I saw all this in a first glance through the leafy screen of one of them, for the now crimson sky beyond, showing through a gap in the tall native trees and flooding in over the hedge, suffused the interior with a dreamy light. When I had pushed my way in I found that this garden retreat showed signs of occupation. There was a hammock slung across it from the stoutest stems of the hazels. A small table stood against one wall of stems, a rough seat against the other. An easel and palette reclined against the hedge, which was almost covered with the profuse pink bloom of geraniums; and, on the floor, carpeted with last year’s leaves and nuts, stood a cushioned wicker chair.
The dry nuts cracked beneath my heavy boots as I walked towards the hammock and picked up a book that lay there on a cushion. It was a well-worn volume of Shelley’s poems, and on the flyleaf was written, “Crystal Grey, her book.” I put it down and glanced round the quaint place again, murmuring to myself, “Crystal Grey, her studio.”
It seemed a place of dreams, and it suited my mood, so I placed the wicker chair against the hedge, and sat down to watch the delicate hues which were beginning to glorify the screen of leaves that shut me off from the garden. As the sun showed signs of his rising behind me these leaves, catching the flush, stood out against the shadows beyond. They changed from dark green to light, then glistened into a pale yellow. Finally, as the sun’s first ray struck through the pink geraniums on the hedge, they were glorified with delicate rosy hues, and all the place was suffused with the fresh dewy pink of early dawn. How beautiful it was, that glorious sunlight glistening on the silk pattern of the cushion in the hammock, touching the stems of the hazels with light and shadow, and striking the leaf-strewn ground with a deep russet as it fell even to the foot of the leafy screen, all fresh and dewy through the sparkling air.
I awoke from my dream at some sound that reached my ears. It was a footfall on the grass outside. It drew near. I heard the rustle of a skirt. In another moment the sunlit leaves about the entrance were drawn aside, and a girl entered. The boughs swung to behind her, and she stood in the sun ray, still holding one branch with her hand, while she regarded me for a moment with hesitation. I said a girl, but my first impression of Crystal Grey was that she was something between a proud goddess and a sweet angel: the former aspect slumbering in her coal-black eyes and wavy black hair, the latter wide awake upon her lovely face and perfect form, clad, as all angels are, in white. The mysterious eyes of deep night, and the hair of deeper night contrasted strangely with the innocent wistfulness of the rest of the face. If the eyes were those of some severe sage, made young again by a draught of his wondrous elixir, the sweet girlish lips looked as if they had kissed the early morning dew from a ripe peach and carried away the freshness of it. I rose from my wicker chair and stood facing her, with the hammock between us. I was too dazzled by this sudden apparition of girlish beauty, beyond my power to describe, to stammer out a single word; and, while I was trying to begin an apology for my rough appearance in her garden sanctum, she spoke first.
“Are you the stranger that brought the good news?” she asked, as she let go the branch and advanced a step towards me.
“I am,” I replied; “but that hardly excuses my trespassing here perhaps.”
“SHE SEATED HERSELF SIDEWAYS ON THE HAMMOCK, WHILE I RESUMED MY WICKER CHAIR, AND TOLD AGAIN THE STORY WHICH I HAD NARRATED TO HER FATHER.”
She extended her fair, white hand, and, as I took it in my rough brown one, looking into her eyes the while, a combination of feelings took possession of me. I can only liken it to the laying of the foundation-stone of a love which would mount upwards for ever and ever, like a crystal staircase leading to the far-off heaven of her soul.
Her sweet lips moved, then trembled, but no words came. Only her eyes spoke unfathomable things, as they burned with feelings, tender and mysterious; only a sigh escaped her as she turned her head away.