1
That year winter was so mild as to be almost indistinguishable from spring. Imperceptibly, the sparse patches of snow, the hyacinthine patches of blue light lying in hollows of the hills, in wrinkles of the land, turned into small waxen leafless flowers, watching, waiting, in the grass.
By the beginning of February the song of the birds had begun; a symbol that to most hearts is almost Chinese, the symbol and its idea being so indistinguishable that it seems that it is Hope herself who is perched out there on the top of the trees, singing.
One day one would suddenly realise that the mirabelle and purple prunus were actually out; but blossom is such a chilly thing, and it arrives so quietly, that it seemed to make no difference in that leafless world.
Then would come a day when the air was exquisitely soft and the sky very blue; and between the sky and earth there would seem to be a silent breathless conspiracy. Not a bud, only silence; but one knew that something would soon happen. But the next morning, there would be an east wind—skinning the bloom off the view, turning the sky to lead, and making the mirabelle and prunus look, in their leaflessness, so bleak that they might have been the flower (in its sense of essence, embodiment of), of the stern iron qualities of January. The singing of the birds, too, became a cold, cold sound, as if the east wind was, like the ether, a medium through which we hear as well as see. But such days were rare.
Dick loved early spring. When the children were little they used to have “treasure-hunts” at their Christmas parties. They would patter through drawing-room, dining-room, hall, billiard-room, finding, say, an india-rubber duck in the crown of a hat, or a bag of sweets in a pocket of the billiard-table; and Dick’s walks through the grounds in these early spring days were like these “treasure-hunts”; for he would suddenly come upon a patch of violets under a wall, or track down a sudden waft of perfume to a leafless bush starred with the small white blossoms of winter-sweet, or—greatest prize of all—stand with throbbing heart by the hedges of yew, gazing into a nest with four white eggs, while he whispered: “Look Anna!”
For this was the first year that he had gone on these hunts alone.
To tell the truth, he was very tired of his liaison. The lady was expensive, and her conversation was insipid. Also ... perhaps ... his blood was not quite as hot as it had once been.
“Buck up, old bean! What’s the matter with you?” ... The fires within are waning ... where had he heard that expression? Oh yes, it was what Jollypot had said about that old Hun conductor, Richter, when, years ago, they had taken her to Covent Garden to hear Tristan—how they had laughed! It was such a ridiculous expression to use about such a stolid old Hun and, besides, it happened to be quite untrue, Pepa and Teresa had said.
“What’s the matter with you to-night, you juggins?” The fires within are waning ... it was all very well to laugh, but really it was rather a beautiful expression.... Good Lord! It wasn’t so many years before he would be reaching his grand climacteric.... Peter Trevers died then, so did Jim Lane.
One morning he noticed the Doña standing stock-still in the middle of the lawn, staring at something through her lorgnette. She was smiling. “What a beautiful mouth she has!” he thought, as he drew nearer.
Softly he came up and stood beside her, and discovered that what she was watching was a thrush that was engaged, by means of a series of sharp rhythmic pecks, in hauling out of the ground the fat white coils of an enormous worm.
It reminded him of a Russian song that his lady had on her gramophone, the Volga Boat Song—the haulers on the Volga sang it as they hauled in the ropes.... I-i-sh-tscho-rass he began to hum; she looked up quickly: “You remember that?”
“What?” he asked nervously. In answer, she sang to the same tune: Ma-ri-nee-ro, and then said: “The sailors used to sing it at Cadiz, that autumn we spent there ... when the children were little.”
“By Jove, yes, so they did!” he answered with a self-deprecatory laugh.
The thrush had now succeeded in hauling up almost the whole length of the worm; and it lay on the ground really very like the coils of a miniature rope. Then suddenly he lost the rhythm, changed his method to a series of little jerky, impatient, ineffectual desultory taps, pausing between each to look round with a bright distrait eye; and, finally, when a few more taps would have finished the job, off he hopped, as if he could bear it no longer.
“Silly fellow!” said the Doña.
Dick was racking his brain in the hopes of finding some link between thrushes and Pepa.... “Pepa was very fond of thrushes” ... but was she?... “Pepa with the garden hose was rather like that thrush with the worm” ... and wasn’t there an infant malady called “thrush” ... had Pepa ever had it? no, no, it wouldn’t do; later on an apter occasion would arise for some tender little reconciliatory reminiscence.
“You know, I had little Anna and Jasper baptised into the Catholic Church at Christmas,” said the Doña suddenly, and, as it seemed to Dick, quite irrelevantly; but her voice was unmistakably friendly.
“By Jove ... did you really?”
“I did. I arranged it with Father Dawson. The children enjoyed keeping it a secret from Harry.”
Dick chuckled; the Doña smiled.
“Next year little Anna will make her first Communion.”
“Does she want to?” Dick had never noticed in his grand-daughter the slightest leanings to religion.
“I don’t know. There are compensations,” and again the Doña smiled.
“What? a new Girl-Guide kit?”
“No; the complete works of Scott.”
“My dear Anna—you ought to have been the General of the Jesuits!”
The Doña looked flattered.
“Well, Dick,” she went on in a brisk, but still friendly voice, “we really must decide soon—are we going to have pillar-roses or clematis at the back of the borders? Rudge says....”
They spent a happy, amicable morning together; and at luncheon their daughters were conscious that the tension between them had considerably relaxed.