CHAPTER L
Wherein the Spring comes a-frolic into the Court
Betty’syoung 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 thecanvases 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 ofthe 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.