“Oh, it’s all right,” she explained, drawing an impatient white-gloved hand across her eyes; “we—we’re engaged, you know.”
[CHAPTER XXV]
It was April in New England, but here at Elaine it was May—warm, verdant, fragrant May. To be sure, they called it April, but John, sprawled out on his back on the terrace before the house, with the soft swaying of branches above him and the sun-flecks dancing back and forth across his face, knew better. It was utter nonsense to pretend that only five days had passed since they had left Cambridge. He took his pipe from the corner of his mouth, gripped his hands anew under his head, sighed luxuriously and closed his eyes.
The morning world was filled with sound, with warmth, with colour. From the direction of the stables came the whinnying of a young colt in paddock; the turkeys, peafowls and chickens uttered their notes which, discordant in themselves, yet fitted harmoniously into the great chorus as the growling of the bassoon, the rasping of the bass-viol or the shrilling of the piccolo fits into and lends completeness to a full orchestral effect. Birds, thousands of them, it seemed, piped and trilled, chirped and bubbled—feathered flutes and ’cellos and clarionettes, tossing their melody into the soft air from swaying tree-top or dropping it from leaf-hidden branch to filter downward with the dripping sunbeams. Bees were abroad, too, workers and drones, adding their booming bass to the symphony, while through all, the wind and the leaves, masters of melody, supplied a low, murmurous strain, insistent yet unobtrusive, the theme of Nature’s spring-song.
And for this performance what a stage-setting was there! Overhead, the bluest blue that ever poet sang or artist strove to catch, and against it a few soft, fluffy clouds, caught here and there against the heavens like clots of snowy foam. Below, wide, far-stretching fields and hillsides of new, tender green arabesqued with winding brown roads, vine-decked fences and shimmering blue water laughing through bordering trees. Fields were no longer bare expanses of warm, upturned loam; they were carpets of green velvet. Far and near the trees were in leaf, some fully arrayed for the summer, others just trying on their new garments with bashful diffidence. And what a wealth, what a bewildering variety of greens they presented! Golden-greens and russet-greens, blue-greens and gray-greens, the green of chrysoberyl and of emerald; every hue and tint and gradation of tint!
The far hills were asleep in the sunlight under slumber-robes of palest mauve. In the direction of Melville fantastic spirals and swirls of smoke and steam arose and melted into the sky. Here and there a farmhouse peered out from an embowering group of trees. Half a mile away a great blue wagon, drawn by six horses, jolted along the road; and the creaking of the great wheels, the voice of the driver and the tinkling of the bells came, mellowed by distance, up the hill. John lifted his head lazily and watched it for a moment. Behind him Elaine basked, white-walled and pillared, leaf-shadowed, in the sunlight. Flowers blossomed and the air was redolent of their perfume.
Presently John raised himself on his elbow, yawned and looked about him. In the shadow of the portico Phillip was stretched fast asleep in a steamer chair, the magazine which he had been reading a half-hour ago sprawling with rumpled leaves beside him where it had fallen from his hands. Maid dozed beside him.