CHAPTER VI

Sunday morning was the time for putting on clean clothes.

"I wish I was a beggar child," Theresa said in Grace's sleepy ear, when the bells were ringing for early service.

"Why?" Much of the vividness of Grace's life came from her sister's attitude towards existence.

"I shouldn't have to put on scratchy things each Sunday."

"If you'd only keep quiet they wouldn't be so bad, and you're such a good pretender, Terry, that you could easily believe they were made of silk."

"I suppose princesses have silken things, don't they? I think I could pretend that." She was glad to have an easy way of keeping her temper, for, after a scene of great gravity on her parents' part and more or less contrition on her own, it had been decided that the adventure was only to be related to her that night if her day had been passed in amiability; and though her resentment would be long in dying, curiosity lived more strongly.

"Let's go to sleep again," said Grace.

Theresa nestled into the curve of the other's body. "Did I hurt you yesterday?" she whispered.

"Not a bit," Grace answered, with disappointing cheerfulness.

Theresa was determined to be sensational. "I really did want to kill you!"

"Oh, I know," said Grace obligingly.

"Wouldn't it have been awful if I had? Would I have been hung? Perhaps not, as I'm a little girl."

"Don't talk about it."

"I like to. They would have taken me up and tried me, wouldn't they? And I should have been dressed in black, and I should have had a tear-stained face."

"Terry, I wish you wouldn't; I hate things like deaths."

"I love them," said Theresa with relish. "Have you ever seen Bessie's brother? He's a policeman. He can tell you lots of things."

"I'm sick of Bessie's brother. Yes, I've seen him. I don't believe he could catch anyone."

"Well, he has--so there."

"Who?"

"It was a man who stole a ham from the shop at their home. He's been promoted since then, so he must be good. He buys a paper all about murders and things and gives it to Bessie; they're better than the tracts she used to get for me from that chapelly aunt of hers. Those were good stories, but not so good as Bill's, and his haven't that funny writing that the Bible parts are put in; but that's useful, because you know you needn't read it."

"It's called italics."

"Oh! Why?"

"_I_ don't know. I wish you'd go to sleep. It's ages till breakfast."

That meal was supposed to be at nine o'clock on Sunday mornings; but Bessie had learnt the folly of preparing it at that hour for the master and mistress of the house, so she lay long in bed, knowing that if the children grew impatient they would raid the larder, and just before the clock struck nine she would hurry down the stairs in her loose felt slippers. At half-past nine Edward Webb would appear, and read yesterday's newspaper until Nancy, lazy and smiling, in her trailing dressing-gown, entered the breakfast-room.

"Oh, did you wait for me?" she would say, and drop into her place behind the teacups.

No one went to church, but for an hour before dinner Edward Webb would take his little daughters for a walk, while Nancy, seated in her rocking-chair, would read her endless novels. Following the indolence of her body, which was the result of more ill-health than anyone but herself suspected, her mind had gradually refused to exercise its natural, homely criticism in literature, and she read greedily, almost mechanically, any novel, not too serious, she could procure. Her method at the circulating library was to work methodically along the shelves, and the attendant, without question, would put the next book into her hands. Often she did not know its name, sometimes she could not have retold the tale. Reading and rocking had become twin habits which were alike soothing and effortless. Meanwhile the mending-basket would be filled to overflowing, and her husband would complain that he could not find a mended pair of socks. Then she would flush all over her rueful face, and, still rocking, she would darn rhythmically until there was no more daylight, when, murmuring something about trying her eyes with dark work, she would pick up her book. But once Theresa, with her sharp nose in the basket and a keen eye for other people's faults, drew forth in triumph a light-coloured garment. "But here's a woolly vest of father's!" she cried. "You can darn that!"

"Oh, can I, Miss Interference? Perhaps you would like to do it yourself. Yes, you shall. It's time you learnt. Get the stool and sit beside me."

Theresa remained there until long past bedtime, and when she had finished the darn there was a deep hole in her middle finger, for she had refused to wear a thimble. She avoided the work-basket in future, and Nancy had not the energy to turn this lesson to further account by making her mend her own stockings, so as often as not there were holes in Theresa's heels; but the inkpot was handy, and she used it freely, foreseeing to what martyrdom more complaints might lead. Grace, who seemed to have gathered into her beautiful body all the commonsense the family could muster, had years ago accepted responsibility for her personal neatness, and her stockings were faultless; it was not lack of mending that wore them out, but the constancy with which she practised her dancing.

On this Sunday there was boiled mutton for dinner. "I won't have any," said Theresa; "I can't bear the colour of the fat. It looks like wool."

"Don't you like it, dearie? I'm so sorry."

"We all hate it."

"Oh dear, how stupid of me! Would you like to have eggs?"

"Seven a shilling," said Grace promptly.

"Are they? Well, it would be rather extravagant, and I'm not sure that we have any."

"Of course we must eat the meat," said Edward manfully. "Don't make faces, Theresa. I'll excuse you from eating the fat."

She peered at him sideways.

"In fact," he was thus forced to admit, "I don't like it myself."

"There's a lovely pudding to make up," said Nancy. "Blackberry and apple pie--and cream; so we'll be good children and eat the meat. Sarah is coming to-morrow, and we'll give the rest of it to her." She smiled serenely, but when the meal was done her husband drew her aside.

"Is that how you practise economy?" he asked.

"What, the cream? It's only once a week, dear."

"No, no--giving away the joint."

"Oh, I suppose it was rather thoughtless of me. No, it wouldn't be right. We'll curry it."

She went upstairs for her afternoon sleep, and left him with less confidence for the future.

A drowsy peace settled on the house. Edward Webb, too, had a nap. Grace read demurely in the breakfast-room, and Theresa sat on the kitchen fender when Bessie, having washed up the dinner things by a miracle of speed, had emerged to the light of day. Theresa always tried to catch a glimpse of her on these occasions, for she could never feel that this was the same person who, moving amid dimness, clad in drab colours, besmirched with black, had cooked the breakfast; for on Sunday and the weekly night out she seemed to leave herself in her bedroom and bring forth a cruder creature, gowned in bright blue, and shadowless. Theresa felt that she did not know this person, that the real Bessie was upstairs in her room, and she pictured a being without body, but with the form of it, as much like a skeleton leaf as a human being could be, sitting on the edge of the bed until the blue girl should return. And when dusk fell she avoided the topmost landing of the tall house, for she was afraid of what Bessie had left up there.

This afternoon Theresa escorted her to the door. "Are you going to have tea with Bill?" she asked.

"Yes; but I'm going to Sunday-school first."

"Is it nice there?"

"Most times."

"Could I come with you some day?"

"You'll 'ave to ask your mother."

"I wish I could go to Sunday-school. Why don't we?"

"_I_ don't know. I'll be late. Good-bye, Miss Terry!"

"Don't forget the things Bill tells you," she shouted after her.

As she returned to the kitchen she was aware of a grievance which had not troubled her before, and when her father, waking, wandered about the house until he found her, she looked at him with a reproachful face.

"Well, Cinderella?"

"I've been thinking," she said.

"Yes?"

"Why don't we go to church? And why don't we sing hymns on Sunday evening? And why don't we have a family Bible? They do in books, with all the birthdays in. We haven't got one. Other fathers and mothers read out of a big Bible to their children."

He sat down and drew her to his knee.

"I'll tell you why, Theresa. I think you are old enough now to understand. If you want to read the Bible, you shall do so, just as I have given you other books to read when you have asked for them. If I had made you read the Bible, you wouldn't have loved it--it would have been like medicine to you--and I want you to love it, as I do. When I was a little boy, your grandmother made me read a chapter every night. I didn't understand it, and I was generally too tired to try."

"Was she very strict--grandmother?"

"She was a good woman."

"Did you like her?"

"Yes, Theresa, I did, but for many years I hated that book, and I made up my mind that my little girls should only read it when they wanted to."

Blown by winds of imagination, Theresa veered from the subject.

"What was grandfather like? Was he nice?"

"He was the most delightful man I ever knew." There was a noticeable change in Edward Webb's enthusiasm for this parent. "I wish you had known him, Theresa. You would have been such friends."

"Tell me." And "Tell me," she urged again, when her father had smiled too long at his memories.

"He was a musician and a poet, my dear. He played the organ at the cathedral, and he wrote songs, music, and words. I can see him now as he sat at the piano, playing and singing, trying to make your grandmother laugh."

"Why wouldn't she?"

"Because she didn't always approve, I'm afraid. They were very often about her, too." He chuckled at another recollection.

"'Your pretty ankle's slender grace, Your skirts when they are thrumming.'

"It was on a Sunday night he began that, drawing it out of the last chords of a hymn. I forget the rest. He reeled it off without a thought. A strip of a man with a solemn face--until you saw his eyes; then you had to laugh, you didn't know why."

"Except grandmother."

"Yes-es. Your grandmother hadn't the comic spirit, Theresa."

She nodded. She was on Olympus when her father talked with her thus, a little above her comprehension, so that she must strain for meanings, while her faith in herself grew great with her stretch.

"I wish grandfather hadn't died," she said. "I don't mind about grandmother. I think she must have been flannelly."

"Flannelly?"

"You know the kind--not pretty underclothes like mother's, but grey things with long sleeves and no trimming."

"Well--yes, yes; I don't know about that. She was very handsome, my dear."

"But not so pretty as Mother or Grace?"

"Certainly not as pretty as they are."

"Tell me some more about grandfather, and I'll make toast for tea."

"Isn't that rather wasteful of the butter?" he asked anxiously, conscious that his domestic cares were being doubled by Nancy's inefficiency.

"There's dripping, Bessie told me, from Thursday's beef. That's cheap, isn't it?"

"Yes; I think we can still afford that."

"We're poor, aren't we?"

"Yes, Theresa."

"Well, never mind. I think it's rather nice to be poor, and Grace says she's going to make her fortune. She wants to be a lady in a pantomime. I think she would look lovely. I should like to be one, too, but then I shouldn't look right. I shall have to be something where I don't show. I've decided to write books."

His eyelids flickered. "You will have to work hard at school, then."

"Yes. Would you mind cutting me another piece of bread?" she asked quickly.

When dusk had fallen, the family seated itself round the fire and Edward Webb told of his night among the mountains. It was only pride which permitted Theresa to share the hearing with the two who had been more favoured than herself, but, realizing the dignity of silence, she tightened her lips and the clasp of her small hands and prepared to listen without enthusiasm; but slowly her lips relaxed, and leaving her little stool at the side of the hearth, she pushed past Grace, treading on her toes in the dimness, and stood before her father, with her hands on his knees. "Go on," she kept saying between his halting sentences.

"So I had to stay there all night, you see."

She frowned. "If you'd been a man in a book, you would have got down somehow."

"But I'm not a man in a book, Theresa."

"People tear up their clothes sometimes and make ropes of them, you know. In burning houses they use sheets; or you might have leapt from rock to rock."

Grace giggled. "You baby! How could father do that in the dark?"

"I think it was much braver to sit still all night," said Nancy.

Theresa brightened. "Yes, that was brave. Did things come at you?"

"How could they, dear?"

"But they do. They come at me in the night, through the dark. They are thick and smooth, and come and come, and you can't stop them. They must have been there. Are you sure they weren't?"

"Perhaps they were," he admitted.

"Oo! nasty things! Tell me some more."

"At last the dawn began to come, and I was very cold and stiff and wet. I heard a dog bark, and I thought, 'There must be people somewhere; I'll try to follow the sound.' So, somehow, I found my way to the mountain's foot, and I came to a stony track between the hills, and when I had walked a little way I saw a house--a low white house--and there, sitting beside the garden wall, was a boy."

"How old?" Theresa whispered.

"He is fifteen."

"Almost a grown-up person," Theresa thought, and aloud she said again, "Go on."

He obeyed, looking into the eager eyes which stared into his own. Her fingers twitched on his knee, and she was still gazing when his tale was ended.

"Tell me about that boy again," she said. "I don't suppose I should be afraid of geese either when I got used to them, should I?"

He was quite ready to agree that she could do anything.

She sat on his knee. "Is he clever?"

"I don't know."

"I shouldn't think he is," she said comfortably.

"He may be. He had a fine head, I remember."

"Oh! What do you call a fine head?"

"A good shape, good size. It's difficult to explain."

"Oh!" she said again, and after a moment's consideration she added: "But he ought to be cleverer than me, because he's so much older. What coloured hair had he?"

"I don't know. It was dark, I think--yes, like his father's."

"And what colour was his mother's? You didn't tell me anything about her, Ned."

"I told you everything I could remember, dear."

"I meant about her looks."

"She was tall and strong and supple. Ceres, she might be called. I think her hair was chestnut, and there were freckles on her face."

"But was she pretty?"

"Really I don't know. I don't remember; but she seemed brave and helpful. She took possession of me, and I felt safe. I'll try to remember more next time."

"Are you going again?" asked Theresa. "Oh, take me!"

"I did not know you were going again," said Nancy.

"They asked me."

"Yes; but was it the kind of invitation----"

"I think so. Indeed, they made me promise----"

"Do you think it wise?"

"Why not?"

"You don't know them."

"But I want to, Nancy."

"But if the man is what you said----"

"He's not an outcast, my dear, and if he were----"

She was silent, but the air was filled with her voiceless and somewhat sullen objections. Theresa fidgeted.

"You must do as you please, of course," Nancy said at last.

"Not if it displeases you."

"Why should it?"

He gestured dumbly, and something fell between them like a filmy veil. It spoilt Theresa's evening, and when she went to bed she wondered what was happening downstairs in the breakfast-room, where the quiet was broken now and then by the hooting of tugs in the docks and the voices of those people who had not gone to church, and walked instead in New Dock Road. Did her father and mother talk? Were they quarrelling, or, now the children had gone to bed, was she sitting on his knee? There was a lump of anxiety in her throat: the world had so many places of darkness and uncertainty; she felt herself groping among dangers, and she hoped her mother was not crying. She undressed slowly, thoughtfully, but as she brushed her hair before the looking-glass she became interested in the vision of her own pale face, and for a moment she forgot her trouble.

"Grace," she said, "what do you think of my head?"

The answer came from the midst of bedclothes. "It's red, you silly!" There could be no two opinions about that, but, as Theresa protested, it was not just an ordinary red, not like that of the girl who brought home the washing.

"It's not that awful orange kind, now, is it?"

"No; but I don't like it very much. It's neither one thing nor the other. It's rather what I call streaky, you know."

"Yes, I'm afraid it is. Well, it doesn't matter. I may grow out of it."

"I wish you would be quick."

"I think," said Theresa, as she buttoned her nightgown over that place where the anxious pain was felt again--"I think I've got to go downstairs."

Barefooted, she pattered across the landing and down two flights of stairs. No light was burning, for gas must be saved, and Theresa was afraid; but she went on, past the front-door, down the basement steps, past the dark kitchen which looked vast and cavernous, and so into the brilliance of the breakfast-room.

"Theresa! Bare feet!"

"I want my book for the morning," she said. "In case I wake, you know."

Her mother was in the rocking-chair, and her father, shading his eyes under his hand, was sitting at the table, writing. The shadow was still in the room.

"You should have put on your slippers, dear, and your dressing-gown. Sit on my lap and warm your feet."

Theresa ran her finger down her mother's pretty nose.

"Aren't you coming to bed soon?"

"Not for a long time. It isn't half-past eight."

"Then will you leave this door open, and I'll leave mine. Then you won't seem so far away."

"You won't expect it every night?"

"No; just to-night."

"Very well. You must go now."

"I'll carry her up." Edward Webb took off his coat and wrapped it round her. The three faces were very close together, and Theresa felt the hastiness of her mother's kiss and the half-unwilling urging of her hands.

"Go, go; you ought to be asleep."

"Are you sure you can carry me?" Theresa asked as he went carefully up the stairs. "You're not very big."

"But you are very little."

"I'm going to be tall."

"Are you?" He held her close to him, pressing his cheek against hers.

"Yes, tall and willowy. I'm looking forward to it."

"That's right." He tucked her into bed.

"You won't forget about the door, will you?" She liked to feel that if anything dreadful happened she would be at once aware of it, for there was no delay and no evasion in her nature. Better be in the thick of the fight, see swords drawn and blows given, than find cold bodies in the morning, and something almost as bad as this, she dreaded. She had been dowered with a bright and fierce imagination, and had she not read the literature favoured by Bill and Bessie?

But she fell asleep to no other sounds than those which, all her life, had carried her into dreams or waked her to a new day, but to-night there began for her another phase of dreaming, one which was to endure for many years and make her sleeping hours almost as important and more adventurous than her waking ones. She dreamed of mountains and of still lake water. Very black were the rocks and the water, black and awesome, but holding peace. Sometimes she sat by the lakeside and waited; sometimes she clambered to perilous places among the rocks, and there were dangers often, people to be avoided, people with whom she must fight, but always the mountains and the water were unmoved, unruffled. They saw all things, and kept their counsel; they seemed to her, as she grew older, to be both judge and friend; they were more than the scene of her adventures; they were inseparably part of them, and when there came nights wherein nothing happened and she sat by the water without expectation, warmed with content, she knew that her happiness was not all from within, that if her dream permitted her to wander away from the precipice and the lake, a chill, like a bitter wind, would fall on her. Sometimes she made a struggle to get away, but she could never go. There was a white road somewhere, she knew, but she could not walk on it: she was a captive beside this dark and burnished mirror wherein she saw a face not like her own. In the daytime she would continue the stories begun in dreams. Very often she was a maiden fought for by savage tribes, a treasure for which men gave their lives in anguish, and at night she put her head on her pillow with a glad anticipation of horrors done for her sake. But as she grew older and the dreams themselves grew and changed their character, keeping pace with her own development, she was content to be without adventure in a place which never changed, except to be more beautiful. All other dreams were dull, unwelcome things, and if many days went by without one of these loved ones, she felt that half her life was not being lived, and then she would seek out shops where, by chance, there might be pictures in the windows to allay her hunger. She was not often fed, for such paintings as she saw were poor and unreal things, but they made her dreams more perfect. This was not in the earliest years of her new dreaming, and on this night she had but a repetition of her father's tale. She sat on a ledge of rock and she was afraid. She heard a sheep calling through the night, a stone spattering down the cliff, and she woke, wet and in fear.

"Grace," she cried--"Grace! I was falling. I'm afraid of falling. Will you hold my hand?"

"What were you dreaming of, Terry? It's all right. I've got you."

"Mountains," she said sleepily, falling back on her pillows--"mountains. Oh, I hope they'll come again."