CHAPTER IX

This experience, carefully edited, made a new tale for Theresa. The cavernous kitchen, the big woman sitting on the stool and telling dreams, the larches, like sentinels, about the house, and the sweet peace of the upper room, were new pictures to be added to her store, and they were favoured ones, mystery haunted.

"Do you like this new lady better than Mrs. Rutherford?" she asked. "I think I do."

"They are different, Theresa--quite different."

"I suppose Alexander likes his mother best?"

"I should certainly think so."

"I hope you'll go there again. I like you to. I've had such lovely times since you began to go to mountains."

Nancy's reception of his news was different. He felt it due to her to break the silence she had created. It was what he wished to do, and what he would have expected of her had she made and lodged with a new acquaintance; but it was hard to speak naturally through a barrier, and there was a hesitation in his voice which had no companion in his heart.

"Oh, Edward!" She broke into tears.

"My darling, what is it?"

"I don't know, but somehow they seem to be taking you from me."

"My dear, my dear," he said, distressed, "no one but yourself can do that."

"But these women--I'm not like them; I'm not strong or helpful."

"You are my wife!" he answered fiercely.

Her humour overcame her weeping. "Oh yes!" she said, laughing while her tears still trickled.

"Nancy, don't!"

"What, dear?"

"That tone! I will not have it. The name--the name I give you means what it did when we first loved. No, it means more--more. You shall not slight it."

She was weakened again by his tenderness. "No, dear, no; but I'm so lonely, and you go away to--to other women. I'm not really jealous--of course I'm not--and I know they are ordinary people enough, but you give them names that put them far above me. Ceres first, and now Cassandra. It sounds--oh, don't you understand? How would you like it if I went wandering about with--with mythological characters?" She laughed feebly, but he gave no answering smile.

"I will never go there again," he said, and on his face there was the blank surprise of one robbed by a friend. She saw it, and all day shame for herself and pity for him strove with her jealousy, until at night she went quiveringly to him where he sat in his little study upstairs, and begged him to take back his words.

"I do trust you," she said, "but I'm foolish and very much alone, and--and sometimes I don't feel well, and then, you know--Ned, promise you'll go there when you want to. Promise me."

"I have never wanted to do anything but make you happy."

"I know--I know. Ned, can you forgive me? I am ashamed. You have all the work and worry, and I have grudged you this. But it's because I love you. Promise me."

He kissed her solemnly. "I promise I will try to forget all but the real you, Nancy."

"That means you'll go?"

"I expect I shall. There, your face has changed already! Oh, Nancy, Nancy, even if there were no other reason, are you not Theresa's--the children's mother?"

Again she smiled, a little mockingly. "Yes, but don't think of me as Theresa's mother. Let me be a person too. Sometimes I feel as if I'm just part of the breakfast-room furniture. I spend my life there. No wonder you forget me."

"Why don't you go out more?" he said uneasily.

"I've no energy, no clothes, no money."

"I have brought you very little good."

"I don't mind about the clothes and the money, Edward."

"What is it, then? My dear, you can't hope to be well if you stay indoors all day. I don't suppose you ever eat anything but bread-and-butter and biscuits. It's not fair, Nancy."

"I do my best, dear." Trailing her long skirts, she went slowly down the stairs.

He looked round the room. Everywhere the dust lay thick, and in the hearth were the torn fragments of letters he had thrown there two weeks ago. He looked at his frayed cuffs, he was aware of his buttonless shirt, and he did not like to think of the children's underlinen. He had no doubt that it was clean, but he knew it would be unmended. Neglect working with poverty is ruthless in destruction, and he sat like a man helpless under a threatened violence of storm. So this room, and the one downstairs littered with newspapers, books, and odds and ends of sewing, with the knob of the sideboard still waiting for glue, were produced by Nancy's best efforts! He did not want that knob restored to a place where it was not necessary a knob should be, but the meaning of its absence was sinister. There was much sweetness in Nancy, but there was little help, and she looked ill. His cares dragged at him, and there was only himself to lift them until the day when Theresa's strong young hands would cast them off. But there was Grace. Vigorously, and with a quick memory of Alexander's wet head appearing above the water of the pool, he remembered her. He blamed himself for his ingratitude to the nimble toes which would earn a little salary for her next year. "I do not think of her enough," he murmured. "Wrong of me. Nancy sees it, Alexander sees it. Yet I love her." Her success, he considered, would mean much to Theresa; college, perhaps--hope gleamed a little--she ought to go to college, and it might be managed. He must have courage. For a moment he dreamed of commercial conquests, of new customers and large commissions, but he had dreamed before, and he had not Janet's gift for dreaming true. He roused himself to facts, and one of the hardest of them was his brother George. In the last resort, there was brother George, who lived in lodgings with a harmonium, and longed for a home. He was a man of some substance, a dealer in grains, willing to pay dearly for what he wanted, and shrinkingly Edward Webb foresaw the day when George would have that home offered to him, not out of pity for his loneliness or desire for his company, but for the money he could give--money which would help Theresa on the road to fame and allow Nancy to feel ill in comfort. She ought to see a doctor. There were hollows in the cheeks he had known so fresh and full, and her touch was nerveless. His heart shook with fear, for he loved her still with the strange disturbance of his youth. He clenched his fists and shook them. To be so powerless, so powerless, though he strove his mightiest! His soul was fretted; life was a jumble; he saw himself struggling along an endless, dusty road, white to the knees, eyes blinded and throat parched. There stretched before him years more of such travelling, yet--and his hands unclenched themselves--was he not greatly blessed? His eyes were sometimes cleansed by a sight of stars above the hills; he stooped now and then to a mountain stream, and of his weariness Theresa would reap the fruits. He took a deep breath, for he saw the steady hills which were his friends, and felt their wind on his cheeks. Life cleared itself again; somewhere, unexplained but sure, there was a law of order. He bowed his head and went on his humble way. Taught by the beauty of the world and his own need, he was submissive to the unknown and had faith in it. There was a meaning in life: he could not read the meaning, but the belief was a renewed inspiration, and he was content; for who was he to know God's purposes?

* * * * *

Blown by each wind and rejoicing in the merry whirl, Theresa passed her days; they were all adventurous, of mind if not of body, and her nights were wonders. There was no one in the world whom she could envy; she felt sorry for every girl who was not Theresa Webb. Who else could be so certain of a glorious future? Who else turned the corner of every street with a just expectation of joy? There was no one else, and, since she could find her thrilled happiness within herself, she seldom missed it. Sometimes she played at being a princess, with evidence of blood in the lift of her head; sometimes she was a little genius, early bowed; and now and then she was just a schoolgirl, but so beautiful and compelling that people turned to look at her, and were dazzled by her radiant hair. While she lived she must find enjoyment, if it were but in being miserable; for while she lived, so must Theresa, that paragon, that puzzle of which she never tired. But this adoration was a secret, guessed at home, perhaps, but unimagined at school. She was very quiet, very good, and so observant that her work suffered. She seemed attentive, but under the eager solemnity of her face there was a dancing spirit that betrayed itself, to the quick, in the restless movements of her hands. How could she care about arithmetical problems when the woman who proposed them looked as though she had not slept? The reason for that wakefulness must be discovered--a more attractive hunting than seeking for the answer, which might be anything, to a question about apples and potatoes at fluctuating prices. Her reports both delighted and alarmed her father.

"Theresa," he said seriously, "I see some of your subjects are very unsatisfactory."

"Yes, they are, aren't they?" She was interested, and looked with him at the paper he held.

"You are only top in English, Theresa, and you are bottom in a great many things. Scripture, I see among them, and arithmetic."

"Yes, but they don't matter much, do you think?"

"It all matters, my child."

"Does it? You know"--she moved to the window and came back to his knee--"I can't understand why those girls get more marks than I do. They're really very stupid when you talk to them."

"Perhaps they work."

"Oh yes, I think they do. But I'd rather be clever. They just learn things. I can't learn things for seeing them."

"You are eleven years old, Theresa. I don't want you to be an ignorant woman. Imagining things is not knowing them, but when you know them you can embroider them without much harm."

She liked the expression, and nodded.

"At present," he went on, "you are like a woman who has a needle and thread and no cloth to work on. She is making patterns in the air, and they vanish."

"No," she said; "they are inside."

"But she can show them to no one else. And--and when you write your books, Theresa, is no one but you to see them?"

Oh no, she would not like that. "But writing books is different. It's like poets."

"What do you mean, my dear?"

"Born, not made, you know."

"I don't think you will find it so simple when you try, and birth is not always easy."

"No, it isn't. I know that. Bessie's sister-in-law----"

He flushed and interrupted with nervous speech. "So you will try to work hard, Theresa."

"Yes, I suppose I'd better, but I hope I won't get like the girls who do." To add new qualities to herself or to change old characteristics was, she dimly felt even at this age, to tamper with the sacredness of an original. Technically, it might be improved on, but the individuality, the oneness, would be lost. She would admit the folly of flaming into tempers, but she did not like to think of herself without them: in themselves, tempers were evil, but when they were hers they became good. She did not want to be industrious; the virtue was not picturesque, and it was not hers; but if it was an instrument necessary to fashion herself into the shape she had designed for the future which was so conveniently far off, then she must learn to use it. Mentally, she picked it up and put it in her pocket, and considered herself complete.

On this subject, too, she made her usual half-reluctant reference. "Is Alexander a worker?" She knew the answer before it came, and was ready with her grimace. "He's perfect, isn't he? I don't like that boy."

"You would like him if you knew him."

She stamped her foot. "I wouldn't! Oh, why do you say that? How do you know? I hate people to be so sure about me. Rub it out, quick!"

"Very well; it's rubbed out."

"No, it isn't. You still believe it! It's what Grace says about girls--'You'd like her, Terry'--and it makes me hate them. Anyhow, they're rather silly girls, her friends. They giggle and they smile at boys."

"There's no harm in smiling at boys, Theresa. I wish you had some brothers."

"So do I. I'd love it, but I don't believe Grace wants them. She has heaps of sweethearts--heaps. There's one who gives her a buttonhole every Saturday. Haven't you noticed it? She wears it on Sunday, and keeps it in water all the week. It's horrid by the end, but she won't throw it away till she gets another. He's quite big--seventeen, I think."

Here was yet another anxiety for Edward Webb! His brow was furrowed, and he looked down at his fingers as they twisted his watchchain. "Don't tell me anything she wouldn't like me to know, Theresa."

"Oh!" She blushed burningly. "Oh, I haven't been telling tales, have I? I didn't mean to--I didn't! Oh, what shall I do? I'll have to tell her I told you."

"Yes, I think you'd better."

"She never told me not to. You know I wouldn't be a sneak. I hate them. And she won't be home for hours. What shall I do till she comes? Could you read to me?"

"I should like to."

"I don't think I'll let you, thank you. If I went and met Grace from dancing, I'd get it over sooner, wouldn't I?"

"It's too soon yet."

"I'd rather start."

She left him with his fears--a small, grey, tortured man. His own boyhood and youth had been ascetic, with no companions except books. No pretty face but Nancy's had allured him, and to think of Grace courted by hobbledehoydom was, to his fastidious eyes, to see her tarnished. He hurried down the stairs to Nancy.

She laughed at him. "My dear, it's natural. And she's beautiful."

"Very beautiful. There--there are dangers, Nancy."

"Don't, Ned. That's horrid. She's a child."

"She must be warned. Yes, it is natural, but what is so dangerous as nature? She must be warned. Flowers--and perhaps kisses! I can't endure it, Nancy."

"My dear, you can't change humanity even in your daughters. I can't bear to hear you talk like that. It worries me."

"Street-corner meetings--secrecy--foolishness--it must be stopped."

"You'll make her think it's serious. She'll fancy she's in love! You must laugh at her. She is not fifteen."

"I think it's you who ought to speak to her."

"I can't, dear. My heart----"

"Oh, Nancy! Very well. I'll do this, too." He marched upstairs again, and she lay back in her chair, trying to still a thumping heart. He knew he had undertaken one of the hardest tasks in the world.

Nancy, complaining of fatigue and proudly reticent about her pain, retired to bed, and an uncomfortable trio sat round the supper-table. Edward Webb was jerkily conversational, Grace was sullen and aggrieved, Theresa had red eyes. She and Grace had quarrelled. She had been called "sneak," as might have been foreseen, and she had answered, in the street, with furious little hands and feet, until, despairing of finding satisfaction in these assaults, she had sunk to the kerbstone, uttering passionate, half-articulate sobs of rage. Grace had walked on loftily, not even interested in her tears. With no one but a stolid policeman--would that it had been Bill!--to look at her, it seemed a waste of time to sit there longer, so she, too, walked home, pitying herself and hating Grace; but it was her father on whom she turned her hatred when she met Grace crying on the stairs, contorting her still lovely face. It was terrible to see her in distress, and Theresa asked forgiveness with fleeting touches of her hands. "Tell me--oh, do tell me!" she whispered. "I'm sorry, Grace."

"He is trying to part us, but he cannot do it," she said, and leaned her head against the pillar of the banisters.

Theresa was impressed. "Do you really love him?" she asked.

"Love him! Oh, what's the good of talking to a child like you?"

Curiosity overcame Theresa's pride. "I'm nearly twelve, and I've read a lot of books, you know."

"I'll tell you. I must tell someone. He says we may be friends; but there must be no foolishness."

"That's flowers," Theresa said.

"And I can have him to tea if I like. Wouldn't it be stupid?"

Theresa failed her here. "Why?" she said.

"Oh, if you can't see that----" Grace went into the bedroom and locked the door.

Theresa sat on the stairs till supper-time and divided her sympathies fairly, but Edward Webb was conscious of the first serious revolt.

"I believe I did more harm than good," he moaned as he lay in bed.

"I knew you would," Nancy answered, and tears of utter weakness rolled down her cheeks.