Villa Rubein, and Other Stories

“Prrt!” said Herr Paul, looking at Miss Naylor. The little lady indeed opened her mouth wide, but all that came forth was a tiny squeak, as sometimes happens when one is anxious to say something, and has not arranged beforehand what it shall be.

The affair seemed ended; Harz heaved a sigh of satisfaction. But Herr Paul had still a card to play.

“There is your Aunt,” he said; “there are things to be considered – one must certainly inquire – so, we shall see.” Kissing Greta loudly on both cheeks, he went towards the house.

“What makes you want to paint us?” Christian asked, as soon as he was gone.

“I think it very wrong,” Miss Naylor blurted out.

“Why?” said Harz, frowning.

“Greta is so young – there are lessons – it is such a waste of time!”

His eyebrows twitched: “Ah! You think so!”

“I don’t see why it is a waste of time,” said Christian quietly; “there are lots of hours when we sit here and do nothing.”

“And it is very dull,” put in Greta, with a pout.

“You are rude, Greta,” said Miss Naylor in a little rage, pursing her lips, and taking up her knitting.

“I think it seems always rude to speak the truth,” said Greta. Miss Naylor looked at her in that concentrated manner with which she was in the habit of expressing displeasure.

But at this moment a servant came, and said that Mrs. Decie would be glad to see Herr Harz. The painter made them a stiff bow, and followed the servant to the house. Miss Naylor and the two girls watched his progress with apprehensive eyes; it was clear that he had been offended.

Crossing the veranda, and passing through an open window hung with silk curtains, Hart entered a cool dark room. This was Mrs. Decie’s sanctum, where she conducted correspondence, received her visitors, read the latest literature, and sometimes, when she had bad headaches, lay for hours on the sofa, with a fan, and her eyes closed. There was a scent of sandalwood, a suggestion of the East, a kind of mystery, in here, as if things like chairs and tables were not really what they seemed, but something much less commonplace.

The visitor looked twice, to be quite sure of anything; there were many plants, bead curtains, and a deal of silverwork and china.

Mrs. Decie came forward in the slightly rustling silk which – whether in or out of fashion – always accompanied her. A tall woman, over fifty, she moved as if she had been tied together at the knees. Her face was long, with broad brows, from which her sandy-grey hair was severely waved back; she had pale eyes, and a perpetual, pale, enigmatic smile. Her complexion had been ruined by long residence in India, and might unkindly have been called fawn-coloured. She came close to Harz, keeping her eyes on his, with her head bent slightly forward.

“We are so pleased to know you,” she said, speaking in a voice which had lost all ring. “It is charming to find some one in these parts who can help us to remember that there is such a thing as Art. We had Mr. C – here last autumn, such a charming fellow. He was so interested in the native customs and dresses. You are a subject painter, too, I think? Won’t you sit down?”

She went on for some time, introducing painters’ names, asking questions, skating round the edge of what was personal. And the young man stood before her with a curious little smile fixed on his lips. ‘She wants to know whether I’m worth powder and shot,’ he thought.

“You wish to paint my nieces?” Mrs. Decie said at last, leaning back on her settee.

“I wish to have that honour,” Harz answered with a bow.

“And what sort of picture did you think of?”

“That,” said Harz, “is in the future. I couldn’t tell you.” And he thought: ‘Will she ask me if I get my tints in Paris, like the woman Tramper told me of?’

The perpetual pale smile on Mrs. Decie’s face seemed to invite his confidence, yet to warn him that his words would be sucked in somewhere behind those broad fine brows, and carefully sorted. Mrs. Decie, indeed, was thinking: ‘Interesting young man, regular Bohemian – no harm in that at his age; something Napoleonic in his face; probably has no dress clothes. Yes, should like to see more of him!’ She had a fine eye for points of celebrity; his name was unfamiliar, would probably have been scouted by that famous artist Mr. C – , but she felt her instinct urging her on to know him. She was, to do her justice, one of those “lion” finders who seek the animal for pleasure, not for the glory it brings them; she had the courage of her instincts – lion-entities were indispensable to her, but she trusted to divination to secure them; nobody could foist a “lion” on her.

“It will be very nice. You will stay and have some lunch? The arrangements here are rather odd. Such a mixed household – but there is always lunch at two o’clock for any one who likes, and we all dine at seven. You would have your sittings in the afternoons, perhaps? I should so like to see your sketches. You are using the old house on the wall for studio; that is so original of you!”

Harz would not stay to lunch, but asked if he might begin work that afternoon; he left a little suffocated by the sandalwood and sympathy of this sphinx-like woman.

Walking home along the river wall, with the singing of the larks and thrushes, the rush of waters, the humming of the chafers in his ears, he felt that he would make something fine of this subject. Before his eyes the faces of the two girls continually started up, framed by the sky, with young leaves guttering against their cheeks.

V

Three days had passed since Harz began his picture, when early in the morning, Greta came from Villa Rubein along the river dyke and sat down on a bench from which the old house on the wall was visible. She had not been there long before Harz came out.

“I did not knock,” said Greta, “because you would not have heard, and it is so early, so I have been waiting for you a quarter of an hour.”

Selecting a rosebud, from some flowers in her hand, she handed it to him. “That is my first rosebud this year,” she said; “it is for you because you are painting me. To-day I am thirteen, Herr Harz; there is not to be a sitting, because it is my birthday; but, instead, we are all going to Meran to see the play of Andreas Hofer. You are to come too, please; I am here to tell you, and the others shall be here directly.”

Harz bowed: “And who are the others?”

“Christian, and Dr. Edmund, Miss Naylor, and Cousin Teresa. Her husband is ill, so she is sad, but to-day she is going to forget that. It is not good to be always sad, is it, Herr Harz?”

He laughed: “You could not be.”

Greta answered gravely: “Oh yes, I could. I too am often sad. You are making fun. You are not to make fun to-day, because it is my birthday. Do you think growing up is nice, Herr Harz?”

“No, Fraulein Greta, it is better to have all the time before you.”

They walked on side by side.

“I think,” said Greta, “you are very much afraid of losing time. Chris says that time is nothing.”

“Time is everything,” responded Harz.

“She says that time is nothing, and thought is everything,” Greta murmured, rubbing a rose against her cheek, “but I think you cannot have a thought unless you have the time to think it in. There are the others! Look!”

A cluster of sunshades on the bridge glowed for a moment and was lost in shadow.

“Come,” said Harz, “let’s join them!”

At Meran, under Schloss Tirol, people were streaming across the meadows into the open theatre. Here were tall fellows in mountain dress, with leather breeches, bare knees, and hats with eagles’ feathers; here were fruit-sellers, burghers and their wives, mountebanks, actors, and every kind of visitor. The audience, packed into an enclosure of high boards, sweltered under the burning sun. Cousin Teresa, tall and thin, with hard, red cheeks, shaded her pleasant eyes with her hand.

The play began. It depicted the rising in the Tyrol of 1809: the village life, dances and yodelling; murmurings and exhortations, the warning beat of drums; then the gathering, with flintlocks, pitchforks, knives; the battle and victory; the homecoming, and festival. Then the second gathering, the roar of cannon; betrayal, capture, death. The impassive figure of the patriot Andreas Hofer always in front, black-bearded, leathern-girdled, under the blue sky, against a screen of mountains.

Harz and Christian sat behind the others. He seemed so intent on the play that she did not speak, but watched his face, rigid with a kind of cold excitement; he seemed to be transported by the life passing before them. Something of his feeling seized on her; when the play was over she too was trembling. In pushing their way out they became separated from the others.

“There’s a short cut to the station here,” said Christian; “let’s go this way.”

The path rose a little; a narrow stream crept alongside the meadow, and the hedge was spangled with wild roses. Christian kept glancing shyly at the painter. Since their meeting on the river wall her thoughts had never been at rest. This stranger, with his keen face, insistent eyes, and ceaseless energy, had roused a strange feeling in her; his words had put shape to something in her not yet expressed. She stood aside at a stile to make way for some peasant boys, dusty and rough-haired, who sang and whistled as they went by.

“I was like those boys once,” said Harz.

Christian turned to him quickly. “Ah! that was why you felt the play, so much.”

“It’s my country up there. I was born amongst the mountains. I looked after the cows, and slept in hay-cocks, and cut the trees in winter. They used to call me a ‘black sheep,’ a ‘loafer’ in my village.”

“Why?”