Early on the Saturday morning when her father was expected to return,
Theresa awoke and, quickly flinging off the bedclothes, sat up with a
jerk. The busy fingers of the wind were tapping at the pane, calling her
to come out and play, and from the bottom of the hill there rose a more
imperative summons, the hooting of a steamer making her way out of the
docks. It was high tide, and she smiled her pleasure, hugging her knees.
Every day that sound was borne up to her on the hill, like a trumpet
call to life. From the window of the bedroom which she shared with Grace
she could see the ships, and she believed that cry of theirs was to give
her greeting or farewell. The steamers spoke for themselves, but the
sailing ships borrowed the voices of the tugs that took them down the
river and even in the quiet and mystery of night they did not forget
her. Lying awake, she would wave her hand to them, and as she stared at
the square of dark sky framed in the window, she would fancy she looked
upward from the deck of some sea-going ship, saw the sky streaked and
crossed by the masts and yards above, or mistily, behind a waving flag
of smoke. But that voice of the ships was more than the salute of
friends; there were times when she heard it as a call, a command, or a
sweet persuasion. It called her into the darkness of the night and the
crash of storm, and then, for all she lay snug and safe in bed, she felt
the wind buffeting her, tasted the salt on her lips; or, if the night
were very still and warm, she thought she sailed under a sky of
immeasurable blackness, pricked with stars. She heard the ship swishing
through the water, black, too, as though mirroring the sky, heard the
creaking sounds among the cordage and the spars, and the orders coming
clear and loud into the darkness.
What a morning for going out to sea, with the wind fresh, the air
smelling of all clean things, the sunlight gilding the world! Her eyes
danced as she watched the clouds sailing past her window, driven by the
lusty breeze; these were the boats of the sky--great galleons, little
yachts, riding majestically or bobbing gaily across the blue.
She turned her head sharply to look at the sleeper by her side. "Grace!"
she said, and shook her. "Grace! Wake up, you lazy thing! It's a fine
day."
For answer, Grace's head was rolled from side to side, and her nose
buried more deeply in the pillow.
"You're fat!" said Theresa, pricking a soft cheek with her forefinger;
"fat, fat, fat!"
She flung herself on her back and looked at the ceiling. Across its
rather dirty surface many cracks had spread themselves, and these
furnished Theresa with the scene for an epic in which the adventures of
a courageous family were described. The cracks represented roads,
rushing rivers, and precipitous mountains, according to their shape and
size, and all the weary way from the crack that began near the window to
the safety of the damp stain by the door, that family had to travel.
Each morning she led them a few miles across the waste and there was
never a mile without excitement. There were storms at night when tents
were blown down on their unhappy heads, and must be put up again with no
light for guidance but the reason of a child of ten who alone remained
unafraid; there were combined attacks on their camp by wolves and
tigers, who seemed quite impervious to climate, when fires were lighted
and each member of the party sat with a rifle across her knees; there
were dust storms in the desert, and, not less swift and overwhelming,
onslaughts by brigands clothed as Arabs and riding horses winged like
Pegasus. Precipices must be scaled and swollen rivers crossed, but no
life or battle was ever lost by this gallant company. They would reach
their destination with little scathe, but so great was Theresa's
interest that she could always preserve the necessary illusion and grow
hot and cold with fear for them.
This morning she found she could not lose herself in these perils, for
the boats were calling her too persistently; moreover, she must husband
these adventures if they were to last until the dark mornings came, when
the cracks would be invisible and she must rise by candlelight, so she
gave Grace a parting thump and sprang out of bed.
As she stood at the window, she felt the delicious cold of the bare
boards to her feet and the wind fluttering the frills of her nightgown.
Holding her hands to her throat, she looked out on the untidy sloping
garden with the old apple-tree at its foot. So close to the garden that,
in the autumn, apples were found in its grass, the disused cemetery
continued the descent, studded with grey, mossy stones and spreading
willows--a place of ghosts--and, as if drawn thither by its eerie
neighbourhood, a monumental stone-mason had his yard on the other side
of the road at Theresa's right hand, a road running steeply to the busy
street that edged the river and the docks. But if Theresa looked from
her window, letting her eyes take flight over the river and the shipping
and the level fields that lay on the further side, she saw a great
stretch of meadow land which sought the clouds. It spread from left to
right, for the whole width of her vision, and at night it seemed to
stand up like a wall. The land behind that rampart seemed very far away,
but not beyond her reach, and she meant to get there--not this morning,
for the boats were calling to her, but on some day when spring flowers
were appearing in the hedges.
She lowered her eyes to the shining intricacies of the waterways, the
wide dock basins, the locks, the river and its arms, all spanned by
bridges. She saw the masts of sailing ships rising from the midst of
houses, like slender chimneys for these roofs of many colours and
varying heights. There was dirty smoke issuing from tugs to throw a
mourning veil over the water, there were shouts and whistlings and
hootings, low-voiced warnings from the steamers, shrill shrieks of joy.
"We're going! Look out!" they grunted, and then, on a cry, "We're free!
We're free!" She could stay indoors no longer, and she pulled on her
clothes.
When she reached the docks a sailing ship was in the river, following a
little tug with a reproving grace, under which she hid her limitations
from herself. There were men looking over her side and waving farewell
with such attractive foreign gestures that Theresa stood close to the
water's edge and gazed, with her hands tightly clasped behind her. The
wind acted like a great fan on her hair, stirring it at its roots and
flinging its long red fingers all about her head, thrumming, too, on her
short skirts, lifting them with a twist, and whipping her
tight-stockinged legs. She blinked the hair from her eyes or tossed it
back with a movement of the head, and sometimes she held down her dress
with strangely modest little hands, but she did all impatiently, worried
by the necessity of remembering such things among the sights of these
ocean-going ships, foreigners, and authoritative dockmen issuing orders.
The swing-bridge had swung back to allow some workmen to cross the
water, and another yoked pair waited until it should open again to let
them out. At a whistled signal the way was cleared, the tug snorted
forward and passed close under Theresa's eyes. In one deep draught of
sight she saw it all--the flat broad deck, the dirty men who had so
little likeness to her idea of sailors, the friendly grin one man sent
up to her, the marvellous rope of steel binding the little steamer to
the towering ship which was too wonderful and bewildering in form to be
remembered rightly after her quick passage. But Theresa looked
greedily, and for days there stayed in her memory the vision of the long
grey ship, her great masts growing upwards, swaying a little, too, the
multitude of ropes and other things of which she did not know the names,
of which it was astonishing that anyone could remember the names, and
the whole thing following so meekly, with such submission, in the wake
of the grimy tug. It went to Theresa's heart that anything so lovely
should be dependent, and with sad eyes she watched the passage of that
procession. She peered up at the ship as it passed; the last detaining
rope was flung from it and fell heavily into the water, to be drawn up,
dripping, by a jerseyed dockman, who looked at Theresa quizzically.
"Like to go to sea?" he asked genially. "'Ave to be a little boy 'fore
you can do that," he added cheerfully, pulling at the rope and walking
away as the wet end of it came over the side. "Don't 'ee slip into the
water, little miss."
She tightened her mouth when he had gone, for she was shy of strangers,
and this one had hurt her with the truth. She felt that the man had read
her thoughts, her brave desires to sail the sea, and she could have wept
that he should know her secrets. She had been so happy looking at the
boats, picturing them cargoed with cutlasses, monkeys, tarry ropes, and
strange stuffs of foreign make and brilliance, all the garner of her
reading and her quick eyes, fancying herself free to sail away if she
would, and forgetting she was a girl. She so easily forgot her
disabilities. Never mind! She made queer little gestures with her hands,
and steadied her lips. She had not really wanted to be a sailor; she
was, indeed, in some confusion as to a profession. At one time the
career of a circus lady laid siege to her mind, and assaulted it with
such fierceness and effect that only the thought of her parents' sorrow
held her back from imploring them to let her go and learn to jump
through hoops from the back of a cream-coloured steed, to stand on
tiptoe on its moving haunches, and kiss pretty fingers to a cheering
crowd. There was a life! How the ring-master cracked his whip, and the
horse sprang forward, and the lady stood on those little feet and never
slipped! Theresa liked the clothes that lady wore: sometimes a costume
of scanty pink, neck and arms bare and beautiful, and little flat shoes
secured with cross-gartering to the slim legs, or, in the more stately
parts of the performance, a rich riding-habit of green velvet and a hat
with a sweeping plume; gauntlets, too, and shining boots with yellow
tops. There was something very dashing about that profession, but what
of nursing? How would it feel to be a Florence Nightingale, with a grave
sweet face, and men turning in their cots to bless one's shadow? But no,
she could not fit herself into the part.
But while she turned continually from one tempting vision to another,
her father had already found a future for her, and one which would fill
up the gaps in his own existence, and atone for his own failures.
"I would rather be Keats," he had told her one day as they walked
together in the country, "than all the conquerors in the world."
"Would you?" she said, and held his hand fast. She liked conquerors.
"What's Keats?"
He had told her the poet's tale, and that evening he had found her with
the book open on her knee.
"I like it," she said, and sat silent, moving her lips. She had no wish
to understand it; the sound and the mystery were enough for her, and
that discovery set him dreaming. Cunningly, he dropped little fragments
of knowledge that tempted her to stoop and pick them up, fit them
together like a puzzle, and search for more. As if by accident the names
of women of the craft slipped from his lips and, when she would know
more about them, he showed her where their books stood on his shelves.
She was born to a natural love of books--the feel and smell and sight of
them--and the thought that men and women made them so that for centuries
they should outlive their own poor human bodies was full of poetry for
her. It came to her this morning like a balm, healing the wound made by
that genial sailor. He did not know what she was going to be some day,
in a future so remote, though shining, that effort to reach it was at
present gloriously needless. She would get there; she was already
soaring to the heights. She lifted her head, her hair flew free, her
hands fluttered like fallen leaves before a wind, and as they are
driven, so, elfishly and gaily, she danced along, restored to her belief
in herself; so skilfully could Theresa in these days fit herself into
the pictures she loved best. Now she was hardly concerned with the
details of the life she had chosen; she knew she was to be a person; the
rest was no more than the garments which were to clothe her, and fill
the sailor and his kind with awe.
Wind-blown, happy, hungry, she mounted homewards, climbed the garden
wall, and entered the house, as she had left it, by the garden door.