Mrs. Morton sat by the drawing-room fire, listening for the sound of
wheels. The wind was high and as it dashed among the trees it made a
roaring as of many chariots. Three times already she had laid down her
crotchet and picked it up again, and now, wrapping a little shawl about
her shoulders, she went to the window and watched for a blot on the
whiteness of the drive that followed the side of the lawn for a little
way before it curved out of sight.
The grass before the house sloped to a glimmer of water, and was edged
by clustered trees; on the other side of the lake more trees stood black
against the fading light, and close to the house there was a group of
elms in which the rooks were busy. The branches of all the trees were
swaying, flinging themselves this way and that, dipping towards the
earth and springing up again in defiance of their humility, shaking
their heads in denial, lowering them in contrite affirmation. The noise
they made was like that of the sea, but, because it was rarer, it was
more foreboding. The roaring of the sea, now loud, now soft, is as
unceasing as its ebb and flow, but the trees only cry out when the wind
whips them, and their voice is full of lamentation.
Mrs. Morton did not like the wind. She loved her home best when the
summer sun shone on it, and the trees were clothed in green to hide
their nakedness, when the flower-beds were bright with colour, and she
could stroll beside them under the shade of her parasol. The gaunt
energy of leafless trees, their moans and wailings, were akin to the
sight and sound of a soul laid bare, and this tall, white-haired lady
with the passive face disliked them according to her dread of the
primitive and unruly.
She shuddered as she waited for Theresa. This was no fit day for Basil
to bring home his betrothed; there was no bridal softness in the air
and, with a carelessness unlike him, he had driven to meet her in the
dog-cart. She had protested, for the wind was cold, but he had smiled,
told her Theresa loved the wind, and repeated his inconsiderate order.
She would be cold when she arrived.
Mrs. Morton looked round the white-panelled room with its shining floor
and furniture, and she looked approvingly, for the lamps were warmly
shaded, the fire was bright, and the tea-table and comfortable chairs
were drawn close to the hearth.
Again she strained her eyes into the dusk, and when they had cleared
themselves of the reflected lamplight and the dim picture of herself on
the other side of the window, she saw the dog-cart moving quickly.
She was at the hall door, as she had planned, at the moment when Morton
reined in the horse and the groom sprang to its head, and she saw the
startling dexterity of Theresa's leap to the ground.
She heard her son's reproachful tones. "You might have hurt yourself."
And Theresa's answer, clear and gay: "No I mightn't. I can calculate a
jump to an inch."
Morton laughed, and led the small figure up the steps.
"Mother, here is Theresa," he said.
She was embraced, but, in the half light, Mrs. Morton could not see her
face. She felt the cold firmness of her cheeks, and she kissed them
through strands of wind-blown hair.
With a processional solemnity, they passed into the drawing-room, where
Mrs. Morton, Basil and a maid helped to free her of her wraps.
"You must be very cold, dear. Come to the fire."
"I'm not cold, thank you. I loved it. I felt as if we were another wind,
we went so fast."
"I wanted Basil to take the brougham," Mrs. Morton murmured. She had
pictured herself settling Theresa in a chair, putting a cushion to her
back, holding one of her hands, perhaps; but Theresa was standing very
straight--her back seemed unusually strong--and she was smiling faintly,
while her hands were occupied in the swift removal of her gloves. There
seemed no point at which she could be conveniently caressed, and Mrs.
Morton sank into the chair beside the tea-table.
"You will be glad of tea," she said. "Basil, won't you make Theresa sit
down? She looks so tired. Now, dear, you would like some hot toast."
Theresa was in an uncertain temper, and if she had not been very eager
for buttered toast, she would have refused it as a form of
contradiction; but the sight of it shining in the hearth overcame
annoyance with desire. She foresaw, however, a quick starvation if Mrs.
Morton continued to accompany offers of food with these firmly uttered
statements.
"You had a tiring journey?" There was just a redeeming tilt at the end
of the sentence, and Theresa condescended to consider it a question.
"No thank you. I liked watching the country."
"But in winter time it is all so sad."
"But this is spring--almost! And I saw some lambs--the first. They're
early here." And as she spoke she saw the green cleanliness of the earth
when the snow has melted into it, and lambs, like little forgotten
patches of that snow, leaping about the hills.
She went on quickly. "And there were pigs. I like them. They're so
greedy, and they don't pretend to care for anything except their--except
what they eat."
The subject of pigs was not encouraged. Basil was handing her more
toast, as though he wished it were a kingdom, and she knew he was too
much engaged with the joy of her presence to listen to her babblings. It
was right that he should be happy at seeing her in the home they were to
share, yet, in that moment, he lost something with which she once had
dowered him. She eyed him critically. He was good to look at, and beauty
always softened her; but his strongest appeal for her had been his
distance, and here, among the teacups with his mother, he was too near,
he almost seemed domestic. She realized the cold cruelty of her phase,
she hoped it would not last, but she could do nothing to be rid of it.
She was forced to her callous scrutiny, she was entirely shorn of any
sense of possession, and while her mind told her she would recover her
old sensations, her heart was like a dead thing in her breast. She knew
the reason, for it lay on that heart which it had struck, and when she
stirred she felt the sharp edge of Alexander's letter.
She moved now, quickly.
"She wants a cushion," Mrs. Morton cooed, but Basil was already propping
Theresa's back.
She smiled at him, from the lips, trying to feel the kindness that lay
crushed.
"You're lovely," he said, under cover of Mrs. Morton's manipulation of
the tea things.
She gave her emphatic half-shake of the head. She knew the wind had
nipped her, that her hair fell in wisps about her face, and his loving
blindness made her disloyalty the blacker. She would not be disloyal,
but she questioned her love for him, she faced the possibility of
resigning him, and at once she had an impulse to thrust herself into his
arms. Instead, she put her hand in his and held it fast, and, like a
gentle tide, she felt the return of tenderness.
Alone in the pretty room prepared for her, and still with that
determined loyalty upon her, she made to throw Alexander's letter in the
fire; yet to do that, she argued, was to admit its power, and it had no
power for anything but a disturbance that would pass. It came too late.
A little while ago--she did not follow the thought, but she knew its
path. She shut her eyes to it.
She loved Basil. She could not picture life without him. After herself
she belonged to him. She was proud to be his. He was good, and true,
and for all her self-esteem she wondered how he came to love her.
After dinner, as they all sat in the drawing-room Theresa gazed at Mrs.
Morton in a kind of wonder. She sat in her chair, crotcheting slowly,
with frequent reference to an instruction book, and counting her
stitches half aloud between her amiable sentences. In uttering
commonplaces, she had a dignity which forced the listener to reach
deeply or loftily for truth, and return from that vain pilgrimage with a
sensation of having been robbed by the wayside. When she announced that
their nearest neighbours, the Warings, were to have tea with them on the
following day, Theresa waited anxiously for the something more implied
in those pregnant tones. But Mrs. Morton serenely counted stitches. At
length, "You will like the Warings," she said.
Theresa stared into the fire. She was prepared to hate anyone thus
introduced. She was not far from hating Mrs. Morton. Her lips tightened,
her idle hands pressed each other closely. Had this placid person ever
been in love? Was she so obtuse that she could not feel the fret of
Theresa's spirit? Did she not know that solitude is the great need of
lovers, or realize that Basil had not yet so much as kissed her? The
presence of the groom had prevented confidences on the drive, and in the
house Mrs. Morton had shadowed her in excess of welcome. She looked at
Basil, who was looking at her, and raised her eyebrows wearily. He
raised his own, and they smiled in the delightful comradeship of
annoyance shared. She wanted to talk to him, to make amends for the
wickedness of her thoughts, and here they sat, all three, and her tongue
was tied. She longed to tear the crotchet from Mrs. Morton's plump white
hands; she felt the old anger of her childhood rising to her throat, and
she pressed her hand to it and forced it back.
"Basil, Theresa's throat is sore. You shouldn't have driven her in the
dog-cart on such a day. You shall have some sugared lemon, dear. Ring
the bell, Basil."
"Not for that, please! I haven't a sore throat. I--just happened to
touch myself there--oh, really!" There was a laughing anguish in her
voice. Was she to be handcuffed as well as starved?
"Don't be afraid of giving trouble, dear."
"Theresa always tells the truth, Mother."
"Oh, of course! Very well. But she looked as if she had a sudden pain."
"I'm afraid it is a habit."
"That reminds me of an old lady I knew when I was young. I thought she
had St. Vitus's dance, until her maid told me that she wore all her
valuable jewellery on her--under her dress, and she was constantly
touching herself to make sure it was all there."
"What were you hiding, Theresa?"
She lifted her chin to show him the pretty lines of her bare neck.
"Ah, your own beauty," he added softly.
"Something else," she said.
"Tell me."
She shook her head. "You must find out."
Mrs. Morton's voice penetrated this happy murmur.
"You crotchet, Theresa?"
Morton had to shake the hand he held. "Theresa, Mother asks you if you
crotchet."
"Oh! No, I don't. That's very pretty."
"It is for you."
"Is it?"
"Yes, a tray cloth."
"Thank you. How clever of you!"
"I'll teach you if you would care to learn."
"I don't think I could. I've got such stiff fingers for things like
that. They're good enough for typing. Basil, did I tell you about that
last woman of mine?"
It was during the recital of this tale that Mrs. Morton left the room.
Theresa stopped and looked at the closing door.
"Was I saying anything wrong?" she asked. "I am so used to talking
frankly to Mr. Smith and Jack, that I forget other people may not like
it. Was I?"
"No, dear, but the whole thing is rather disagreeable to her."
"But how?"
"Well, you see----"
"Is it that she doesn't like you to marry a woman who has earned her own
living?"
"That, of course, was rather a shock. Darling, try to understand her
attitude. She has old-fashioned notions of womanhood. She thinks you
should not have been allowed to do the work you did, and I own that it
seems unnatural to me, too. But you are wonderful, Theresa. You are the
exceptional woman who can do these things. You are unscathed."
She stood up and fell into that attitude in which he had first seen her.
"I am not unscathed," she said. "If you drop down into hell, even
another person's hell, you come back--scorched. And I have the marks."
She turned to him quiveringly. "Basil, have you ever suffered?"
"I think so. My father was killed--I found him. And I--he was a great
deal to me."
"Death!" She flung back her head. "Oh yes, yes, yes; death is so much
worse, and so much better, than people fancy. But have you felt your own
heart shrivelling to a thing like a dried nut? Have you carried that
about with you as--as some people do? And have you heard stories told by
women whose eyes are dry because they have no tears left? I have. I
have. Oh, shocking stories of sin, of things no girl should know the
name of!" She spoke more quietly. "It's quite possible that I know more
than you do of the world's evil, for you are the kind of person who
never looks in the gutters: you keep your head high, but I look
everywhere. And I want to see the gutter dirt: it's part of life, and
the sun shines on that as well as on the flowers in the gardens. But I
don't like it. You're not to think I like it. But you are to think I am
very proud of having done that work. I suppose Mrs. Morton has not told
your friends I am a working woman?"
"She did not wish them to know. You must not think us snobs, Theresa,
but in a place like this there are so many prejudices, and we do not
want you to be hurt by them."
"I can't be hurt by foolishness, and I won't be in the conspiracy. And
why should your mother feel like that? She is Mr. Smith's sister, and
their father educated himself, and then made sweets. From her point of
view isn't that as bad, worse even, than my honourable calling?"
"You see, you are a woman, Theresa."
"Are we never to go unveiled and free?"
He smiled gently. "Moreover, when my mother married my father she
considered herself a member of his family rather than of her own."
"Oh!"
"Some women do, you know."
"Oh! Don't hope for that from me, Basil. I won't be welded into
anybody's family or anybody's nature."
"Darling,"--his arms were round her--"I never want you to be anything
but yourself."
She leaned back.
"But is it a self you like? Are you satisfied with it? You know"--she
touched his chin lightly with her forefinger--"we're going to have a lot
of trouble."
"If we are together----"
"Because we are together. Oh, I can smell it afar off. I did directly I
came into the house."
"Don't you like it?" he asked, and released her gently.
"The house is beautiful--but we're not going to be alone in it, are we?
Oh, I'm not complaining, but I rather wish we were going to have a
semi-detached villa, and a maid like Bessie. Yet I hate housework! I'm
afraid--I'm dreadfully afraid--I shall get annoyed." Her head was on one
side, she twisted her fingers among his.
"Theresa, you will be considerate of my mother."
"Don't, don't, don't! If you put questions in the form of statements I
shall go mad."
There was patience in his look, but he redeemed it with a laugh. "I beg
your pardon. Theresa, will you be considerate of my mother?"
"I'll try."
"I thought you prided yourself on your tact."
"I do. I have it highly developed, but the devil sometimes steals it."
"You are a little childish."
"Very!"
"And my mother is dear to me."
"So was mine to me. She was--sweet, my mother was, but that didn't
prevent my getting angry with her. I wish I didn't get so angry. Do you
understand that you're engaged to a volcano, an active one?"
"I'm beginning to."
"And I'm in eruption now. Be careful."
"I love my volcano."
"She'll hurt you, often. Destroy you altogether, perhaps. Basil, I want
to tell you something. There'll be times when I shall nearly hate you."
"Why?"
"I don't know. It's just me. I'm cruel. But love me always, and I'll
come back to you."
"I can't help loving you, dear," he said, and kissed her hair.
"But do you trust me?"
"Darling, of course!"
She made herself more comfortable in his arms. "Then I'll be worthy, if
I can. Take care of me."
She was happy that night when she went to bed, and, sitting by the fire
with her softly slippered feet close to the blaze, she could take
Alexander's letter from its place, and hold it easily in a hand on
which Basil's diamonds sparkled.
Only that morning the letter had been dropped into the hall as she stood
there in her travelling coat, with the veil that swathed her little hat
pushed up so that she might drink the hot milk Bessie offered.
"That'll be for the master," Bessie said. "No, it's for you, Miss Terry.
Now, drink the milk. I won't have people telling me you're thin. Of
course, you're thin! You tell 'im I've given you hot milk every morning
this last week."
"All right, Bessie, all right. He knows you take care of me."
"So 'e ought."
She had held the letter in her pocket, stroking it with her thumb; and
then Grace and the baby had come in to say good-bye, and not until she
was in the train had she been able to read what Alexander wrote. Then
she read it many times. "Will you not be here to see it flush the hills?
And the streams so fierce and heavy that it takes your breath away." She
wanted to be there. She thought she felt the cold spray on her face. She
felt the air: passing through it was to be new-made. Her steps were
buoyant, her eyes were washed and clean. She heard the water, she heard
the larches singing, and her heart cried in her breast. She would dream
to-night, and she longed for the darkness and feared it. She would see
the lakeside and the black precipice, the water would be whispering at
her feet, and she would be waiting, waiting. It was a long time since
she had been there.
But Alexander's letter roused her to more than this sickness of longing
that she dared not analyse too closely. "I've been waiting for that book
of yours," he said. There would never be a book. And he was looking for
it. She was hurt and shamed as by a promise broken to a child. Talking
freely on that wonderful one day of theirs, she had told him what she
meant to do, and he had given her that plunging look of response. How
had she dared to talk like that, and then do nothing? She knew the
answer. And now it was too late. She was to be a county lady. She had
come to an age when she was no longer sure that she had the power she
had always wanted; but she ought to have put it to the test, for she had
told Alexander what she was going to do; she had told Alexander. The
words came with such force that her lips framed them. She had told
Alexander. She had another tale for him now. "Oh yes," she said, "you
shall have a letter," and she quickly wrote it, sitting there with the
firelight on her bare arms and her quick, thin hands.
"Dear Alexander,
"Thank you for your letter. It was like seeing the place. I didn't
begin the book. I lost faith, and I'll never get it back. I'm
weak, but perhaps it is a good thing and has saved the spilling of
much ink. It was a young ambition of mine, and you know what
Father is! So I'm going to be married instead, for that's a
profession we all think we are fit for! I shall see you at Easter.
It will be two years then.
"Theresa."
She felt like a penitent who has relieved her soul of sin and planted a
dart in the breast of her confessor.