1
That year winter was so mild as to be almost indistinguishable from
spring. Imperceptibly, the sparse patches of snow, the hyacinthine
patches of blue light lying in hollows of the hills, in wrinkles of the
land, turned into small waxen leafless flowers, watching, waiting, in the
grass.
By the beginning of February the song of the birds had begun; a symbol
that to most hearts is almost Chinese, the symbol and its idea being so
indistinguishable that it seems that it is Hope herself who is perched
out there on the top of the trees, singing.
One day one would suddenly realise that the mirabelle and purple prunus
were actually out; but blossom is such a chilly thing, and it arrives so
quietly, that it seemed to make no difference in that leafless world.
Then would come a day when the air was exquisitely soft and the sky very
blue; and between the sky and earth there would seem to be a silent
breathless conspiracy. Not a bud, only silence; but one knew that
something would soon happen. But the next morning, there would be an east
wind—skinning the bloom off the view, turning the sky to lead, and making
the mirabelle and prunus look, in their leaflessness, so bleak that they
might have been the flower (in its sense of _essence, embodiment of_),
of the stern iron qualities of January. The singing of the birds, too,
became a cold, cold sound, as if the east wind was, like the ether, a
medium through which we hear as well as see. But such days were rare.
Dick loved early spring. When the children were little they used to
have “treasure-hunts” at their Christmas parties. They would patter
through drawing-room, dining-room, hall, billiard-room, finding, say, an
india-rubber duck in the crown of a hat, or a bag of sweets in a pocket
of the billiard-table; and Dick’s walks through the grounds in these
early spring days were like these “treasure-hunts”; for he would suddenly
come upon a patch of violets under a wall, or track down a sudden waft
of perfume to a leafless bush starred with the small white blossoms of
winter-sweet, or—greatest prize of all—stand with throbbing heart by
the hedges of yew, gazing into a nest with four white eggs, while he
whispered: “Look Anna!”
For this was the first year that he had gone on these hunts alone.
To tell the truth, he was very tired of his _liaison_. The lady was
expensive, and her conversation was insipid. Also ... _perhaps_ ... his
blood was not _quite_ as hot as it had once been.
“Buck up, old bean! What’s the _matter_ with you?” ... _The fires within
are waning_ ... where had he heard that expression? Oh yes, it was what
Jollypot had said about that old Hun conductor, Richter, when, years
ago, they had taken her to Covent Garden to hear _Tristan_—how they had
laughed! It was such a ridiculous expression to use about such a stolid
old Hun and, besides, it happened to be quite untrue, Pepa and Teresa had
said.
“What’s the matter with you to-night, you juggins?” _The fires within
are waning_ ... it was all very well to laugh, but really it was rather
a beautiful expression.... Good Lord! It wasn’t so many years before he
would be reaching his grand climacteric.... Peter Trevers died then, so
did Jim Lane.
* * * * *
One morning he noticed the Doña standing stock-still in the middle of
the lawn, staring at something through her _lorgnette_. She was smiling.
“What a beautiful mouth she has!” he thought, as he drew nearer.
Softly he came up and stood beside her, and discovered that what she was
watching was a thrush that was engaged, by means of a series of sharp
rhythmic pecks, in hauling out of the ground the fat white coils of an
enormous worm.
It reminded him of a Russian song that his lady had on her gramophone,
the _Volga Boat Song_—the haulers on the Volga sang it as they hauled in
the ropes.... _I-i-sh-tscho-rass_ he began to hum; she looked up quickly:
“You remember that?”
“What?” he asked nervously. In answer, she sang to the same tune:
_Ma-ri-nee-ro_, and then said: “The sailors used to sing it at Cadiz,
that autumn we spent there ... when the children were little.”
“By Jove, yes, so they did!” he answered with a self-deprecatory laugh.
The thrush had now succeeded in hauling up almost the whole length of the
worm; and it lay on the ground really very like the coils of a miniature
rope. Then suddenly he lost the rhythm, changed his method to a series of
little jerky, impatient, ineffectual desultory taps, pausing between each
to look round with a bright _distrait_ eye; and, finally, when a few more
taps would have finished the job, off he hopped, as if he could bear it
no longer.
“Silly fellow!” said the Doña.
Dick was racking his brain in the hopes of finding some link between
thrushes and Pepa.... “Pepa was very fond of thrushes” ... but was
she?... “Pepa with the garden hose was rather like that thrush with the
worm” ... and wasn’t there an infant malady called “thrush” ... had Pepa
ever had it? no, no, it wouldn’t do; later on an apter occasion would
arise for some tender little reconciliatory reminiscence.
“You know, I had little Anna and Jasper baptised into the Catholic Church
at Christmas,” said the Doña suddenly, and, as it seemed to Dick, quite
irrelevantly; but her voice was unmistakably friendly.
“By Jove ... did you really?”
“I did. I arranged it with Father Dawson. The children enjoyed keeping it
a secret from Harry.”
Dick chuckled; the Doña smiled.
“Next year little Anna will make her first Communion.”
“Does she want to?” Dick had never noticed in his grand-daughter the
slightest leanings to religion.
“I don’t know. There are compensations,” and again the Doña smiled.
“What? a new Girl-Guide kit?”
“No; the complete works of Scott.”
“My dear Anna—you ought to have been the General of the Jesuits!”
The Doña looked flattered.
“Well, Dick,” she went on in a brisk, but still friendly voice, “we
really must decide soon—_are_ we going to have pillar-roses or clematis
at the back of the borders? Rudge says....”
They spent a happy, amicable morning together; and at luncheon their
daughters were conscious that the tension between them had considerably
relaxed.
2
One sunny evening, walking in his pleasance, and weaving out of memories
chaplets for a dear head, as, in the dead years, he had woven them out of
those roses, white and damask, the Knight of La Tour-Landry resolved to
compile, from the “matter of England, France and Rome,” a book for the
guidance of his motherless daughters.
In that book Teresa read the following _exemplum_:—
“It is contained in the story of Constantinople, there was
an Emperor had two daughters, and the youngest had good
conditions, for she loved well God, and prayed him, at all
times that she awaked, for the dead. And as she and her sister
lay a-bed, her sister awoke and heard her at her prayers, and
scorned and mocked her, and said, ‘hold your peace, for I may
not sleep for you.’ And so it happened that youth constrained
them both to love two brethren, that were knights, and were
goodly men. And so the sisters told their council each to
other. And at the last they gave the Knights tryst that they
should come to lie by them by night privily at certain hour.
And that one came to the youngest sister, but him thought he
saw a thousand dead bodies about her in sheets; and he was so
sore afraid and afeard, that he ran away as he had been out of
himself, and caught the fevers and great sickness through the
fear that he had, and laid him in his bed, and might not stir
for sickness. But that other Knight came into that other sister
without letting, and begat her with child. And when her father
wist she was with child, he made cast her into the river, and
drench her and her child, and he made to scorch the Knight
quick. Thus, for that delight, they were both dead; but that
other sister was saved. And I shall tell you on the morrow it
was in all the house, how that one Knight was sick in his bed;
and the youngest sister went to see him and asked him whereof
he was sick. ‘As I went to have entered between the curtains of
your bed, I saw so great number of dead men, that I was nigh
mad for fear, and yet I am afeard and afraid of the sight.’
And when she heard that, she thanked God humbly that had kept
her from shame and destruction.... And therefore, daughters,
bethink you on this example when ye wake, and sleep not till ye
have prayed for the dead, as did the youngest daughter.”
3
Towards the end of February Teresa heard excited voices coming from the
Doña’s morning-room. She went in and found the Doña sitting on the sofa
with a white face and blazing eyes, her father nervously shifting the
ornaments on the chimneypiece, and Concha standing in the middle of the
room and looking as obstinate as Caroline the donkey.
“Teresa!” the Doña said in a very quiet voice, “Concha tells us she is
engaged to Captain Dundas.”
But of course!... had not Parker said that there was “the marriage
likeness” between them—“both with such lovely blue eyes?”
“And he has written to your father—we have just received this letter,”
and the Doña handed it to her: “From the letter and from her we learn
that Captain Dundas has perverted her. She is going to become a
Protestant.”
There was a pause; Concha’s face did not move a muscle.
“The reason why she is going to do this is that Captain Dundas would be
disinherited by his uncle if he married a Catholic. What do you think of
this conduct, Teresa?”
Concha looked at her defiantly.
“I don’t ... I ... if Concha doesn’t believe in it all, I don’t see why
she should sacrifice her happiness to something she doesn’t believe in,”
she found herself saying.
Concha’s face relaxed for a second, and she flashed her a look of
gratitude.
“Teresa!” cried the Doña, and her voice was inexpressibly reproachful.
Dick turned round from the chimneypiece: “Teresa’s quite right,” he said;
“upon my soul, it would be madness, as she says, to sacrifice one’s
happiness for ... for that sort of thing.”
“Dick!”
And he turned from the cold severity of the Doña’s voice and eye to a
re-examination of the ornaments.
As to Teresa, though his words had been but an echo and corroboration of
her own, she was unreasonable enough to be shocked by them; coming, as
they did, from a descendant of the men who had witnessed the magnificent
gesture with which Ridley and Latimer had lit a candle in England.
“Well, Teresa, as you think the same as Concha ... I don’t know what I
have done.... I seem to have failed very much as a mother. It must be my
own fault,” and she laughed bitterly.
Concha’s face softened: “Doña!” she said appealingly.
“Concha! Are you really going to do this terrible thing?”
“I must ... it’s what Teresa said ... I mean ... it would be so mad not
to!”
“I see—it would be mad not to sell Jesus for thirty pieces of silver.
Well, in that case, there is nothing more to be said ... and you have
your father and sister as supporters,” and again she laughed bitterly.
Concha’s face again hardened; and, with a shrug, she left the room.
There was silence for a few seconds, and Teresa glanced mechanically at
the letter she held in her hand: “... won’t think it frightful cheek
... go rather gently while I’m at the Staff College ... my uncle ...
Drumsheugh ... allowance ... will try so hard to make Concha happy ... my
uncle ... Drumsheugh ... hope Mrs. Lane won’t mind frightfully ... the
Scottish Episcopal Church ... very high, it doesn’t acknowledge the Pope,
that’s the only difference.”
Suddenly the Doña began to sob convulsively: “She ... is ... my child, my
baby! Oh, none of you understand ... none of you _understand_! It’s my
fault ... I have sinned ... I ought never to have married a Protestant.
My Pepa ... my poor Pepa ... she knows _now_ ... she would stop it if she
could. Oh, _what_ have I done?”
Teresa kneeled down beside her, and took one of her cold hands in hers;
she herself was cold and trembling—she had only once before, at Pepa’s
death, seen her mother break down.
Dick came to her other side, and gently stroked her hair: “My dear,
you’ve nothing to blame yourself for,” he said, “and there are really
lots of good Protestants, you know. And I’ve met some very broad-minded
Roman Catholics, too, who took a ... a ... sensible view of it all. These
Spanish priests are apt....”
“Spanish priests!” she cried, sitting up in her chair and turning blazing
eyes upon him, “what do _you_ know of Spanish priests? You, an elderly
Don Juan Tenorio!”
Dick flushed: “Well, I _have_ heard you know ... those priests of yours
aren’t all so mighty immaculate,” he said sullenly.
“Dick! How—_dare_—you?” and having first frozen him with her stare, she
got up and left the room.
Dick turned to Teresa: “For heaven’s sake,” he said, “do make your
mother see that Protestants are Christians too, that they aren’t all
blackguards.”
“It would be no good—that’s really got nothing to do with it,” said
Teresa wearily.
“Nothing to do with it? Oh, well—you’re all too deep for _me_. Anyhow,
it’s all a most awful storm in a teacup, and the thing that really makes
her so angry is that she knows perfectly well she can do nothing to
prevent it. Well, do go up to her now.... _I_ daren’t show my face within
a mile ... get her some _eau-de-Cologne_ or something. ’Snice! ’Snice,
old man! Come along then, and look at the crocuses,” and, followed by
’Snice, he went through the French window into the garden.
Yes; her father had been partly right—a very bitter element in it all
was that the passionate dominant Doña could do nothing to prevent the
creatures of her body from managing their lives in their own way. What
help was it that behind her stood the convictions of the multitudinous
dead, the “bishops, priests, deacons, sub-deacons, acolytes, exorcists,
lectors, porters, confessors, virgins, widows, and all the holy people of
God?” She and they were powerless to arrest the incoming tide of life;
she had identified herself with the dead—with what was old, crazy, and
impotent, and, therefore, she was pre-doomed to failure.
Teresa had a sudden vision of the sinful couch (according to the Doña’s
views) of Concha and Rory, infested by the dead: “I say, Concha, what a
frightful bore! They ought to have given us a mosquito-net.” “Oh Lord!
Well, never mind—I’m simply _dropping_ with sleep.” And so to bed,
comfortably mattressed by the shrouds of the “holy people of God.”
She went up and tried the Doña’s door, but found it locked. She felt that
she ought next to go to Concha, upon whom, she told herself, all this was
very hard—that she, who had merely set out upon the flowery path that
had been made by the feet of myriads and myriads of other sane and happy
people since the world began, should have her joy dimmed, her laughter
arrested, by ghosts and other peoples’ delusions. But, though she told
herself this, she could not feel any real pity; her heart was as cold as
ice.
However, she went to Concha’s room, and found her sitting at her desk
writing a letter—probably a long angry one to that other suffering sage,
Elfrida Penn.
“Poor old Concha!” she said, “I’m sorry it should be like this for you.”
Concha—puffed up with the sense of being a symbol of a whole
generation—scowled angrily: “Oh, it’s all too fantastic! Thank the Lord
I’ll soon be out of all this!”
At times there was something both dour and ungracious about Concha—a
complete identification of herself with the unbecoming rôles she chose to
act.
Teresa found herself wondering if, after all, she herself had not more
justification with regard to her than recently she had come to fear.