Home > Authors Index > John Galsworthy > Villa Rubein > This page
Villa Rubein, a fiction by John Galsworthy |
||
Chapter 25 |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ Chapter XXV On the following day Harz was summoned to the Villa. Mr. Treffry had just risen, and was garbed in a dressing-suit, old and worn, which had a certain air of magnificence. His seamed cheeks were newly shaved. "I hope I see you well," he said majestically. Thinking of the drive and their last parting, Harz felt sorry and ashamed. Suddenly Christian came into the room; she stood for a moment looking at him; then sat down. "Chris!" said Mr. Treffry reproachfully. She shook her head, and did not move; mournful and intent, her eyes seemed full of secret knowledge. Mr. Treffry spoke: "I've no right to blame you, Mr. Harz, and Chris tells me you came to see me first, which is what I would have expected of you; but you shouldn't have come back." "I came back, sir, because I found I was obliged. I must speak out." "I ask nothing better," Mr. Treffry replied. Harz looked again at Christian; but she made no sign, sitting with her chin resting on her hands. "I have come for her," he said; "I can make my living--enough for both of us. But I can't wait." "Why?" Harz made no answer. Mr. Treffry boomed out again: "Why? Isn't she worth waiting for? Isn't she worth serving for?" "I can't expect you to understand me," the painter said. "My art is my life to me. Do you suppose that if it wasn't I should ever have left my village; or gone through all that I've gone through, to get as far even as I am? You tell me to wait. If my thoughts and my will aren't free, how can I work? I shan't be worth my salt. You tell me to go back to England--knowing she is here, amongst you who hate me, a thousand miles away. I shall know that there's a death fight going on in her and outside her against me--you think that I can go on working under these conditions. Others may be able, I am not. That's the plain truth. If I loved her less--" There was a silence, then Mr. Treffry said: "It isn't fair to come here and ask what you're asking. You don't know what's in the future for you, you don't know that you can keep a wife. It isn't pleasant, either, to think you can't hold up your head in your own country." Harz turned white. "Ah! you bring that up again!" he broke out. "Seven years ago I was a boy and starving; if you had been in my place you would have done what I did. My country is as much to me as your country is to you. I've been an exile seven years, I suppose I shall always be I've had punishment enough; but if you think I am a rascal, I'll go and give myself up." He turned on his heel. "Stop! I beg your pardon! I never meant to hurt you. It isn't easy for me to eat my words," Mr. Treffry said wistfully, "let that count for something." He held out his hand. Harz came quickly back and took it. Christian's gaze was never for a moment withdrawn; she seemed trying to store up the sight of him within her. The light darting through the half-closed shutters gave her eyes a strange, bright intensity, and shone in the folds of her white dress like the sheen of birds' wings. Mr. Treffry glanced uneasily about him. "God knows I don't want anything but her happiness," he said. "What is it to me if you'd murdered your mother? It's her I'm thinking of." "How can you tell what is happiness to her? You have your own ideas of happiness--not hers, not mine. You can't dare to stop us, sir!" "Dare?" said Mr. Treffry. "Her father gave her over to me when she was a mite of a little thing; I've known her all her life. I've--I've loved her--and you come here with your 'dare'!" His hand dragged at his beard, and shook as though palsied. A look of terror came into Christian's face. "All right, Chris! I don't ask for quarter, and I don't give it!" Harz made a gesture of despair. "I've acted squarely by you, sir," Mr. Treffry went on, "I ask the same of you. I ask you to wait, and come like an honest man, when you can say, 'I see my way--here's this and that for her.' What makes this art you talk of different from any other call in life? It doesn't alter facts, or give you what other men have no right to expect. It doesn't put grit into you, or keep your hands clean, or prove that two and two make five." Harz answered bitterly: "You know as much of art as I know of money. If we live a thousand years we shall never understand each other. I am doing what I feel is best for both of us." Mr. Treffry took hold of the painter's sleeve. "I make you an offer," he said. "Your word not to see or write to her for a year! Then, position or not, money or no money, if she'll have you, I'll make it right for you." "I could not take your money." A kind of despair seemed suddenly to seize on Mr. Nicholas Treffry. He rose, and stood towering over them. "All my life--" he said; but something seemed to click deep down in his throat, and he sank back in his seat. "Go!" whispered Christian, "go!" But Mr. Treffry found his voice again: "It's for the child to say. Well, Chris!" Christian did not speak. It was Harz who broke the silence. He pointed to Mr. Treffry. "You know I can't tell you to come with--that, there. Why did you send for me?" And, turning, he went out. Christian sank on her knees, burying her face in her hands. Mr. Treffry pressed his handkerchief with a stealthy movement to his mouth. It was dyed crimson with the price of his victory. _ |
||