, I fancy--or at least, never feel old, which would be the same thing. In fact, if I were not ashamed of myself in the face of that venerable warrior, I feel as if I could begin to dance, even at, my advanced age; the birds would make a charming band."

"Come then and try," he said; "what would be the harm of it?--The avenue is smooth enough."

She shook her head. "Breakfast first, and then, not play, but work; I have so much to do at home, and have done nothing; the house is an abomination to look at"--He did not press her farther, and hardly ventured to look at her as they walked along together under the high trees.

They did not meet a soul, the grounds were running wild; the Burgermeister had quarrelled with the gardener over the projected improvements, and dismissed him; so there had been a sudden stoppage, and there were traces of this stoppage everywhere. But this unbroken solitude made the place all the more enjoyable.

They came to a halt before a running stream that had been expanded to an artificial lake. A wooden bridge had led across it to a little island, where swans were kept, and a hermitage had been built beneath a group of tall ash-trees. This bridge was to have been carried away and replaced by a new one, but by the time the first half of his intentions had been carried out, his worship dispatched a counter-order; and at present there was no way of getting to the island but by a single plank loosely thrown across the bridge posts. Helen was perplexed.

"I don't trust myself to cross," she said; "though I think that plank would carry me; but I am afraid it would make me giddy."

"The swan is sitting;" he said, half to himself; "it is pretty to see her; and then her mate, how he flaps his wings, and flies at any body who comes too near."

"Have you been over?"

"Often; it is quite safe; come, let me carry you."

"We shall both fall in," and she laughed; "let us rather give it up."

"Don't; I want to shew you the hut; and there is a table in it, where we might have our breakfast. You take hold of the basket, and leave the rest to me."

He had her already in his arms--he hardly felt her weight; but the loose plank swung and shook under his feet, and she clung to him with both her arms round his neck. He stopped in the middle of the rushing waters. "Suppose,"--he said, and his tone was strange;--"one, two, three, eyes shut, and a jump, and it would be over."

"Don't talk so wickedly," she whispered; and he felt how her heart was beating.--

When he had carried her over, he still held her high above the ground.

"I should like to try how long I could carry you without being tired,"

said he. And she: "I can't say I should like to try anything of the kind. I have had seats that were more comfortable, and I only wish I were safe over on the other side again;--but here we are at the Hermitage. Suppose all the people who ever walked about under these trees, were all to appear at once, what a curious masquerade it would be!"

"I had rather do without them;" he said between his teeth.

"Still, those must have been strange times," she continued, in a contemplative mood; "Pigtails and powder, and trumpery dress swords; and with these they played at being hermits and Arcadian shepherds: Nature is sure to avenge herself; turn her out as often as you please, and she always slips in again, in some disguise or other."

"There are the swans;" and he pointed them out at some distance. She thought it a pretty sight to see the brooding mother placidly sitting upon her eggs, while her mate, in jealous haste, was vigilantly swimming his patrol all round the nest.

"Do you hear him? how he hisses and threatens?" asked Walter.

"Yes, and it makes me feel disquieted; almost as if he were agitated by human pa.s.sion; and the contrast with the soft snow of his plumage makes it still more curious.--I could stand here and watch these creatures for hours together. Now let us go and sit in the hut, there is rain coming in those clouds."

And in fact the first large drops were falling; pattering upon the bark roof of the hut; they heard the sweet spring rain, and smelt it, with the scent of a thousand blossoms wafted to them through the little cobweb-curtained window; and as they sat on the only bench, eating their breakfast off the roughhewn table, they looked through the open door over the surface of the water all fretted and rippled by the rain.

The birds had ceased their song; and the two sat silent, listening to the splashing and streaming above their heads.

"We can't even see to the other side," she said; "the rain is falling like a thick veil; shutting us out from the rest of the world--which would not be so great a loss after all."

"It looks as if we really were upon some desert island in the deep sea;" he said, gazing on the water; "I only wish that sh.o.r.e were really farther off; and that we were floating far away out of sight."