CHAPTER XXIII

Mrs. Morton sat by the drawing-room fire, listening for the sound of wheels. The wind was high and as it dashed among the trees it made a roaring as of many chariots. Three times already she had laid down her crotchet and picked it up again, and now, wrapping a little shawl about her shoulders, she went to the window and watched for a blot on the whiteness of the drive that followed the side of the lawn for a little way before it curved out of sight.

The grass before the house sloped to a glimmer of water, and was edged by clustered trees; on the other side of the lake more trees stood black against the fading light, and close to the house there was a group of elms in which the rooks were busy. The branches of all the trees were swaying, flinging themselves this way and that, dipping towards the earth and springing up again in defiance of their humility, shaking their heads in denial, lowering them in contrite affirmation. The noise they made was like that of the sea, but, because it was rarer, it was more foreboding. The roaring of the sea, now loud, now soft, is as unceasing as its ebb and flow, but the trees only cry out when the wind whips them, and their voice is full of lamentation.

Mrs. Morton did not like the wind. She loved her home best when the summer sun shone on it, and the trees were clothed in green to hide their nakedness, when the flower-beds were bright with colour, and she could stroll beside them under the shade of her parasol. The gaunt energy of leafless trees, their moans and wailings, were akin to the sight and sound of a soul laid bare, and this tall, white-haired lady with the passive face disliked them according to her dread of the primitive and unruly.

She shuddered as she waited for Theresa. This was no fit day for Basil to bring home his betrothed; there was no bridal softness in the air and, with a carelessness unlike him, he had driven to meet her in the dog-cart. She had protested, for the wind was cold, but he had smiled, told her Theresa loved the wind, and repeated his inconsiderate order. She would be cold when she arrived.

Mrs. Morton looked round the white-panelled room with its shining floor and furniture, and she looked approvingly, for the lamps were warmly shaded, the fire was bright, and the tea-table and comfortable chairs were drawn close to the hearth.

Again she strained her eyes into the dusk, and when they had cleared themselves of the reflected lamplight and the dim picture of herself on the other side of the window, she saw the dog-cart moving quickly.

She was at the hall door, as she had planned, at the moment when Morton reined in the horse and the groom sprang to its head, and she saw the startling dexterity of Theresa's leap to the ground.

She heard her son's reproachful tones. "You might have hurt yourself."

And Theresa's answer, clear and gay: "No I mightn't. I can calculate a jump to an inch."

Morton laughed, and led the small figure up the steps.

"Mother, here is Theresa," he said.

She was embraced, but, in the half light, Mrs. Morton could not see her face. She felt the cold firmness of her cheeks, and she kissed them through strands of wind-blown hair.

With a processional solemnity, they passed into the drawing-room, where Mrs. Morton, Basil and a maid helped to free her of her wraps.

"You must be very cold, dear. Come to the fire."

"I'm not cold, thank you. I loved it. I felt as if we were another wind, we went so fast."

"I wanted Basil to take the brougham," Mrs. Morton murmured. She had pictured herself settling Theresa in a chair, putting a cushion to her back, holding one of her hands, perhaps; but Theresa was standing very straight--her back seemed unusually strong--and she was smiling faintly, while her hands were occupied in the swift removal of her gloves. There seemed no point at which she could be conveniently caressed, and Mrs. Morton sank into the chair beside the tea-table.

"You will be glad of tea," she said. "Basil, won't you make Theresa sit down? She looks so tired. Now, dear, you would like some hot toast."

Theresa was in an uncertain temper, and if she had not been very eager for buttered toast, she would have refused it as a form of contradiction; but the sight of it shining in the hearth overcame annoyance with desire. She foresaw, however, a quick starvation if Mrs. Morton continued to accompany offers of food with these firmly uttered statements.

"You had a tiring journey?" There was just a redeeming tilt at the end of the sentence, and Theresa condescended to consider it a question.

"No thank you. I liked watching the country."

"But in winter time it is all so sad."

"But this is spring--almost! And I saw some lambs--the first. They're early here." And as she spoke she saw the green cleanliness of the earth when the snow has melted into it, and lambs, like little forgotten patches of that snow, leaping about the hills.

She went on quickly. "And there were pigs. I like them. They're so greedy, and they don't pretend to care for anything except their--except what they eat."

The subject of pigs was not encouraged. Basil was handing her more toast, as though he wished it were a kingdom, and she knew he was too much engaged with the joy of her presence to listen to her babblings. It was right that he should be happy at seeing her in the home they were to share, yet, in that moment, he lost something with which she once had dowered him. She eyed him critically. He was good to look at, and beauty always softened her; but his strongest appeal for her had been his distance, and here, among the teacups with his mother, he was too near, he almost seemed domestic. She realized the cold cruelty of her phase, she hoped it would not last, but she could do nothing to be rid of it. She was forced to her callous scrutiny, she was entirely shorn of any sense of possession, and while her mind told her she would recover her old sensations, her heart was like a dead thing in her breast. She knew the reason, for it lay on that heart which it had struck, and when she stirred she felt the sharp edge of Alexander's letter.

She moved now, quickly.

"She wants a cushion," Mrs. Morton cooed, but Basil was already propping Theresa's back.

She smiled at him, from the lips, trying to feel the kindness that lay crushed.

"You're lovely," he said, under cover of Mrs. Morton's manipulation of the tea things.

She gave her emphatic half-shake of the head. She knew the wind had nipped her, that her hair fell in wisps about her face, and his loving blindness made her disloyalty the blacker. She would not be disloyal, but she questioned her love for him, she faced the possibility of resigning him, and at once she had an impulse to thrust herself into his arms. Instead, she put her hand in his and held it fast, and, like a gentle tide, she felt the return of tenderness.

Alone in the pretty room prepared for her, and still with that determined loyalty upon her, she made to throw Alexander's letter in the fire; yet to do that, she argued, was to admit its power, and it had no power for anything but a disturbance that would pass. It came too late. A little while ago--she did not follow the thought, but she knew its path. She shut her eyes to it.

She loved Basil. She could not picture life without him. After herself she belonged to him. She was proud to be his. He was good, and true, and for all her self-esteem she wondered how he came to love her.

After dinner, as they all sat in the drawing-room Theresa gazed at Mrs. Morton in a kind of wonder. She sat in her chair, crotcheting slowly, with frequent reference to an instruction book, and counting her stitches half aloud between her amiable sentences. In uttering commonplaces, she had a dignity which forced the listener to reach deeply or loftily for truth, and return from that vain pilgrimage with a sensation of having been robbed by the wayside. When she announced that their nearest neighbours, the Warings, were to have tea with them on the following day, Theresa waited anxiously for the something more implied in those pregnant tones. But Mrs. Morton serenely counted stitches. At length, "You will like the Warings," she said.

Theresa stared into the fire. She was prepared to hate anyone thus introduced. She was not far from hating Mrs. Morton. Her lips tightened, her idle hands pressed each other closely. Had this placid person ever been in love? Was she so obtuse that she could not feel the fret of Theresa's spirit? Did she not know that solitude is the great need of lovers, or realize that Basil had not yet so much as kissed her? The presence of the groom had prevented confidences on the drive, and in the house Mrs. Morton had shadowed her in excess of welcome. She looked at Basil, who was looking at her, and raised her eyebrows wearily. He raised his own, and they smiled in the delightful comradeship of annoyance shared. She wanted to talk to him, to make amends for the wickedness of her thoughts, and here they sat, all three, and her tongue was tied. She longed to tear the crotchet from Mrs. Morton's plump white hands; she felt the old anger of her childhood rising to her throat, and she pressed her hand to it and forced it back.

"Basil, Theresa's throat is sore. You shouldn't have driven her in the dog-cart on such a day. You shall have some sugared lemon, dear. Ring the bell, Basil."

"Not for that, please! I haven't a sore throat. I--just happened to touch myself there--oh, really!" There was a laughing anguish in her voice. Was she to be handcuffed as well as starved?

"Don't be afraid of giving trouble, dear."

"Theresa always tells the truth, Mother."

"Oh, of course! Very well. But she looked as if she had a sudden pain."

"I'm afraid it is a habit."

"That reminds me of an old lady I knew when I was young. I thought she had St. Vitus's dance, until her maid told me that she wore all her valuable jewellery on her--under her dress, and she was constantly touching herself to make sure it was all there."

"What were you hiding, Theresa?"

She lifted her chin to show him the pretty lines of her bare neck.

"Ah, your own beauty," he added softly.

"Something else," she said.

"Tell me."

She shook her head. "You must find out."

Mrs. Morton's voice penetrated this happy murmur.

"You crotchet, Theresa?"

Morton had to shake the hand he held. "Theresa, Mother asks you if you crotchet."

"Oh! No, I don't. That's very pretty."

"It is for you."

"Is it?"

"Yes, a tray cloth."

"Thank you. How clever of you!"

"I'll teach you if you would care to learn."

"I don't think I could. I've got such stiff fingers for things like that. They're good enough for typing. Basil, did I tell you about that last woman of mine?"

It was during the recital of this tale that Mrs. Morton left the room. Theresa stopped and looked at the closing door.

"Was I saying anything wrong?" she asked. "I am so used to talking frankly to Mr. Smith and Jack, that I forget other people may not like it. Was I?"

"No, dear, but the whole thing is rather disagreeable to her."

"But how?"

"Well, you see----"

"Is it that she doesn't like you to marry a woman who has earned her own living?"

"That, of course, was rather a shock. Darling, try to understand her attitude. She has old-fashioned notions of womanhood. She thinks you should not have been allowed to do the work you did, and I own that it seems unnatural to me, too. But you are wonderful, Theresa. You are the exceptional woman who can do these things. You are unscathed."

She stood up and fell into that attitude in which he had first seen her.

"I am not unscathed," she said. "If you drop down into hell, even another person's hell, you come back--scorched. And I have the marks." She turned to him quiveringly. "Basil, have you ever suffered?"

"I think so. My father was killed--I found him. And I--he was a great deal to me."

"Death!" She flung back her head. "Oh yes, yes, yes; death is so much worse, and so much better, than people fancy. But have you felt your own heart shrivelling to a thing like a dried nut? Have you carried that about with you as--as some people do? And have you heard stories told by women whose eyes are dry because they have no tears left? I have. I have. Oh, shocking stories of sin, of things no girl should know the name of!" She spoke more quietly. "It's quite possible that I know more than you do of the world's evil, for you are the kind of person who never looks in the gutters: you keep your head high, but I look everywhere. And I want to see the gutter dirt: it's part of life, and the sun shines on that as well as on the flowers in the gardens. But I don't like it. You're not to think I like it. But you are to think I am very proud of having done that work. I suppose Mrs. Morton has not told your friends I am a working woman?"

"She did not wish them to know. You must not think us snobs, Theresa, but in a place like this there are so many prejudices, and we do not want you to be hurt by them."

"I can't be hurt by foolishness, and I won't be in the conspiracy. And why should your mother feel like that? She is Mr. Smith's sister, and their father educated himself, and then made sweets. From her point of view isn't that as bad, worse even, than my honourable calling?"

"You see, you are a woman, Theresa."

"Are we never to go unveiled and free?"

He smiled gently. "Moreover, when my mother married my father she considered herself a member of his family rather than of her own."

"Oh!"

"Some women do, you know."

"Oh! Don't hope for that from me, Basil. I won't be welded into anybody's family or anybody's nature."

"Darling,"--his arms were round her--"I never want you to be anything but yourself."

She leaned back.

"But is it a self you like? Are you satisfied with it? You know"--she touched his chin lightly with her forefinger--"we're going to have a lot of trouble."

"If we are together----"

"Because we are together. Oh, I can smell it afar off. I did directly I came into the house."

"Don't you like it?" he asked, and released her gently.

"The house is beautiful--but we're not going to be alone in it, are we? Oh, I'm not complaining, but I rather wish we were going to have a semi-detached villa, and a maid like Bessie. Yet I hate housework! I'm afraid--I'm dreadfully afraid--I shall get annoyed." Her head was on one side, she twisted her fingers among his.

"Theresa, you will be considerate of my mother."

"Don't, don't, don't! If you put questions in the form of statements I shall go mad."

There was patience in his look, but he redeemed it with a laugh. "I beg your pardon. Theresa, will you be considerate of my mother?"

"I'll try."

"I thought you prided yourself on your tact."

"I do. I have it highly developed, but the devil sometimes steals it."

"You are a little childish."

"Very!"

"And my mother is dear to me."

"So was mine to me. She was--sweet, my mother was, but that didn't prevent my getting angry with her. I wish I didn't get so angry. Do you understand that you're engaged to a volcano, an active one?"

"I'm beginning to."

"And I'm in eruption now. Be careful."

"I love my volcano."

"She'll hurt you, often. Destroy you altogether, perhaps. Basil, I want to tell you something. There'll be times when I shall nearly hate you."

"Why?"

"I don't know. It's just me. I'm cruel. But love me always, and I'll come back to you."

"I can't help loving you, dear," he said, and kissed her hair.

"But do you trust me?"

"Darling, of course!"

She made herself more comfortable in his arms. "Then I'll be worthy, if I can. Take care of me."

She was happy that night when she went to bed, and, sitting by the fire with her softly slippered feet close to the blaze, she could take Alexander's letter from its place, and hold it easily in a hand on which Basil's diamonds sparkled.

Only that morning the letter had been dropped into the hall as she stood there in her travelling coat, with the veil that swathed her little hat pushed up so that she might drink the hot milk Bessie offered.

"That'll be for the master," Bessie said. "No, it's for you, Miss Terry. Now, drink the milk. I won't have people telling me you're thin. Of course, you're thin! You tell 'im I've given you hot milk every morning this last week."

"All right, Bessie, all right. He knows you take care of me."

"So 'e ought."

She had held the letter in her pocket, stroking it with her thumb; and then Grace and the baby had come in to say good-bye, and not until she was in the train had she been able to read what Alexander wrote. Then she read it many times. "Will you not be here to see it flush the hills? And the streams so fierce and heavy that it takes your breath away." She wanted to be there. She thought she felt the cold spray on her face. She felt the air: passing through it was to be new-made. Her steps were buoyant, her eyes were washed and clean. She heard the water, she heard the larches singing, and her heart cried in her breast. She would dream to-night, and she longed for the darkness and feared it. She would see the lakeside and the black precipice, the water would be whispering at her feet, and she would be waiting, waiting. It was a long time since she had been there.

But Alexander's letter roused her to more than this sickness of longing that she dared not analyse too closely. "I've been waiting for that book of yours," he said. There would never be a book. And he was looking for it. She was hurt and shamed as by a promise broken to a child. Talking freely on that wonderful one day of theirs, she had told him what she meant to do, and he had given her that plunging look of response. How had she dared to talk like that, and then do nothing? She knew the answer. And now it was too late. She was to be a county lady. She had come to an age when she was no longer sure that she had the power she had always wanted; but she ought to have put it to the test, for she had told Alexander what she was going to do; she had told Alexander. The words came with such force that her lips framed them. She had told Alexander. She had another tale for him now. "Oh yes," she said, "you shall have a letter," and she quickly wrote it, sitting there with the firelight on her bare arms and her quick, thin hands.

"Dear Alexander,

"Thank you for your letter. It was like seeing the place. I didn't begin the book. I lost faith, and I'll never get it back. I'm weak, but perhaps it is a good thing and has saved the spilling of much ink. It was a young ambition of mine, and you know what Father is! So I'm going to be married instead, for that's a profession we all think we are fit for! I shall see you at Easter. It will be two years then.

"Theresa."

She felt like a penitent who has relieved her soul of sin and planted a dart in the breast of her confessor.