To kings that fear their subjects’ treachery?”
“For trust not him that once hath broken faith.”
King Henry VI.
“Against ill chances men are ever merry;
But heaviness foreruns the good event.”
King Henry VI.
It took several weeks for us to get quite comfortably settled at the little farm. We lazily decorated our residence, or suspended labor upon it, just as we pleased. Then the delicious June days trod upon each other’s heels. It seemed as if I had scarcely risen and found the breakfast Lena always kept for me—of toast and jelly and chocolate—before the evening star trembled in the west, and I was following her and Fritz to the barnyard to take my cup of new milk with the foam on. Even Midsummer Day, the longest and loveliest day in the year, was gone while we talked about it.
At first our friends came down from the city, but as the heat increased they took longer journeys. Julian painted zealously. He said after T’férgore came he would be hindered a great deal. I lay in a hammock and watched him, sometimes wondering at my new languor. I thought a great deal about T’férgore, without talking of him to Julian. Julian licensed me to be silly to a certain extent: beyond that limit I kept my silliness to myself. It was nothing for me to twist Mr. Fergus Dering’s name into T’férgore, because I had a talent for rechristening people and objects. But how impatient Julian would have been with all my speculations about T’férgore! I could not make an image of him in my mind, yet he was always haunting me. I wondered if he would stay with us always; sometimes his ideal head, with impalpable garments below it, changing from expression to expression, laughed at me from the clouds. What an individuality he must have to seize upon me so before his coming! He was a gifted creature, according to Julian; and his silent approach was weaving me in a network of fascination that I never thought at first of resisting.
When I was roused to activity, we made haste to finish our arrangements about the house and get T’férgore’s room ready. Julian himself hung some draping stuff from the studio there. We spent money on a bath, and a curious water jug and basin, and I could not feel contented without giving the chamber a more delicate look with muslin and blue silesia. We used to stand looking around this apartment with admiration. Julian hung one of his flower pictures there, though he said T’férgore would probably do nothing but make a face at it. And I never went into the woods for a handful of wild flowers, without filling T’férgore’s vase of Dresden china, when I got back.
Then Julian said we must have a horse and vehicle, for if he knew anything about T’férgore that young gentleman would want to take the air on wheels. We had, however, very little cash to spend on such a turnout.