Spring; everywhere, inside and outside the house. The spring outside had a meaning here. It came in through the windows without obstruction and passed into everything. At home it had sent one nearly mad with joy and anticipation and passed and left you looking for it for the rest of the year; in Germany it had brought music and wild joy—the secret had passed from eye to eye; all the girls had known it. At Wordsworth House it had stood far away, like a picture in a dream, something that could be seen from windows, and found for a moment in the park, but powerless to get into the house. Here it came in; you could not forget it for a moment; and it was a background for something more wonderful than itself; something that made it wonderful; something there were no words for; voices, movements from room to room, strange food, the soft chink of Venetian glass, amber wine, the light drowned in wine, through the window a sharp gleam on things that reflected, day and night, into everything, even into one’s thoughts. Why was the spring suddenly so real? Why was it that you could stand as it were in a shaft of it all the time, feeling in your breathing, hearing in your voice the sound of the spring, the blood in your fingertips seeming like the roses that they would touch soon in the garden?
How ignorant the man was who said, “each fair mask for what it shows itself.” Life is not a mask, it is fair; the gold in one’s hair is real.
Friday brought an atmosphere of expectation. Mr. Kronen, an old friend of the Corries, was coming down, with a new Mrs. Kronen.
By the early afternoon the house was full of fragrance; coming downstairs dressed for an errand in the little town two miles away, Miriam saw the hall all pink and saffron with azaleas. Coming across the hall she found a scent in the air that did not come from the azaleas, a sweet familiar syrupy distillation … the blaze of childhood’s garden was round her again, bright magic flowers in the sunlight, magic flowers, still there, nearer to her than ever in this happy house; she could almost hear the humming of the bees, and flung back the bead curtain with unseeing eyes half expecting some doorway to open on the remembered garden; the scent was overpowering … the drawing-room was cool and silent with closed windows and drawn blinds; bowls of roses stood in every available place; she tiptoed about in the room gathering their scent.
As she opened the hall door Mrs. Corrie’s voice startled her from the dining-room.
Going into the dining-room she found her with a flushed face and excited eyes and the children dancing round her. “Another tin! One more tin!” they exclaimed, plucking at Miriam. From the billiard-room came the smell of fresh varnish. Wiggerson was on her knees near the door.
“She’s done some stupid thing,” thought Miriam, looking at Mrs. Corrie’s excited, unconscious face with sudden anxiety; “some womanish overdoing it, wanting to do too much and spoiling everything.” She felt as if she were representing Mr. Corrie.
“Will it be dry in time?” she asked, half angrily, scarcely knowing what she said and in the midst of Mrs. Corrie’s apologetic petition that she would bring a tin of oak stain back with her.
“Lordy, don’t you think so?” whispered Mrs. Corrie, only half dismayed.
Miriam had not patience to follow her as she went to survey the floor ruefully chanting, “Oh, Wiggerson, Wiggerson.”
“Anyhow I’m sure it oughtn’t to have any more on as late as when I come back,” she scolded boldly. How annoyed Mr. Corrie would be. …
As she was going down the quiet road past the high oak garden palings of the nearest house she heard the bumping and scrabbling of a heavy body against the palings and a dog leapt into the road almost at her feet, making the dust fly. It was an Irish terrier. It smiled and barked a little, waiting, looking up into her face and up and down the road. “It thought it knew me,” she pondered; “it mistook me for someone else.” She patted its head and went forward thinking of the joyful scrabbling, its headlong determination. The dog jerked back its head with a wide smile, tore down the road and came back leaping and smiling. Something disappeared from the vista of the roadway as the dog rushed along it nosing after scents, looking round now and again, and now and
