The sky seen from the summerhouse was darker still. There were no massed clouds, nothing but a hard even dark copper-grey, and away through the gap the distant country was bright like a little painted scene. On the horizon the hard dark sky shut down. At intervals thunder rumbled evenly, far away. Miriam stood still in the middle of the summerhouse floor. It was half-dark; the morning Saal lay in a hot sultry twilight. The air in the summerhouse was heavy and damp. She stood with her half-closed hands gathered against her. “How perfectly magnificent,” she murmured, gazing out through the hard half-darkness to where the brightly coloured world lay in a strip and ended on the hard sky.
“Yes … yes,” came a sad low voice at her side.
For a second Miriam did not turn. She drank in the quiet “yes, yes,” the hard fixed scene seemed to move. Who loved it too, the dark sky and the storm? Then she focused her companion who was standing a little behind her, and gazed at Fräulein; she hardly saw her, she seemed still to see the outdoor picture. Fräulein made a movement towards her; and then she saw for a moment the strange grave young look in her eyes. Fräulein had looked at her in that moment as an equal. It was as if they had embraced each other.
Then Fräulein said sadly, “You like the storm weather, Miss Henderson.”
“Yes.”
Fräulein sighed, looking out across the country. “We are in the hollow of His hand,” she murmured. “Come to your breakfast, my child,” she chided, smiling.
There was no church. Late in the afternoon when the sky lifted they all went to the woods in their summer dresses and hats. They had permission to carry their gloves and Elsa Speier’s parasol and lace scarf hung from her wrist. The sky was growing higher and lighter, but there was no sun. They entered the dark woods by a little well-swept pathway and for a while there was a strip of sky above their heads; but presently the trees grew tall and dense, the sky was shut out and their footsteps and voices began to echo about them as they straggled along, grouping and regrouping as the pathway widened and narrowed, gathering their skirts clear of the wet undergrowth. They crossed a roadway and two carriage loads of men and women talking and laughing and shouting with shining red faces passed swiftly by, one close behind the other. Beyond the roadway the great trees towered up in a sort of twilight. There were no flowers here, but bright fungi shone here and there about the roots of the trees and they all stood for a moment to listen to the tinkling of a little stream.
Pathways led away in all directions. It was growing lighter. There were faint chequers of light and shade about them as they walked. The forest was growing golden all round them, lifting and opening, gold and green, clearer and clearer. There were bright jewelled patches in amongst the trees; the boles of the trees shone out sharp grey and silver and flaked with sharp green leaves away and away until they melted into a mist of leafage. Singing sounded suddenly away in the wood; a sudden strong shouting of men’s voices singing together like one voice in four parts, four shouts in one sound.
“O Sonnenschein! O Sonnenschein!”
Between the two exclamatory shouts, the echo rang through the woods and the listening girls heard the sharp drip, drip and murmur of the little stream near by, then the voices swung on into the song, strongly interwoven, swelling and lifting; dropping to a soft even staccato and swelling strongly out again.
“Wie scheinst du mir in’s Herz hinein,
Weck’st drinnen lauter Liebeslust,
Dass mir so enge wird die Brust
O Sonnenschein! O Sonn‑enschein!”
When the voices ceased there was a faint distant sound of crackling twigs and the echo of talking and laughter.
“Ach Studenten!”
“Irgendein Männergesangverein.”
“I think we ought to get back, Gertrude. Fräulein said only an hour altogether and it’s church tonight.”
“We’ll get back, Millenium mine—never fear.”
As they began to retrace their steps Clara softly sang the last line of the song, the highest note ringing, faint and clear, away into the wood.
“Ho‑lah!” A mighty answering shout rang through the wood. It was like a word of command.
“Oh, come along home; Clara, what are you dreaming of?”
“Taisez-vous, taisez-vous, Clarah! C’est honteux mon Dieu!”
IX
The next afternoon they all drove in a high, wide brake with an awning, five miles out into the country to have tea at a forest inn. The inn appeared at last standing back from the wide roadway along which they had come, creamy-white and grey-roofed, long and low and with overhanging eaves, close against the forest. They pulled up and Pastor Lahmann dropped the steps and got out. Miriam who was sitting next to the door felt that the long sitting in two rows confronted in the hard afternoon light, bumped and shaken and teased with the crunchings and slitherings of the wheels the grinding and squeaking of the brake, had made them all enemies. She had sat tense and averted, seeing the general greenery, feeling that the cool flowing air might be great happiness, conscious of each form and each
