That was the beginning of their happy time. Morton taught Theresa to
ride and, mounted on a steady grey animal while he bestrode one more
mettlesome, she went with him into every corner of his land, and began
to understand his pride of possession. He was a good landlord, and there
was nothing he did not oversee, little of which she could complain, and
she said so frankly; but she startled him with a question as they rode
out one morning, waving farewell to a Mrs. Morton who was beginning to
find herself neglected by young people unnaturally busy over cottages
and plans.
"Basil, were you going to give me a wedding present?"
"Of course."
"Then may I choose it?"
"I wanted to give you a surprise."
"No, no, let me choose."
"Tell me, then."
"I don't want diamonds, or pearls, or gold. I want lead--I think it's
lead. Perhaps it's iron. Yes, I think it is. I want you to take water
into those old cottages on the peppermint land."
"Where do you mean, dear?"
"I mean the land Mrs. Morton bought, not the hereditary domain! Wasn't
it bought with peppermint, and sticks of bright pink rock, and yards of
liquorice? I like to think of ragged little children putting their dirty
faces against dirty window panes, and gloating over masses of your
grandfather's sweets. Don't you?"
"I'm afraid I have often wished he had made money, if he had to make it,
in a different way."
"That's because you have more false pride than imagination. Why, he has
made a fairy feast for children! Think of the dark winter streets, wet,
perhaps, and the lamps just lighted and bright reflections in the
pavements, and children staring at pyramids of sweetness. It's
lovely--magical, like being a perpetual Father Christmas. So when I call
it the peppermint land, I do not sneer, and you'll lay on the water,
won't you?"
"There's a well quite near, darling."
"It's across a field."
"A small field."
"Quite big enough."
"Theresa, you know I treat my tenants like human beings, but you want to
pamper them."
"No I don't. I know it's the tendency, but I don't. Oh, my good soul, if
you had ever done any housework, you would know the value of water! Have
you ever done any? Have you ever so much as washed up a dish? No; I
thought not. I have. And I've scrubbed floors--don't shudder; it's good
exercise--and I've cooked; but I have not had several children to look
after at the same time, and that's what many of these women have to do.
I know it's pastoral and patriarchal to go to the well, but it's not so
pleasant to come back with two heavy pails. And it has to be done a good
many times a day if there's to be cleanliness. I'm not a stickler for
too much cleaning, but I saw a woman the other day carrying pails when
she wasn't fit to lift a weight. She rested four times between the well
and the house. I reached her in time to prevent her going on a second
journey. It was when you were seeing about those young trees."
"The larches?"
"Yes." She frowned. She had avoided naming them, and now he stabbed her
with their remembered scent.
"Did you--what did you say to her?"
"I told her she wasn't to do it. No; I didn't complain about the
landlord! But she wanted the water for washing, so I fetched it myself."
"Theresa!"
"There, you see! And I'm a strong young woman. Imagine--oh, try to
imagine me in her position!"
"I'll do it."
She leaned to touch his hand. "Thank you. You only need to see things.
'The bride presented the bridegroom with a pair of spectacles, and the
bridegroom's gift to the bride was a ton of iron piping!'" She shook her
reins. "Shall we gallop? I wish this old omnibus were a bit friskier. He
gives me nothing to do. Can't I be promoted to something else?"
"I have been seeing about a splendid chestnut," he said slyly, "but that
was to be part of your wedding-present."
"Ah well, it's better to be a ministering angel than a fiery horsewoman,
and the rushing of the water in those pipes will be sweeter to me than
the sound of clattering hoofs. A-ha! Oh, do give this old beast a good
knock with your whip!"
She was happy. Mrs. Morton continued to ruffle the smoothness of life,
but she could do no more, and she was allowed few opportunities of
attempting it, for on most evenings she sat alone in the drawing-room,
and in the daytime Basil and Theresa were far afield. This was not the
daughter-in-law she had desired. Where were the afternoon calls, the
drives with Theresa by her side and Basil opposite, the pleasant hours
after dinner, with a little music, a little talk, a little work? Theresa
could not even play the piano, her hands were idle, and Mrs. Morton was
really glad when she did not talk, for she feared what she might say;
but the sound of her voice coming across the wide hall when the
smoking-room door was open, her sharp exclamations and her laughter gave
the elder woman a new sense of isolation. In some subtle way the house
seemed to be no longer hers. Theresa, who had been the stranger, had
taken a possession stronger than that of keys and command, and whereas
the girl had once stood out glaringly against the sober, peaceful
background of the house, it had now become but an appendage of herself.
The quick thud of her feet as she ran down the stairs, her manner of
opening doors, the whistling call with which she summoned Basil--these,
by the vividness of her strength, had overcome the old stillness, the
old ordered atmosphere.
And, indeed, the place had become a home to Theresa. Her irritability
was soothed by Morton's loyal companionship. They were friends as well
as lovers; she was breaking down his fences, and she loved power. She
knew she was changing his attitude in a hundred little ways. She was
moulding him to the kind of man with whom it was possible to live, and
daily she liked him better. But she had another cause for happiness. She
was still making up her stories, and as she wandered about the house she
was accompanied by little illusive figures with sunny heads. They went
before her in the passages, they ran up and down the stairs and
scampered across the broad polished floors, and for her, too, the
silence and decorum of the house were banished. And the garden was
inhabited. There were more voices than those of the rooks among the elms
and she saw happy people by the lakeside. She saw herself among them,
dabbling with the water, racing across the lawn or climbing trees, and
she surprised herself with the positive belief that this life was far
better than one of fame. She felt that through her means some joyous
spirit of childhood had burst its bonds and broken into these separate
fragments which were to be her children, and the thought brightened her
eyes and her voice. It solaced her for the tiny disappointments that
pricked, but were too small to have a name, almost too small to be felt.
She waved her hand towards an upper window, one afternoon as they rode
down the drive, and he looked sharply at the house and then at her. "To
whom are you waving?" he asked.
"To someone you could not see, my good grammarian," she said, and hoped
a little fearfully for further questions.
He turned in the saddle and looked back, and for the sake of the strong,
easy twist of his body she forgave his lack of curiosity as he said:
"Fancies again?"
And she said: "Yes; fancies."
He was content to remain ignorant of them, as he had often been before.
He had no desire to enter into that very real part of her existence, and
she blocked out her disappointment with a quick word of another nature.
"I like you best in your riding things." She was never tired of summing
up the things she liked in him.
He smiled and let his eyes run over her trim, green figure, the thick
plaits of hair under the little hat. She nodded.
"I know what you are thinking. You are congratulating yourself that I'm
quite presentable, in spite of my intolerable past."
"Will you never stop teasing me about that? As if I'm not as proud of it
as you are!"
"Then I have taught you how to be."
"I'm willing to acknowledge my teacher. But I wasn't thinking that. You
look so fair and free--like the breath of the morning."
"Oh ho! Aren't we being nice to each other? And who is having fancies
now? Basil"--she could never let a wound fester in her--"Basil, I wish
you'd want me to tell you everything."
"But I do. What is it you want to say?"
She controlled the petulance of her lips. "Would you like me to have
secrets?"
"I can't imagine your having them."
Under her gauntlets the muscles of her hands were tightened. The promise
of possession had very slightly changed his attitude towards her, and
she resented his security. She was not willing that he should have no
doubts, even had there been no cause for them. She wanted the old
uncertainty, the old waiting on her moods. He grew more loving, more
demonstrative, but he was less her servant, and she stretched against
the bonds; but if he were so little eager to know the utmost of her, so
impervious to jealousy or to hints, then she could in honesty keep her
cherished silence. She changed the subject. They were happiest when
their talk was clear of personalities. Discussions about tenants, the
wisdom of giving help there or refusing it here, and information from
Morton about crops and the raising of cattle, drew them into a closer
comradeship. But to-day Theresa's questions were half-hearted, and had
Morton been less enthusiastic he would have noticed that she did not
listen.
The day was of a new-washed clearness, but it seemed to her that someone
had smudged it with a dirty hand; and in her breast was the vague
longing that was like a hole there, while the clamorous voices, stilled
for a little while, were taking deep breaths as if they would test their
powers.
She blamed herself, she blamed her restlessness, but she looked
frowningly at Morton, and while she owned her fault she could put the
burden of some of it on his back. It seemed to Theresa that he loved the
surface of her and would not look into the depths, that a principle of
his life was to avoid looking into depths; and as she had been eager to
know the evil of the world and the turmoil and the stain of it, and
below that the great serenity, so she longed for a like capacity to see
into his soul, to show him all, or nearly all, of hers. He baulked her
constantly, and the more successfully, by his very ignorance of her
need. Other barriers she had broken down, but here she failed.
She put an abrupt question as they rode home.
"Had you ever been in love before you saw me?"
"Never until I saw you, and now--for always."
He took for granted her own singleness of affection. He was benign,
smiling a little, and content. Little flushes of colour came and went in
her cheeks. She straightened herself, and then drooped in the saddle.
"You are tired," he said tenderly.
"No." And with a jerk she added: "I am cross."
That, too, he accepted without question. There was no doubt that he was
very patient. He watched her as he rode close to assure her of his care,
and when he helped her to dismount he held her for an instant, in spite
of the groom; but, making no response, she hurried to her room and to
her secret treasure there.
She was unpleasant all that evening and very much ashamed of herself,
but she could not shake the blackness from her, though she tried. She
heard in Morton's voice a distressing likeness to his mother's, and the
way he handled his knife and fork seemed to her sufficient excuse for
murder. At table she felt like a naughty schoolgirl, and she went early
to bed; but as she sat beside her fire the remembrance of Basil
standing, puzzled, in the hall as she went up the stairs, smote her with
the shame she would have felt if she had hurt a child. She was not fit
to have children--she, who had no self-control. She was capricious,
vain, exacting. She asked more than she was willing to give, yet she was
willing to give more than Basil asked. She knew she was endangered by
his complaisance, and she wanted to be loyal. She would be loyal. She
stared at the fire through mist and strands of hair, and slowly the mist
gathered itself into drops that fell with a little crack on her silken
petticoat. She was cold, though the flames were bright. She was not
conscious of the room. All round her there was a dark loneliness like
nothing she had ever seen or tasted. It was not the lonely terror of the
sea, nor the great cleansing solitude of the mountains, but something
formless, perilous. Now, everything was obscure, but she had a fear that
if she could not save herself she would emerge into a clearness that
would be terrible and enduring--a prison from which she could never
escape, whose walls were formed of what was ignoble in herself.
How long she sat there she could not tell. Now she did not cry, and
thought had left her; yet, in some dim way, she had made her resolution,
and news of it was carried to her mind.
She combed out her hair steadily and plaited it; she put on her lavender
dressing-gown, and the shoes that matched it, and she bathed her face.
It was white, and seemed to have fallen thinner in that hour, for she
had touched a deeper tragedy than her mother's death. She must be
honest, but such an honesty tore the heart from her.
She unlocked the little box where she kept no other thing than
Alexander's letter. She took it out and held it fast between her palms,
but she did not read it. She raised the upper hand, and laid her cheek
in its place.
"I ought not to have kept you," she said, and gave a little moan. "But
it's not because you're a man, Alexander; it's because you are a spirit.
You and Father are the only ones I've known. Must I resign you to keep
the other things? You see, Alexander, I do want the other things--a
home, and love, and--other things. But oh, there's no need to tell you,
for you know--you know."
She opened her door softly. The landing lights were out, no light came
from the hall, but as she followed the staircase curve she saw a golden
streak under the door of the smoking-room. A little nearer, and she
smelt tobacco. She entered, and saw Morton deep in a leather-covered
chair. He sprang to his feet.
She appeared to him like a sprite. She was pale and small, she seemed to
be overweighted by her hair, and the movements of her dressing-gown
revealed white ankles and white arms. The tender little hollow of her
neck was plain to him, and though he had seen it that very night it had
seemed a more modest thing than this between the close folds of her
gown.
She shut the door. "Basil. I want to talk to you."
"Not now, dear." He put the cigar on the mantelpiece, and held his hands
behind his back. "You must go to bed now. It's after twelve. Haven't you
been to sleep?"
"No; I've been thinking." She looked at him with wide, strained eyes. He
had never seen her so simple and so frail. "There's something I must
tell you."
"Is it so very important?"
Her voice quivered. "You may not think so."
"Can't it wait? Darling, you mustn't sit here with me at this hour of
night with all the house asleep."
"For me, there's no one in the house but you, and you are awake." She
put out her left hand, but dropped it when he did not take it. She went
on, with the hand at her throat. "There's a great gap in my life I've
never told you of. I don't feel honest. I want to tell you everything
to-night, and go on clear."
"Are you sure you're not asleep now, Theresa darling?" He drew nearer,
and she leaned against him.
"Basil, help me."
He held her off. "Not now. You must go back. You are over-tired, dear.
You've not been well all day."
"It's my soul that's sick," she said.
"It will be better in the morning. Hush! Did you hear something?" He
opened the door and listened. "Mother sleeps so lightly. Go back,
Theresa. Good-night, darling--good-night. Why, your eyes are heavy with
sleep."
"No," she said, and she had the look of someone starved--"no, that's
with crying."
He seized her hand and drew her limp figure to him. "Why, my sweet--why?
Because we didn't have a happy day? Darling, I'll think no more of it.
And you shall tell me everything in the morning. Only go now. You
mustn't wander about like this at night."
She was leaning against the door. Her lips twitched with an emotion
which was no longer one of distress.
"What are you afraid of?" she said.
He hesitated. "Your--good name," he answered.
She lifted her hands and dropped them, and for a moment he thought
something terrible was going to happen, for her eyes closed sharply, and
in her pale face her opened mouth was like a blot.
"Oh!" she cried. "Oh! oh! oh!" She laughed weakly, uncontrollably. She
dropped into a chair, while the tears rolled down her cheeks and her
body was shaken with her mirth.
He stared at her stonily and turned away to look into the fire. The
sound of her laughter shocked him, for it had entirely gone beyond her
keeping, but gradually it grew quieter and he thought he heard in it the
break of sobs. He looked at her. She was leaning her head on her hand
and crying softly, but as he turned she smiled and began to shake again.
"Why don't you laugh, too?" she said. "You are so funny."
"I can see nothing to laugh at. Go to bed at once. You are overwrought."
"I am in the best of health," she said. "Oh dear, I wish I could stop
laughing! But I'll go to bed."
"And you'll talk to me in the morning?"
"Yes, I'll talk to you in the morning." That was an answer he had not
expected, and he would have kissed her, but she turned her face aside.
He noticed that she had a little roll of paper in her right hand.