CHAPTER XXI

To Basil Morton, haste was as foreign a quality as dignity was a native one. He lived slowly, marshalled his actions into order and subdued his thoughts into a fair sequence, worthy of the noble mind of man. Even in his imaginations of a future wooing, he had pictured it as a smooth and rhythmic progress, for, seeing his lady fair and holy, fit to be adored, the celebration of his worship must be beautiful and stately; she must be won to the delicately pacing music of his heart. That lady of his fancy had been tall and dark, gracious and reserved, with no ink stain on her middle finger, and no happy comradeship with men. She must be above them, loftily enthroned, white-fingered, perfect; yet here he was ensnared by this Theresa with her red hair and her quickness and her fearless glances of eyes that were rarely veiled. He was ensnared when he first looked into those eyes, heard her voice, and watched her nimble gestures; and, as though to lie held in her toils were not enough, she had magically animated him with her own quickness. The courtship he had planned for the dark, imagined lady faded and left a fragrance of old things, while his heart leapt with a strangeness of hurry and his brain was hot with his impatience. Yet he liked to remember his first sight of her, for she had been gazing into the fire, as maidens should, and for that instant she had looked soft and vulnerable and young, needing the protection he had to give. He longed to give it. Thought of the lives of unprotected women could always give his social conscience its sharpest pang, and as he saw Theresa turn her latch-key in the lock, that pang had changed to bitter pain. How often did she walk home late at night alone? Into what dreadful slums and dens of wickedness was she forced by his uncle's folly? What right had he to employ her for these purposes? What horrid sights had she seen, what language heard? She should not suffer that degradation of eyes and ears. He hated the hours she spent with Neville. She must be taken from such work; she should live, he vowed, a life more fitted for a woman, and he resolved to win her to it.

Wondering greatly at the headlong manner in which he had fallen at her feet, he forced himself to sleep, anxious to bring the day and meet his lady on her way to work.

It was a foggy morning, and she came towards him through a grey mist which had bedewed her clothes and hair. Her cheeks were a pale pink, her eyes were very bright, and at the sight of her he felt as though he had been bathing in some rare air where prejudices could be blown away, and youth regained and strengthened.

"May I be the first to wish you a very happy New Year?" he said.

"You are too late. Bessie, our domestic drudge and best friend, was the first; then Uncle George. He seemed to have very little hope. You are the third--and thank you. And a happy New Year to you, too."

"It has begun happily," he said gravely.

"Yes. I can smell the spring coming through the mist. And soon there'll be snowdrops and crocuses."

"You are fond of flowers?" His words were more a statement than a question, and his implied sureness of her love for beauty hampered while it pleased her.

She shook her shoulders and spoke quickly. "Yes, but I like spring better. I like the smell of the wind and the way the earth lets things through. It's so eager!"

"Autumn is my favourite time of year."

She looked at him acutely. "It's not so pushing, is it? More resigned--and all the dying things have the respectability of age. But my buds insist on coming out. They're active, and your autumn leaves are passive: they just flutter down, poor things. The buds for me!"

He thought she was like the spring herself, and was immediately converted to her view. "I shall watch spring this year with different eyes," he said, and the blood ran swiftly, joyously in her veins.

He left her at the foot of the broad steps leading to the front door, but they met at lunch, and when Theresa went home that evening she found a sheaf of flowers awaiting her.

"Who brought them, Bessie?" she asked, fingering them softly, for they were the flowers a lover chooses--roses, lilies and violets, delicate and sweet-scented things.

"A tall young feller--strange to me. 'Andsome."

"Fair?"

"Dark, with a moustache."

"I'd better put them in water," Theresa said quickly, and carried them upstairs.

The next day was long in coming, yet she would have urged the night to stay. It was glorious to be courted, but she was half ashamed. If a man had picked her up without question and borne her away, she would have struggled fiercely, but she would have been without this strange shrinking of the mind. She was uncertain of her position: this wordless gift of flowers affected her like a lurking enemy. Moreover, though of all things she loved power, and though people sometimes seemed to her like pawns she could move at will, she suddenly felt herself unfitted to receive such gentle homage. It made her feel large and clumsy: remembering Morton's quiet voice, her own sounded too loud and rough, and she was aware again of his fastidious mind. Hers was not fastidious: she liked the truth, whatever the garb it wore, and for knowledge of life she had a thirst ready for the bitterest dregs. Had he known that, would he have sent those flowers? And had he sent the flowers? Should she thank him or be silent? To thank him would surely be to assume too much, yet she wished to thank him, for she loved the flowers. She could see them gleaming faintly as they stood on the table by her bed, and their scent stole towards her. She put out a hand and touched them. They were like friends. But she would be silent: she had no choice, and it would be sweeter so: unnamed, they would lie the closer in her heart.

These were the thoughts that kept her waking through the night, so that she arose pale and heavy-eyed with all her quickness gone but for the restlessness of her hands.

Twice during that morning she met Morton in the hall, gave him a smile and half a smile, and passed on. At lunch they faced each other, but Theresa's eyes skimmed over his, and she would not talk. Shyness was like a weight on her head, and she could not shake it off. Once more she was ashamed; she, the independent, the undaunted, to be sitting there like a bashful child! And oh, did she look as foolish as she felt? She hated the flowers that bound her: they had stolen her freedom. For the first time in her unbridled life she felt the curb, and she would have bitten the hand that forced it on her; yet, looking on Morton as the stern master, she lost the shame she had in seeing him as the adorer. She could kick and bite and struggle against hard measures, but against softer ones she had no weapon, only the pain of seeing herself unwillingly subdued.

What were these people talking about? Their words flowed past her like a river, until Simon Smith addressed her.

"You'd better go home directly after lunch, Miss Webb. Make up for all that extra work. Jack has to go out this afternoon, so there'll be nothing for you to do."

Slowly she turned that weighted head, and the effect was dignified, reproachful.

"My work does not depend on Mr. Neville," she said. "Except for the few letters he dictates every morning our work is quite distinct. There's no reason why I should go early."

"Very well, very well. I thought you looked tired, that's all. Do as you please. Do as you please. Of course, the house and the whole concern is entirely under your management!"

She smiled at him, he smiled at her: they understood each other very well and, pleased with her little show of power, she glanced at Morton, surprising from him a look so tender and unguarded that her face was crimsoned. She felt that even her eyes were blushing, and she covered them with rosy lids, hating her weakness, hating him, yet conscious of a new respect for a man who could make her flinch.

In the afternoon a knock came at the office door, and Morton entered at Theresa's bidding.

"I wondered if I could help you," he said; "for, indeed, you do look very tired." He stood near her chair, looking down at her. His eyes were deep and soft, the lines of his face were firm and fine. He seemed firm and fine all over: his hands, his clothes, his figure, belonged to a type of man she had not known: he stood for something orderly and seemly, something her life had missed.

"I am not tired," she said. "And I don't think you can help. Thank you. It would be more trouble to tell you what to do. I don't suppose you can use a typewriter?"

"No." He felt the vastness of his ignorance. "But I think I could learn."

"It's not much harder than organ grinding." Laughter crept slyly about her eyes and mouth. "Would you like to try?"

"I should, very much."

"Then you may take the typewriter into the library. It's rather an irritating noise to work with, but I shan't hear it from there. And then, some other day, you may be useful."

He could do nothing but carry the heavy thing away with him, and for the rest of the afternoon he sat before it, trying, for his dignity's sake, to pretend he liked the sound which deafened him to the other one he listened for, so that Theresa went home without his knowledge.

Morton stayed in Radstowe for a fortnight, and each day hurried his determination to win Theresa. Yet even to his fondness, to fancy her a wife, was to imagine the chaining of a dragon fly. The moods she showed him were as changeful as the colours in that creature's wings, her glances were as swift as its flight. Sometimes he would find her steady, as though she had settled on a flower, and at a word she would dart off again whither he could not follow. He could not always even watch her passage, it was so tortuous and so quick, and she left him puzzled, bewildered, uncertain of her, but the more certain of himself.

Every day they met decorously at luncheon, and often, if Neville were out, she made him welcome in the office. "You must let me help you."

"Of course." Her lifted eyebrows snubbed him delicately. "Will you read out this list for me? I want to type it. Oh, but faster than that! No, let me have it. I shall manage better alone."

He protested. "I'm very sorry. I wasn't thinking. Let me try again."

She was lenient: she knew he had been watching her.

"Very well." And when they had finished she nodded cheerfully. "With a little practice you might become quite useful."

"I believe you despise me for a drone."

"No, I don't despise you. And I haven't quite decided what you are."

He looked up from the paper in his hand. "I hope you will make a decision in my favour," he said, and his voice was vibrant.

She sat facing the light, and he saw the slight quiver of her features. "I expect I shall." She had no inner doubts. She found in him something good and rare, something the more valuable because of its aloofness and its difference from herself, and if she could not yet see him as a whole, she was drawn to the parts made visible.

She broke the moment's strain by pushing aside her papers and setting her elbows on the table. She took her face in her hands.

"Let's talk," she said. And then, "Do you ever laugh?"

He smiled instead. "Not often."

"I should like to see you helpless with laughter, doing all sorts of undignified things--crying and uncontrolled. Do you think you could?"

"I'm sure I couldn't. You'll set that down against me?"

"I'm not making a list of your qualities," she said sharply. "But you're honest."

"Had you doubted it?"

"I don't think we'll talk, after all," she said. He pleased her with the steady look that ended in a smile, and she went home that night in a state of happy restlessness.

She felt herself being involved in a liking for him which resulted from his liking for her, but was none the less sincere, and characteristically she chafed while she rejoiced. Love, she found, has more than one means of entry, and though she had always pictured herself seized roughly by the intruder, life was teaching her to mistrust imagination, and she resigned herself easily to this daintier form of worship, for there was a novel pleasure in being enthroned, spreading herself for homage and startling the worshipper with sudden incongruities.

For those fourteen days she was richly fed with the delicacies she had foretold, and when Morton went away he left her hungry. Irritation came with the pangs, and the old anger against herself, against him and all the world. Neville offended her with indiscreet remarks, Grace dared to suggest she was not well, and Bessie threatened to give notice.

"What for?" Theresa was sitting in her old place on the kitchen fender, and Bessie was wandering, felt-shod, in apparent aimlessness.

"Your temper always was a bit awkward, Miss Terry. D'you remember when you had your clean clothes? We'd all try to keep clear of you for an hour or two, and it would pass off, but for this last month--well! I've never known when you were going to flare, and I haven't pleased you once."

"That's your fault. You needn't blame me. Oh, Bessie, I am a bad-tempered wretch! Don't take any notice of me. Just be kind!"

"It's 'ard sometimes, Miss Terry dear."

"I know. I know. But you've got to go on loving me. I can't live unless people like me--and, anyhow, you can't help it!"

"But you shouldn't take advantage, Miss Theresa."

"It is rather mean, isn't it?" she said thoughtfully; "but, you know, Bessie, I have a hunger that's never satisfied."

"If it's for something 'olesome----"

"But it isn't. It's just to be made a fuss of."

"And there's your father thinking of you day and night."

"Yes, there's Father." She had been neglecting him of late; she had allowed him to come home without a single question about his visit to the farm, and now, repentant, she ran upstairs to his little room.

"How dare you sit here without a fire?" she asked.

"I'm wearing my overcoat, my dear."

"Come downstairs at once!"

"I'm afraid your Uncle George is in the dining-room. I can work better alone."

She knelt and put a match to the wood and paper.

"We can't afford it, Theresa."

"I can, though. What are you working at?"

"I've begun again. It's foolish, no doubt--a waste of time, but the old impulse returns. Though now there is no one who cares for it."

"There's me." She was kneeling by the growing fire, and she could only see her father's back, but its stillness and his silence were a punishment for all the kindnesses she had left undone, and for an instant she knew how she would feel when he lay dead. Gripping the fender, she dropped her head to her knees. "And there's Alexander," she said, in a voice muffled against her dress.

There was a pause. "Yes, there's Alexander."

"Did you have a happy time," she stopped, and deliberately she used Alexander's words, "up yonder."

"Very. Very. He was like himself again. And, I hope you won't mind, Theresa, he wants to come here for his Easter holiday. I didn't ask him--I wouldn't do that without your consent. He asked himself. I could only make one answer, could I, my dear?"

"No. No. I don't mind at all. Why should I?"

He turned in his chair. "You seemed to have such an extraordinary dislike for him, my child."

On her knees she crossed the narrow space between them, and leaned her head against his arm.

"I've always hated to hear other people praised, and that was the way you began about him, fourteen years ago. Fourteen years! And you've been praising him ever since. But I'm trying to be more sensible. At least, I'm different. At least, I think I am! Oh--I don't know! Anyhow, I don't mind his coming a bit, a bit! He can live here if he likes!" She sank to a sitting posture, and she beat the ground softly, hurriedly, with her fists.

"He won't want to do that," Edward Webb said unnecessarily. "He seems wedded to his life there."

"I thought he was in love." Her voice scorned the state in him.

"So Janet seemed to think. I have heard no more of it. And he seems content."

"Contented people," she snapped, "have fat souls."

"I didn't say self-content, my dear," he explained mildly. "But he is willing to live a life of obscurity--for the sake of an ideal. That's rather great, Theresa. With his scholarship and his power he might have made himself a name."

"Then he ought to have made it. Anybody could teach those stodgy boys." Yet his own words came back to her, mingling with the water and the wind, and once more she gave assent.

"That's just what he does not believe. Does a preacher think one soul of more value than another? And should a teacher? That is what he asks, my dear--and answers. And I am proud to call him my friend."

She went to bed, to lie there cold and stiff, her thoughts hideously and mercifully formless, until at last, out of that mangled heap of indistinguishable things, sleep came to her as gently as a fallen feather.

Morning brought her a letter from Morton, and her sores were healed. It was the letter she had wanted. It told her delicately something of what she seemed to him, and it revealed the aspirations of the man; it implied that they had been blown still higher by the bright strong breath of her spirit, and it satisfied the ancient hunger that, last night, had shrieked ravenously for food. No one else had ever claimed her for his inspiration, and as she put the letter in her breast, the action was like a gage flung down, though the name of her enemy was not cried.

The next day, flowers came, and then another letter, and after a few more days, more flowers, and, lying among them, a little missive, telling Theresa that these but heralded his own approach.

"Have you heard the news?" Neville said, when she entered the office that morning.

"Which news?"

"The L. P. is coming here again--arrives to-night."

"Yes, I knew that."

"Oh, then, good-bye, Theresa. If you are an accessory before the act, it's all over, but the old gentleman and I have been hoping against hope."

"What hope?" she asked coldly, her hands on the back of her chair.

"We don't want you to marry the L. P."

"I have not been asked to marry him. Oh, how can you talk like this? I think you're vulgar!" Tears darted to her eyes. "And you spoke so beautifully about love!"

She had betrayed herself, but he hid his knowledge. "I say--I'm sorry, Theresa. I only meant it as a joke. Silly fool! And beastly bad form, I know; but, really, we do live in dread of someone's stealing you, and we've made special plans for his abduction. You shouldn't make yourself so lovable, my dear." He was right when he said he understood men and women, for now she laughed brokenly, but with pleasure, and spoke forcibly in spite of her trembling lips.

"I don't know why I should behave like this. Is it like me? Jack, is it like me?"

"Not a bit! Yes--exactly," he added, and again she had to laugh.

"And you've made me self-conscious and ridiculous!"

"I promise I won't look when you meet."

"Oh, Jack! Let's get to work. I do wish sometimes we were all one sex."

Neville's promise was an unnecessary one, for Theresa did not see more than Morton's coat hanging in the hall until the second evening of his visit, when he called on her father.

"The flower-man's come," said Bessie, flapping into the kitchen where Theresa was making soup.

"The flower-man?"

"I mean the young feller that brought them on New Year's Day."

"Oh!" said Theresa, on a long, indifferent note, and stirred steadily.

"Miss Terry, is he coming after you?"

"I don't know, Bessie." She spoke in a voice that had the clear emptiness of a puzzled child's. "I don't know," she repeated, and then her uncouth young womanhood came strongly on her. "Oh, Bessie, Bessie, I think it's terrible to be a woman--terrible. Men--oh--and yet I know it is our destiny. Nature drives us. And I'm pushing against the chariot she sits in, pushing, pushing"--she brandished the wooden spoon--"and I know I shall be beaten in the end."

"Oh, Miss Terry, you've dropped some soup on your dress. Just look at that!"

"And I want to be beaten--oh, never mind the soup! It will wash out."

"I'm going to wash it out now. D'you think I'd let you go upstairs like that?"

When they had had supper and Morton had gone, Edward Webb and Theresa sat silently by the fire. She was happy, for Morton was better than her memory of him, and though her heart was beating fast, she was conscious of a kind of peace.

She did not look at her father until he spoke.

"He told me about himself," he said, and there was a tragedy of appeal in the words. They implored her to reassure him, to swear that this man had not come to take her from him. But she only nodded, looking down again.

"His mother is the sister of Simon Smith, it seems. I imagine he is rich, not that he told me that, of course, but incidentally. And I think he is an honest man." There seemed to be something he had left unsaid, but before he had time to say it, she lifted her head and showed him her face aglow. He could not say the words. Instead, he put out his hands.

"Theresa," he said. "Theresa."

She held tightly to him, steadied her mouth against his hands, and laughed. That laughter was unmistakable: it sounded the farewell to all his hopes, and he heard them go clanging down to the very place of disappointments.