CHAPTER XVI

He had begged Theresa to go with him, but she had snapped her pale lips on her decision. "I'm not going."

He looked anxiously at her. The thin figure drooped in its mourning, and her neck seemed without sufficient strength to hold her head and its thick, untidy hair. "You don't look well," he murmured in distress. "Theresa, don't people sometimes have their hair cut off; when they're ill, I mean?"

"I believe so--yes."

"I think, my dear, you ought to sacrifice some of yours. You have so much of it, and it seems to tire you."

"But I haven't got a fever!" she protested. Under her shadowed eyes the nerves were twitching. She wished he would not discuss her; she wanted to forget her own existence.

"No, you're too pale for that," he agreed, gazing at her so earnestly that she laughed. He raised his brows. "I don't know why you are amused, my dear, but I know the mountains would make you strong. And you've always wanted to go there. Why won't you?"

She could not tell him the whole truth. She could not say: "I thought so wickedly of you and the woman there that I cannot face you both together. And the mountains would frown on me in anger and frighten me. I must wait till I'm forgiven." She told part of the truth.

"I've to learn to earn my own living, and I must begin. And, besides, I never did like Alexander. If he wasn't going to be there----"

"I don't want to press it," he said, and left her a little disappointed that he had not pursued the subject.

Edward Webb went to the hills, and she began her training as a secretarial clerk. For the sum of five pounds Blister's Commercial Academy undertook to fit her for the work, and find a situation for her afterwards. She did not like the large condescension of Mr. Blister--preferably called "The Professor," and, by jocular spirits, the "Mayor and Corporation"--but she knew she could learn anything he could teach her, and she tried not to allow her feminine conception of him to prejudice her against his instruction, tried to be so impersonal as not to shrink when he stooped over her shorthand, looking, and sometimes, alas! even feeling, like a large and clever whale.

Her fellow-students, youths as well as women, were to her a new race, drawn as if by some common inheritance to these inky labours. The youths were for the most part genuinely young, but the women were of all ages. There were girls of fourteen, pert or simpering, with premature glances for the dusty, doubtfully collared young men; there were young women with the independence of their generation, and scorn or frank comradeship for men; their glances were straight and piercing, painful to the undeveloped male, wishing to be paramount. There were older women, jerked into the necessity of earning bread, with the sheltered look still on them, and an air of injured or shy surprise at Fortune's hardy ways, and elderly women, making a last effort to cheat Fate. While she worked there, these people were of an absorbing interest to Theresa, but like all, save the most foolish of them, she soon passed out of the Academy, and, as she went, they fell back into the less active places of her mind; and it was strange, yet, in some way, pleasing to think that she, too, made one of a crowd of half-remembered fellow-creatures, with her own tiny but irrebuttable influence on some one's conception of life.

For farewell, the Professor embedded her hand in his.

"I'm glad you've got such a nice appointment," he said. "Such a gentleman. You'll find yourself very comfortable there. Come and tell me 'ow you get on. My young ladies often come and see me."

He was a kind, if somewhat familiar whale, and she decided not to throw away her glove.

Her gentlemanly employer was a solicitor called Edgar Partiloe. He was, she judged, about thirty years of age, and beginning to attract clients to his dingy office. No one could doubt his learning, and ability glimmered behind his powerful spectacles. His forehead was knobbly, and it shone, but his hands were beautiful, and she suspected elegance in his feet, though they were shod in crumpled leather.

She shared the outer office with an elderly and impoverished clerk called Arnold Jessop. He always wore an overcoat, and keeping his lunch in the pockets of it, he would begin, from an early hour, to extract crumbs of bread and cheese, and quickly pop them into his mouth when he thought she was not looking. He lived with a sister who kept a small Home for Cats, and his first sign of consideration for Theresa was when he brought a kitten out of the pocket where it had been sitting on his lunch.

"It's an orphan," he said, and blew his nose.

"Poor thing," said Theresa, stroking it with a forefinger. "I hadn't realized a kitten could be."

"Could be?"

"An orphan."

"Of course they can. I should think so! Pussy, pussy, pussy!" she heard the grating of his teeth as he rubbed the creature's neck, "ain't you an orphan, then? Ain't you? Course you are--just like anybody else. You can have him if you like," he added, and turned away as though he disdained his gift.

"That's very kind of you," she said. She hated cats, but for Mr. Jessop she felt affection. "That's very kind," she repeated. "But are you sure you won't miss it?" she asked hopefully.

He gave a single shake of the head, and bunched up his lips.

"There are always more of them coming on," he said with melancholy.

She looked at the little animal as it wandered adventurously on the office table. "Then I'll take it home to-night; but, till then, would you mind keeping it in your pocket? I'm afraid it will get trodden on. And, oh, look, it has put its wretched little paw into the inkpot! If you dare to smudge my beautiful clean papers----" She held it gingerly by the body while Mr. Jessop dabbed its foot with blotting-paper.

"You'll be kind to him?" he asked wistfully.

"Of course I shall, and I'll call him Arnold, after you. Because," she added hastily, in dread of misunderstanding, "because it was so good of you to give him to me." She smiled vividly, with her unfailing wish to please.

* * * * *

For three years, while Grace danced, and laughed, and made people happy by the look of her, and fell in love and out of it again; while Edward Webb did his dull clerkly work until evening brought him to his poets, and Uncle George bought and sold his grains, and yearned towards his harmonium and the seamen, Theresa went daily to Mr. Partiloe's office. She had meant to spend her leisure in writing, and though she had not yet penned a word, she still saw her future haloed with fame; and when she was saddened by the thought of her blank pages, and the fact that she was not even mastering her technique, she found comfort in the belief that the experiences of her idleness were necessary to her stock-in-trade.

With the upper froth of her mind, she was learning to be social.

"Grace," she said one night, as they lay in bed, "I wish you'd furbish me up a little bit, and--and drag me about with you to places, if I shouldn't be a nuisance."

"Oh, Terry! Would you really come?" There was a break in Grace's voice, and her hand sought Theresa's. "Would you? I've always wanted to."

"Have you? Won't you be ashamed? I'm such a gawk."

"Ashamed! You're lovely. I shall be so proud to show you off. There's no one like you, Terry. You're--you're a person! And if you'd only be a little tidier, you would be pretty. And nothing"--the loyalty of her heart swelled triumphantly into her voice--"nothing can prevent your being distinguished!"

Theresa chuckled. She had no illusions as to her outer self.

"Don't overdo it. I don't expect to be a success, but I should like to have a little fun. I've been--a bit lonely."

"Oh!" Grace moaned over her and held her close. "I didn't know you were wanting it. I didn't, Terry!"

"And I wasn't--truly. But now---"

"Well, you shan't be lonely any more, darling."

Theresa was wiser. She knew there was something in her nature which would not be so easily satisfied, but she did not know how to feed it; it was always piteously hungry, and even when she had drugged it with the sweet drink of gaiety and laughter, she could hear its muffled weeping far down in the depths of her heart.

The social engagements of these hard-working young women were not of an extravagant nature, nor were they many; but there were dances now and then, and supper parties, and sometimes a bevy of men and maidens would wait patiently outside the theatre for the joy of sitting in the front row of the pit, where they eat chocolates between the acts. On these occasions Uncle George always went to bed before their return, as a sign of his displeasure, but Edward Webb had the kettle on the fire and warm slippers for them if the night were cold.

Theresa liked dancing, and she liked going to the theatre, but she never lost her sense of strangeness in the company of Grace's friends. She knew she was essentially different from them, and she always found herself looking at things from the opposite side to theirs, so that there seemed to be a high wall between them, barring sight and deadening sound. Yet she had her little success among them. They thought her amusing, and she enjoyed their admiration, but gradually she dropped out of their affairs. That voice within was now impervious to the drugs, and she could get no peace from its clamour. Constant listening to the sound brought back the elfin eagerness of her looks, she grew thinner and more restless, yet her face grew indefinably in beauty of line and texture, for though she was unsatisfied and uncertain, she was at least listening to the claims of her spirit, and trying to understand them.

"What's the matter, Terry? Why aren't you coming?" Grace asked, with wide eyes full of anxious love, and Theresa, after searching for a way of putting it, replied:

"Well, you see, they are all very nice, but one time is just the same as another, and I think I want to read. I feel dried up inside. And Grace, I can't stand men. They always seem to be expecting something, and they bore me horribly when I'm not wondering how they ever came to be created."

"Yes, that's how you look at them. I'm glad I'm not so particular, though I don't care for any of them."

"That's because there isn't one you haven't been engaged to."

"Theresa, don't be vulgar."

"Isn't it true?"

"No--not quite. And Terry--I think I'm rather tired of gadding about myself. Let's stay at home together and mend our stockings."

"Mine do need it," said Theresa, glancing downward.

"And there's Father."

"Yes."

So they stayed at home, but at nine o'clock Grace said she wanted air, and would go for a little walk.

"Shall I come with you?" Theresa asked lazily, and was so much startled by Grace's quick and emphatic, "Oh no, thank you!" that she almost felt it in her conscience to follow her; but she sat still, frowning, and put a direct question when Grace, returned, unusually silent, and stood to warm her hands before the fire.

"Have you been out with a man?"

"Theresa, you're horrid. No, I have not. You talk to me as though I were a servant girl."

Theresa smiled. "I wish you were as unsusceptible as Bessie. She gets all her romance out of novelettes, bless her!"

Grace drew a troubled breath. "I've been doing something like that myself to-night." She stared into the fire, and spoke with a slight blurring of her words. "I feel as if I want to tell you. I've just been--imagining."

"Don't you often do it?"

"Why, no! I'm generally much too busy with the present, but lately--oh, well, I expect I'm silly."

"No. Go on."

"I'm nearly twenty-four."

"And I'm twenty-one."

"And, Terry, I'm beginning to want things."

Theresa knew the meaning of this general term. "It must be nice to know what you want," she said softly. "And to want such simple, beautiful things of every day."

"Yes, but they're hard to get. You can't do it all by yourself. I've been wandering up and down the streets, wishing I were going back to a little house with my own man in it, and a soft thing in a cradle. Theresa, aren't women wonderful?"

"What makes you say so?"

"They are so good! Oh, I want to be loved! Sometimes I so badly want to be loved that I could go and ask someone to do it!"

"That's not wanting to be loved," said Theresa bluntly.

"Well, words don't matter so long as you understand. But I don't do it! And think what men do!"

"It's worse for men."

"Not for all of them. Those are the only times when I want to read poetry, the only times when there seems any sense in it."

Theresa gave her chuckling laugh and hugged her knees.

"Am I horrid? Are you like that?"

"No; I think it makes me rather sick. But, then, I'm a queer person."

"I'm glad you don't think it's wrong of me. I'm frightened of myself sometimes."

"I'm sure you needn't be," Theresa said cheerfully, but she was anxious. Grace, with her beauty and the warm, swift blood flushing her cheeks, seemed to her the very embodiment of life, and she feared its impulse. Her own knowledge had the vagueness of inexperience, and it was the more alarming, so she watched Grace jealously, and knew something of the cares of parenthood.

Some weeks later, on a cold and windy evening in March, she walked home very quickly from Mr. Partiloe's office. She held her head high, but for once she was unobservant of how the chestnut trees were swelling into black, shining buds, and how the sound of her feet on the pavement had the ring of spring-time in it, and the birds were giving out shrill notes of joy. She went to her room, flung her hat on the bed and ran her fingers through her hair.

"I never go to that man's office again," she said to Grace, who was sitting on the window-sill with hands loosely clasped in her lap, and a tender smile on her lips.

"What's the matter?"

"I've left." She flounced on to the bed, expectant of more questions, but none came, for Grace was gazing straight into heaven.

"I've left," she repeated. "Mr. Jessop nearly cried, and so did I; but I've asked him to come to tea on Sunday and bring his sister and as many cats as they like. Grace, do you hear?"

"Yes, I hear. Then we must tell Bessie to take a lot of extra milk on Sunday. Have you really left?"

"Yes, I have." She kicked her shoes to the far end of the room. "Good heavens! The creature asked me to marry him!" She shuddered strongly. "Grace, he asked me to marry him! And his hands trembled! I didn't know people could go on like that. Never, never, never, shall any other man do it. I won't give him a chance. It was dreadful."

"It wouldn't have been dreadful if you had loved him." Grace spoke softly. "Poor little man. What did you say to him?"

"Say! I couldn't speak! How did I know he was going to be so ridiculous? And to do it in the office! I thought I might conceivably fall in love some day, but I know now that my affection wouldn't survive the proposal. Why didn't you tell me people behaved like that?"

"I expect they are all different. Tell me about it, Terry."

Theresa padded up and down the room in her stockinged feet.

"It was this afternoon. I went into his room to take down letters, and suddenly he stopped dictating. Oh, I can't tell you! But he says he has loved me for three years, and something about the sunlight on my hair when I first entered the office--I don't know!--and his eyes looked like lamps behind those enormous spectacles, and his face was white and--and quivering. Oh, let me forget it. But I never shall. I want to go into a nunnery. I feel stained."

"Don't talk like that, Theresa dear. He couldn't do more than ask you to marry him, could he? And you are insulting him, and--and love, too!"

"Good gracious!" Theresa stood still and looked down on her sister, whose upturned face was pale and earnest. The luminous eyes looked steadily at Theresa: they had lost their sparkle, and showed dark and unsuspected depths. "Who taught you to be love's advocate?"

Grace made a weak little movement with her hands and turned to look out on the docks. In the silence Theresa heard her breathing and saw the throbbing pulse in her throat. Speech came with difficulty.

"Love itself, I suppose," Theresa heard.

"Are you ill?" She forced a place for herself on the window-sill, and took Grace's hands. "Grace, what has happened?" Fear pumped at her heart and shook her body. "Grace, tell me."

She turned for a long, full look and the eyes were not those of an unhappy woman. "I'm going to be married in a month," she said.

Theresa's mouth fell slack. "What--on earth for?" she asked. Dreadful visions flashed, but Grace dispelled them with her bubbling laughter.

"Oh, Theresa! Because I am in love! Because--because I understand your poor little Mr. Partiloe."

Theresa released her hands. "You don't mean to say that your man behaved like that?"

Grace was dignified, almost matronly. "My man," she said, "behaved exactly as I could have wished."

"And where," asked Theresa, with the coarseness of desperation, "did you pick him up?"

"He lives next door--lodges there."

"Not the man who strums, and fiddles, and sings?"

"He plays in the theatre orchestra."

"Here's fame!"

"He's a musician."

"I'll take your word for it. I've no ear myself."

"Theresa dear, be nice. I have liked him ever since he came here----"

"Are you watching for him to come up that road, because if you are I'm not going to listen."

"He is at the theatre or he would be here," she said. "It's your Mr. Jessop who has made the match, Terry. Do you remember the night at Christmas time, when we couldn't find Arnold?"

"Yes. He was next door."

"But I didn't tell you that when I was outside calling for him, Phil came up the street--he had been to the theatre--and told me where he was."

"Who was?"

"Arnold, of course. He was in Phil's room."

"Had he stolen him?"

"Well--temporarily. He truly likes him----"

"Oh, these pronouns!"

"But he got friendly with him in the hope of getting friendly with us."

"With you, you mean. How charming!"

"Yes, I think it was," said Grace simply.

"And so it went on?"

"Yes. I think Bessie knew. Didn't she say anything?"

"Has Bessie ever sneaked, in all her days?"

"This afternoon we went for a walk. We were both free----"

"And now neither of you is. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!"

"Oh, Terry, do be glad."

"But you looked miserable. I thought something terrible had happened."

"So it has. It's terrible to like anyone so much." Her lips trembled. "And we're not going to waste any time apart. I shall just go and live with him, and we shall each do our own work. He teaches too, and he composes. Some day he'll be heard of, now that he has some one to believe in him. Do be glad. And won't it be lovely to be so near each other still? Next door, Terry! He is coming to see Father to-morrow, but I shall tell him to-night, only it had to be you first."

Theresa was meditative. "It seems a mad notion."

"Mad! It's perfect! To be so sure of each other, to feel so safe! Oh, Theresa, I'm ashamed of all the sillinesses I've done. Letting other men touch me, and fancying I liked them! But he knows. He knows everything. And I didn't have to tell him!"

Theresa walked to the dressing-table and studied her face in the glass.

"I wonder if Mr. Partiloe wanted me as much as that," she said. "I'm beginning to be rather sorry for him."