CHAPTER XIX

While Alexander battled against the physical with hopes divided between a conquest which might show Theresa to him in spiritual beauty, and a defeat which would keep her clothed in flesh, and so preserve him from complete capitulation, Theresa, as yet untrammelled by these cares, went home rejoicing in a friend. There was no other to whom she could give that name with the same fulness of meaning, and the glow of her splendid possession did something to remove the chilliness from a home with no Grace in it. She had, too, a new belief in herself based, not on fancy, but on Alexander's confidences and her own understanding of them, and with that to help her, she set about finding work. Her view of men had been almost imperceptibly readjusted by half a day's communion with one of them, and she would have returned to Mr. Partiloe but for the certainty of planting hope in him. She could not do that, and she spent much time and weariness of body in looking for someone whom she considered fit to be her employer. Weariness of mind, she had none; she was conscious of a strong effect of wind and sunshine there, clearing the dust and dirt from its corners and making room for fresh and urgent powers, and she saw life as a thing too short for the use of her vitality.

"Your holiday has done you good," Grace told her.

"How do you know?" The bride's statements were now delivered with such authority that Theresa was forced to question them.

"You're so good-tempered."

"You think that because you're not living with me. Ask Uncle George! We quarrelled this morning. He wants me to be secretary to one of his old societies. I think it was in aid of the children of devoured missionaries."

"Oh, Terry!"

"It was something quite as bad. And for a mere pittance! He told me the work would be reward enough. I nearly threw the coffee-pot at him. Am I not worthy of my hire? Why can't they employ one of the undevoured children? And he turned the other cheek. He said he would try to find something else for me. He likes me, you know."

"People seem to. Phil thinks you're charming."

"Does he? By the way, do ask that enthusiastic young man not to play the fiddle quite so late at night. I can hear so plainly through the wall just when I want to go to sleep. First there's a squealing--oh, it really is squealing; you must face facts--and then there's a wailing, and then one note that you know is meant to be a musical one, and you think at last the tune is coming--but he stops there. And there's a long pause, and I know you are saying, 'Oh, Phil, how wonderful! Play it again.' And he does. It makes me hot all over, and I hate you both and call you names. I don't think I like having only a wall between us. I'm always wondering what you are talking about, and I feel as I used to when I was little, and heard Father and Mother talking in another room. It always sounded so mysterious and so important, and I wanted to listen, but I should have found it very dull, just as I should find your conversations."

"They're not dull. There are no end of wonderful things to talk about when you really like a person."

Theresa's lips curved in a small, superior smile. Did she not know?

"You needn't look like that," said Grace sharply. "You'll know some day."

"Married people," said Theresa, "do nothing but prophesy their own feelings for other people. Bless you, I don't want to feel as you do. It would be like--like feeding me on grass."

"I suppose there's meant to be an insult there," said Grace placidly, "but I don't understand it."

"No, it was only an unsuccessful simile. One can't always hit the nail exactly on the head. I like that way of doing your hair."

Grace scanned herself in the glass. "Yes. Phil made it up."

"Good Heavens! He ought to be a hairdresser!" She could not imagine Alexander concerning himself with such trivialities.

"He could only be that if he were in love with all his customers," said Grace, preening herself delicately and feeling that the last word was hers.

"The source of all inspiration! Oh me! Where's mine?"

"Your what?" Grace had been executing an intricate step, and now she stood on tiptoe, poised like a dragonfly.

"My inspiration, and the fountain head thereof. My river is all dried up. But I never was a river; I only thought I was."

"I don't know what you're talking about." This was the remark which had punctuated their childhood, and Theresa laughed, swinging forward to clasp her knees.

"Of course you don't! I'm talking of the nonexistent. Alas, alas, and I thought myself a torrent that could never be dammed! Grace, Grace, do you think there's any chance of my becoming a torrent some day?"

"I think," she pirouetted, "you could be almost anything you like, if--oh, look! wasn't that rather pretty?--if you cared enough."

"That's just it," said Theresa gloomily. "I only care about myself, and I am that already. At least, I suppose I am. I'm not sure. Grace, have you got a self you're sure of?"

"Yes."

"Just one whole, compact little bundle of self?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Oh, how did you do it? There are parts of me in every star and in every earthworm, and I don't know which is which or where! What magnet will draw them all together?"

"Ah!" said Grace.

"Oh, don't be silly. It's no good talking to a woman with only one idea in her head."

"It's a good idea," said Grace serenely.

"Yes, for you."

Grace laughed now, with a wise little giggle of premonition. "Poor Theresa!"

"Go back to your hairdresser. I'm going to do some work."

"My hairdresser is giving a lesson. There's a wretched man who wants to learn the banjo from him. The banjo!"

"I'd rather hear the banjo any day than Phil playing the fiddle. Why do you let him? He'll end his days scratching the thing outside public-houses. He's just the type. And you'll stand on the pavement with a tin mug. Do go home--while you have one!"

"Yes, I must go. I have a class in an hour. Good-bye, darling. You've a lot of new freckles, and you look so well. Have you forgiven Mr. Partiloe?"

"Oh yes, I've forgiven him. He doesn't matter any more."

"What did you think of the Rutherford boy?"

"He's not a boy; he's a man. He was away from home."

"Oh, how dull."

"Not a bit." She straightened the bow of her slipper and spoke quickly. "There's no need of people when there are mountains."

She did not raise her head until she thought her blush had faded. And why had she blushed? Why had she replied evasively, she who prided herself on speaking truth? Because, her ready mind made answer, to say more would not have been fair to Alexander. And oh, cried the voice of her heart, taking her by surprise, because, like a miser, she could not bear to speak about her gold. She held her friend close, and looked on him as though she tried to appraise his value, which was immeasurable; she saw his strong, lean figure, the quietness of his face with the passions subdued below, and heard the voice he so seldom raised beyond the pitch that accorded with the mountain noises. Looking down, with his hands in his pockets, he had walked beside her, listening, and at a word that pleased him or reached beyond the outskirts of his being, he had swiftly lifted and turned his head to look at her. And when she ceased and he began to speak, it was haltingly at first, with eyes still downcast, but again there came those sudden looks, marking his earnestness. No, of these things she could not speak; they had no parallel in words, and the miser might as hopefully try to express adoration of his stores. And it would certainly not be fair to Alexander, she repeated, doing homage to that useful suggestion of her mind.

"Father told me he was very sorry."

"Yes, he likes him."

"Have you ever thought, Terry, that Father----" She stopped and looked through the window, meditatively biting her lips.

"Go on."

"No, I won't say it." Already she had acquired something of the matron's discretion, and saw the faint barrier between married and unmarried. In a day her knowledge had so far outspread Theresa's that what she would have said freely two months ago was now checked for consideration. Was it wise to say this to Theresa, who was a girl? There was less danger in silence--so she stood biting her lips.

But Theresa knew that Grace also had divined her father's wish, and though she was not angry she felt indescribably sad, nor did she understand why, for the rest of that day, she seemed to move in mist.

In the evening Uncle George pierced the veil. He looked unreal and over large as he stood before her.

"Theresa, I have found the very thing for you--not the thing I recommend, mind, but the thing you'll like."

"Lots of money?"

"A hundred a year."

"Oh, good! That's better than the Christian stipend you offered me."

"I'm afraid this will be anything but Christian."

"Oh, good! I mean--tell me about it."

He eyed her with the peculiar expression he kept for her, one hovering between a controlled frenzy and an amusement greater than his prejudices.

"Have you ever heard of Simon Smith?"

"No, but one wouldn't, would one?"

"His father was a large manufacturer of cheap--but I don't say injurious--sweets. Simon Smith is a very rich man and a philanthropist. I have met him on committees--all of which he has left. I entirely disapprove of his methods, entirely, but that's no reason why I should not tell you that he has a vacancy for a secretary. I advise you to go and see him."

"I certainly shall. Shall I say I'm your favourite niece?"

"Not if you want to get the post," he said grimly.

The next morning Theresa presented herself at Mr. Smith's large front door, and was ushered into a sunny room where a spruce young man was sitting. He rose, bowed in a bored manner, and spoke rapidly.

"You are Miss Webb? Please sit down. I understand you are applying for the post Mr. Smith has vacant. What are your qualifications? Oh, very well, then will you please take down this letter, type it, and let me have it as soon as possible. Will you come to the table?"

She drew off her gloves slowly and sat down, awaiting his first words with a look of pleasant expectation. He gave back a blind and stony gaze.

"Dear Sir----" She bent her head over the paper.

He carefully examined the typewritten copy, and announced that Mr. Smith would see her. The sobriety of his face had not relaxed as he opened the door which communicated with an inner room, and he did not respond to Theresa's tilted smile of thanks.

"Miss Webb, sir," he said, and disappeared.

Beyond the names she could give for reference, Mr. Smith said he only wanted to know three things: had she good health--in particular, was she free from colds in the head which he considered the most objectionable known complaint? Would she begin work at eight o'clock each morning? And would she promise to wear shoes that did not squeak?

She answered yes to all these questions and awaited her dismissal, but Mr. Smith had much more to say. He was a small, dry man, almost concealed by the great chair in which he sat, but his eyes were startlingly keen, and they never left Theresa's face. It was her own habit to fix people in this manner, and she expected it of others, so she sat, coolly interested, wearing that hint of a smile which was an inheritance from her mother, proof, in Theresa, of a shy enjoyment.

With a courtesy and shrewdness of which she was quite aware, he led her willingly into a self-revealing conversation. He learnt her age, the occupation of her father, her relationship to George Webb--"Harmonium George, we call him," he said with a twinkle--and many of her characteristics. She helped him freely in his discoveries, but she did it with a skill greater than his own.

"Very well," he said, as he rose, "if Mr. Partiloe----By the way, why did you leave Mr. Partiloe?"

"I had been there three years."

"Decent chap, isn't he? Decent pay? Why did you want to go, then?"

She thought for an instant. "It was a very stuffy office," she said.

"Ah, yes--yes. They are sometimes." He rang the bell. "Will you take a glass of wine before you go? Excellent port? No? Well, let me show you my flowers."

He took her through his conservatory, gave her a spray of heliotrope, and escorted her to the gate.

Two days later she had a letter signed by John Neville, asking her to begin her duties as Mr. Smith's under-secretary at eight o'clock on the following Monday morning.

Simon Smith's charities were exclusively his own. He seldom gave to hospitals, never to missionaries, and all organized societies had learnt that they were his detestation, that though he might consider individual cases they brought to his notice, he would never spend a penny on anything in which he had not a hand.

"My father," he said, "never sold a sweet he hadn't sampled. D'you think his money is going to be swallowed up while my back's turned? No, I'll look into this little affair myself."

Through many different channels news came to him of people he was glad to help, and it was with his vast correspondence that Theresa chiefly had to deal while Jack Neville, alert and always beautifully dressed, went hither and thither, making investigations, and finding new subjects for Mr. Smith's generosity.

"I came across a poor seedy-looking beggar this morning, down by the docks," he told Theresa one day, when she had worked there long enough to be considered part of the establishment. "I got into conversation with him, found he was a poet. He showed me some of his verses written on a dirty scrap of paper. Jolly good they are, too. Look!"

She fingered the paper delicately. "Was he dirty, too?"

"H'm. What you might call medium. But what do you think of his production?"

"Excellent." Her lips moved with the rhythm of the words. She did not look at Neville when she spoke. "Are you going to introduce him and his verses to Mr. Smith?"

"Well, what do you think?"

"I think Mr. Smith probably doesn't know his poets as well as you and I do."

"Ah, I wondered if you'd recognize it." She saw his growing approbation take a leap. "Rather a neat trick though, wasn't it? He must have known who I was. I shall have to adopt disguises."

"You see," she said, "you are so unforgettably well-groomed."

"My dear girl--I'm sorry."

"Oh, never mind."

"I hate familiarity."

"Let's call it friendship."

"May I? Thanks. I was going to say that my clothes alone lift me from the ruck. If I am not spick and span I'm nobody. It's the abominable mediocrity of my features and the shape of my head. There's much in heads."

"Yes, you can hide your mouths, but we have the advantage when it comes to skulls." She knew she had no need to conceal one or the other, for Nature, who had denied her beauty, had given her shapeliness, and she wondered if Jack Neville knew it. She was very happy in the companionship of these two men: whether or not they had eyes for her physical charms she could not tell, and it was not often that she cared, but she was sure they appreciated her intelligence. In this, as in many other matters, the two were at one, and gradually she was admitted to their counsels.

"I wanted this," Mr. Smith said. "I intended it; but I had to see what you were made of. We need the woman's mind. There's been too much man about things. Jack is always finding starving genius in a garret--and of the male gender. Well, it would be a bit awkward for him if it wasn't--I admit that. Now you--now look here, Miss Webb, here's a delicate bit of work for you to do. Somebody came this morning with a tale about a young woman living over a bird shop. Nasty atmosphere, eh? She's been deserted by her husband, or else there isn't a husband--that's for you to find out. I want the truth of the matter, and you can get it. Here's the address. Never mind these letters: they can wait, and if you're a success as my female agent I can get any fool to play with that typewriter. Well, what's the matter?"

There was a sound of trouble in her voice. "I should like to do this new work. I think it's the kind of thing I can do, but please, please, don't let anyone else touch my papers. I can't bear even Mr. Neville to interfere with them, and I can easily find time to do everything. Why, you don't work us half hard enough. And I should hate to give up my chair, and my table, and my typewriter, and all my beautiful files."

"There you are, keeping some other woman out of a job."

"Oh----"

"Never mind! Never mind! I assure you I don't want a stranger. She'd be sure to sniff."

The girl who was cooped up in a room hardly bigger than one of the cages that swung below, opened her heart almost as soon as she had opened her door to the bright-haired lady who knocked on it, and this case was the beginning of a little feminist movement of Theresa's own. From one woman she had hints of the troubles of another, and was off immediately on the trail, her nose so keen for the scent that it disdained the more material odours assailing it. She went into strange places and met strange people, and she made mistakes; but she had more than her share of her sex's special gifts, and she had, too, some quality that drew the truth from others. The work absorbed her, she could not have done it well if she had not found in it something of a mission; but she also delighted in the perpetual show she made for her own eyes. She had a large stage to act on, no lack of parts to play, and so she was for ever in a state of mind that was not self-satisfaction, but an engrossment which made her every action of interest to herself, and the very tones of her voice as memorable as the tale some starving woman told her. Yet, with it all, she never acted falsely, and though she saw herself haloed by her own skill and popularity, she tried to counteract her tendency to glance upwards at that adornment. "But it's not so serious as it seems," she would say when she was troubled by her egoism. "It's only playing the same old game. I used to be a beautiful princess, and now I'm a clever young person. I always knew I wasn't a princess, and now I know I'm not nearly as clever as I like to think, so where's the harm? Nobody is deceived, and I have my fun." Nevertheless, she was oftener with a heartache than without one.

Neville complained of her activities.

"You are swamping us with your women," he said. "My geniuses never get a chance, and the old man says he has too much on his hands to attend to my consumptive butcher."

"I don't believe there is such a thing."

"Oh, honour bright! He's more important than that last girl of yours--you rather rushed the old man over that--and here's my butcher threatening to marry. We've got to cure him first. We must come to some arrangement and divide things fairly."

"I want to be fair, but one's enthusiasms----" She ended with a smile, and as he looked down at her he found her very good to see in her plain green frock, with a glint of winter sunshine on her hair.

Looking up at him, Theresa saw another face, and felt a dull throb in her breast. It would soon be a year since she had seen the mountains, a year since she had seen her friend. Strenuously she called him by that name, yet she would not obey her eager wish to write to him and so talk to him again: she was held back by some inherited instinct of waiting on the male, and she felt her spirit starving. It was hard to live for ever on her memories, and she turned to her old food. She must shine for some one, and she did it so glitteringly for her father and Simon Smith and Neville, that her pangs were dulled; but there returned the restlessness which, for a little while, had been banished.

Edward Webb had been to stay among the hills, and she thought she would tear her heart out with his going. She was not included in the invitation. James Rutherford, it was understood, was so uncertain in his behaviour, that her presence was not desirable, and her father had returned in some anxiety.

"What is the matter?" she asked, and the sound of her voice taught her more than she had wished to know, yet a joy that soared in agony came with the knowledge.

"He's very bad."

"Who?" Her fingers were torturing each other.

"James. And Alexander--Alexander isn't like himself, Theresa."

"Isn't he?"

"No. He's--so morose. I hardly had a word with him. I own I was a little hurt."

If her father had looked at her, he would have seen the strain of her smile as she dared herself to speak her fear.

"Perhaps he is in love," she said.

"Oh, I hope not. But"--he was reluctant--"I must confess that Janet--Janet hinted something, vague as herself. But I hope not."

She spared him some of her aching pity for herself, and answered steadily: "He must be twenty-eight. Quite old enough to marry. People are very disagreeable when they are in love." But as she drove the nails into her palms, she was saying over and over again: "Thank God I didn't write to him. Thank God I didn't do it!"

And if she had a prayer, it was that she might not dream about the hills.