House of Green Turf

CHAPTER TEN

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Ever since midday the Alte Post had been taken over by a wedding party. Maggie could hear across the water the sound of their fiddles and guitars, and the blown drifts of singing that grew beerier and gayer as the evening drew in. Several times during the dusk the guests had made brief exploratory sallies down to the water, the women like bright, blown petals swept along in a gale, but each time the showers had driven them in again to their dancing and drinking. The array of lights winked across the lake; the windows had been closed against the rain, and only wisps of music emerged now when some door was opened. Every time that happened, the night seemed to be shaken and convulsed with a distant burst of gigantic laughter.

Maggie went in from the verandah with a few drops of rain sparkling in her hair, and a half-hearted ray of moonlight, the first to break through the clouds, following at her heels. It looked as though they meant to keep up the party all night over there, surely she could have another half-hour of practice before she closed the piano.

The old authentic delight had come back, the intoxication that had been missing for so long. She was alive again, she could sing, she hated to stop singing. When this was over she must get into form quickly, and go back to pick up the wonderful burden. When this was over!

She had not looked ahead at all yet; her vision stopped short, charmed and exalted, at the recognition of her own deliverance. What if that lunch at The Bear had proved only a torment and a frustration? It would not always be so. Francis had promised to come to her here, and he would come; and this time they would be able to talk freely. There had to be respect between them, and an honourable understanding, everything circumstances had made impossible before. It was still true, for all their efforts at noon, that they had never met. Maggie looked forward to their meeting now with passion and impatience; she wanted to know him, and she wanted to be known. The world is too full of impaired and partial contacts that achieve nothing, satisfy no need, do justice to no one. Their relationship should at least close on a better footing than that. She had the Mahler song settings from ‘Des Knaben Wunderhorn’ on the piano. Contraltos are liable—Tom in one of his sourer moods had once remarked that there was no doubt about it being a liability!—to find themselves expected to include a good deal of Mahler in their recital programmes. Maggie, for her part, had no reservations at all. These full-dress romantic settings of folk-ballads four centuries old might stick in Tom’s gullet, but they were strong wine to her.

Ich ging mit Lust durch einem grünen Wald,

Ich hört die Völein singen,

She sang that opening line, and as always it seemed to her a complete song in miniature, with a logical development, a single climax and a perfect resolution.

Many years ago, when she was first learning these songs, she had written in beneath the German words her own attempt at an English singing version. Her unfamiliarity with the original language had worried her, as though it stood between her and the depth of interpretation she wanted. It was easy enough to get someone to provide a literal translation into English, but the meaning divorced from the rhythm and feel of the German had been no help at all. She had wanted a true image, and the only way had been to make one for herself. She never thought of the songs now in her version, she no longer needed these stepping-stones into a world she knew better than her own heart. But in their time they had served their purpose.

As forth I went, all in the gay greenwood,

To hear the birds a-singing…

She sang it through in the English, with care and wonder, because now it was the English that seemed alien.

Curiously she turned the pages to see what she had made of some of the grander songs. ‘Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen’ belonged to the later set, originally conceived with orchestral accompaniment, and the piano was a poor substitute for those distant, haunting trumpet calls and drum rolls that hung like ominous storm-clouds over the illusion of happy reunion. The soft, brooding introduction came to hesitant life under her fingers, and her voice took up the doubtful, hopeful question with which the song opened:

Wer ist denn draussen, und wer klopfet an.

Der mich so leise, so leise wecken kann? –

Who’s that without there, who knocks at my door,

Imploring so softly, so softly: Sleep no more?

She had no intention of being asleep when Francis came…

Das ist der Herzallerliebste dein,

Steh’ auf und lass mich zu dir ein…

Your love, your own true love is here,

Rise up and let me in, my dear!

And must I longer wait and mourn?

I see the red of dawn return…

… nor of keeping him waiting outside the door, patiently tapping, like the last time. This meeting had to pay a lot of debts.

… The red of dawn, two stars so bright.

O that I were with my delight,

With mine own heart’s beloved!

The maiden arose and let him in.

Most welcome home, my more than kin,

Most welcome home, my own true love…

She could not help remembering a moment in another hotel room, arms holding her, lips on hers, a voice whispering brokenly: Maggie, forgive me, forgive me! Whether she liked it or not, there was love also to be taken into account. You cannot demand truth, and then select half and throw the inconvenient remainder away. Something would have to be done even about love, if they were to be honest with each other.

Ah, do not weep, love, do not pine,

Within the year you shall be mine,

Ere long you shall be one with me

As never bride on earth shall be,

No, none but you on earth, love!

Across the heath to war I fare,

The great green heath so broad and bare…

She sang it through to the end, to the last hair-raising diminuendo among the distant fanfares.

For there, where the splendid trumpets blare and thunder,

There is my house, my house the green turf under.

She would really have to stop this. When the last note of the postlude died away it was so silent that it was borne in upon her guiltily how late it was. Most of the guests must be trying to sleep. Much better, too, if she put out all the lights and seemed to be joining the sleepers; he would find it more difficult to approach if there was light spilling down the staircase into the trees.

She stood for a moment listening, after the lights were out, but everything was quiet and still, not even a thread of song drifted to her across the water. She lay down on the bed in her grey and white housecoat to wait patiently for Francis.

She was close to sleep, for all her resolution and eagerness, when the expected tapping came at the glass door on to the verandah. She leaped up gladly, switched on the small bedside lamp, and ran through the sitting-room to whisk aside the curtain and fling the door wide.

The maiden arose, and let him in…

The faint light from outside gilded a wet, glistening outline, the shape of a man tall against the sky. The little gleam from the bedroom lit upon the pallid hand that rapped at the glass, and the black stone in the remembered ring on his finger.

The breath congealed in Maggie’s throat and the blood in her veins.

This was not Francis, this pale, tense face and shimmering wet body slipping silently into her room, with slow drops coursing down his temples and hair plastered like weed against his forehead. Not Francis, but a drowned man come back out of his grave, out of the lake, out of the past, just when she had allowed herself to be tricked into believing herself rid of him for ever. The rank scent of lake-water and death came over the sill with him, drifting over her in a wave of faintness and nausea. She gave back before him a few steps, and then was stone, unable to move or speak. She was cold, cold, cold as death.

Then everything began to slip away from her, like flesh peeling from her bones, all her delusions of hope, all her belief in the future, any future, even her passion for her own gift. All illusory, all drifting away like dispersed smoke, leaving her naked and lost and damned after all. The world and time came toppling upon her, closing in until there was nothing left but this moment, which was her death.

He came towards her slowly, smiling his pale, drowned smile, his hands held out to her. For what had he come up out of his grave if not to claim her? The hands touched her breast, and cold as she was, she felt their icy chill sear her to the bone. Cold, wet arms went round her and drew her down, down into green depths…

Her lips moved, saying: ‘Robin!’ but made no sound. There was a voice whispering in her ear, soft and distant through the darkness that was beginning to wind itself about her:

Aufs Jahr sollst du mein Eigen sein.

Mein Eigen sollst du werden gewiss

Wie’s Keine sonst auf Erden ist,

O Lieb… auf grüner Erden…

Within the year you shall be mine… mine as never bride on earth can be… No, none on this green earth… How could she have disregarded the end? Mine in my house across the heath, the last dwelling of the drowned… the house of green turf…

His face drew near to her, floating through the gathering dark, smiling. When it swam out of focus his lips touched hers, and cold and dark burned into one absolute and overwhelmed her. She sagged in the arms that held her. She experienced death, the death that gave her back to him.

Stooping, the dead man hoisted her slight weight to his shoulder, and carried her away…