CHAPTER IX
SCHUMANN’S NACHTSTÜCK
EVERYTHING went on as usual in the little community. Robert Strafford worked incessantly, and, in addition to the help he received from his friends, had engaged the[163] services of a Chinaman, and had made great strides with the redeeming of his land. His father had sent him some money, and told him that he should remit a further sum in a month or two, and Robert went to a lemon-nursery at once and bought five hundred Lisbons, budded on the sour root. He was so engrossed in his ranch that he did not notice how little interest Hilda was taking in all his schemes. She seemed cheerful, and was busy from morning till night, had learnt to milk the cow, and even helped on the ranch; but Ben, who observed her closely, believed that her cheerfulness was assumed, and that her ready conversation came from the lips only, and that her eagerness for work arose merely from her desire to do battle with her regrets. But Bob[164] had taken heart and courage about her; and now eased in monetary matters by his father’s generous help, felt that he was at last coming out into the sunlight of life. So great was his confidence in his ultimate success, and so convincing was his dogged persistence, that, in spite of his misfortunes and his frail health, the minds of his companions leapt forward, as it were, three or four years, and the picture of a flourishing little ranch, more prosperous than any other in the neighbourhood, forced itself upon their attention.
It was nearly six weeks now since Hilda had touched the piano. But to-day Robert had gone with the waggon into the village, and she was alone on the ranch. She had been reading some of her home letters, and looking at some photographs of Canterbury and Winchester, half deciding to frame them, and finally concluding to put them away. She opened the piano, and placed her music on the stand. She chose a volume of Chopin, another of Schumann, and some pieces by Brahms and Grieg. She played well. Her touch was firm and virile, but wanting in tenderness. She played one of Chopin’s Impromptus and one of his Ballades, and after that she passed on to his Nocturnes. She stopped now and again and covered her face with her hands. She was quite tearless. Then she played both of Brahms’ Rhapsodies, and some numbers out of Schumann’s Carnèval. She leaned back in her chair, looking almost like a statue. Her fingers sought the notes once more, and she played Grieg’s Einsamer Wanderer, which is so intensely sad.
“Jesse Holles would like that,” she said to herself; “but I could never play it to him.”
She paused, and her hands rested insensibly on the keys.
“Oh, I must have been mad,” she said, with something like a sob, “to have so much and to give it all up, and for what? Ah, if one could only free oneself!”
She drifted into Schumann’s Kinderscenen, choosing unconsciously the saddest numbers, and then she struck the arpeggio chords and began his most wonderful Nachtstück.
“HILDA’S SELF-CONTROL BROKE DOWN COMPLETELY.”
It is fraught with melancholy, regret, longing, pity—and what else besides? But surely it is idle work to describe beautiful music. As we play and as we listen, if we are lovers of music, we use our own interpretation; we weave our own feelings, our own emotions, our own aspirations and regrets into it, and lo! for the moment we have made it our own language.... Before Hilda had reached the closing phrases of the Nachtstück, her self-control broke down completely. She nestled up to the piano, her arms resting on the finger-board, her head bowed over them. She sobbed unceasingly. The tears streamed unheeded from her eyes. There seemed to be no end to the sobbing, no end to the tears.
But at last she raised herself, and clasped her hands together at the back of her neck, and looked up. Her husband was standing in the doorway.
“Hilda!” he cried, and he advanced a step, his arms extended.
“No, no!” she cried, turning from him. “I want to be alone, I must be alone, I’m too utterly wretched for words. It’s all of no use, I can’t stand this life out here; it will just kill me—it isn’t life, it is only existence, and such an existence too! I must have been mad to come—I was mad, every one was against it—my mother and father and friends, all of them. But I didn’t know what I was coming to—how could any one know?—how could I picture to myself the desolation and the deadness and the dull monotony, and the absence of everything picturesque, and the barren country, which at its best can never be comforting? I hate those mountains there, I could shake them, and I could go out and tread down all those wretched rows of wretched little trees—it’s all an absurd mockery of a life, it’s starvation from beginning to end. You just feel that there is nothing to live for, and you cry out the whole time to be done with it. Yes, I was mad, mad to leave everything and come—I can see it well enough now, when it is too late. But it was little enough you told me in your letters. Why didn’t you make me understand clearly what I was coming to? And yet you did try—I remember you tried; but how could any one ever describe the awful desolation? Oh, it’s simply heartbreaking. And to think it has to continue month after month, and year after year, and that there is no escape from it. How shall I ever bear myself? How can I possibly go on, drudging all the day long? For that is what the life out here means to a woman—drudgery and desolation, and it is wickedly cruel.”
Robert Strafford stood there paralysed.
“ROBERT PASSED NOISELESSLY OUT OF THE
HOUSE.”
“And such an unattractive place to settle in,” she continued wildly, “when there are entrancing parts of the country near at hand: I saw them myself on the journey. If you had to come, why not have chosen a spot worth living in, where some kind of social existence was possible, instead of burying yourself in a wilderness like this? But nothing could ever make up to one for all one had lost, and if I were a man, I would rather starve at home in my old career than cut myself off from the throb and pulsation of a fuller life. Yes, indeed I would, and to-morrow I would turn my face homewards and thank God that I had freed myself at last, in spite of every one and everything, freed myself at last—oh God! when I think of it all....”
Robert’s face was ashen. Twice he tried to speak, and his voice failed him.
Then he said, quite quietly:
“Never fear, Hilda, you shall have your freedom.”
He opened the door, and passed noiselessly out of the house.