The swing-bridge had swung back to allow some workmen to cross the water, and another yoked pair waited until it should open again to let them out. At a whistled signal the way was cleared, the tug snorted forward and passed close under Theresa's eyes. In one deep draught of sight she saw it all—the flat broad deck, the dirty men who had so little likeness to her idea of sailors, the friendly grin one man sent up to her, the marvellous rope of steel binding the little steamer to the towering ship which was too wonderful and bewildering in form to be remembered rightly after her quick passage. But Theresa looked greedily, and for days there stayed in her memory the vision of the long grey ship, her great masts growing upwards, swaying a little, too, the multitude of ropes and other things of which she did not know the names, of which it was astonishing that anyone could remember the names, and the whole thing following so meekly, with such submission, in the wake of the grimy tug. It went to Theresa's heart that anything so lovely should be dependent, and with sad eyes she watched the passage of that procession. She peered up at the ship as it passed; the last detaining rope was flung from it and fell heavily into the water, to be drawn up, dripping, by a jerseyed dockman, who looked at Theresa quizzically.
"Like to go to sea?" he asked genially. "'Ave to be a little boy 'fore you can do that," he added cheerfully, pulling at the rope and walking away as the wet end of it came over the side. "Don't 'ee slip into the water, little miss."
She tightened her mouth when he had gone, for she was shy of strangers, and this one had hurt her with the truth. She felt that the man had read her thoughts, her brave desires to sail the sea, and she could have wept that he should know her secrets. She had been so happy looking at the boats, picturing them cargoed with cutlasses, monkeys, tarry ropes, and strange stuffs of foreign make and brilliance, all the garner of her reading and her quick eyes, fancying herself free to sail away if she would, and forgetting she was a girl. She so easily forgot her disabilities. Never mind! She made queer little gestures with her hands, and steadied her lips. She had not really wanted to be a sailor; she was, indeed, in some confusion as to a profession. At one time the career of a circus lady laid siege to her mind, and assaulted it with such fierceness and effect that only the thought of her parents' sorrow held her back from imploring them to let her go and learn to jump through hoops from the back of a cream-coloured steed, to stand on tiptoe on its moving haunches, and kiss pretty fingers to a cheering crowd. There was a life! How the ring-master cracked his whip, and the horse sprang forward, and the lady stood on those little feet and never slipped! Theresa liked the clothes that lady wore: sometimes a costume of scanty pink, neck and arms bare and beautiful, and little flat shoes secured with cross-gartering to the slim legs, or, in the more stately parts of the performance, a rich riding-habit of green velvet and a hat with a sweeping plume; gauntlets, too, and shining boots with yellow tops. There was something very dashing about that profession, but what of nursing? How would it feel to be a Florence Nightingale, with a grave sweet face, and men turning in their cots to bless one's shadow? But no, she could not fit herself into the part.
But while she turned continually from one tempting vision to another, her father had already found a future for her, and one which would fill up the gaps in his own existence, and atone for his own failures.
"I would rather be Keats," he had told her one day as they walked together in the country, "than all the conquerors in the world."
"Would you?" she said, and held his hand fast. She liked conquerors. "What's Keats?"
He had told her the poet's tale, and that evening he had found her with the book open on her knee.
"I like it," she said, and sat silent, moving her lips. She had no wish to understand it; the sound and the mystery were enough for her, and that discovery set him dreaming. Cunningly, he dropped little fragments of knowledge that tempted her to stoop and pick them up, fit them together like a puzzle, and search for more. As if by accident the names of women of the craft slipped from his lips and, when she would know more about them, he showed her where their books stood on his shelves. She was born to a natural love of books—the feel and smell and sight of them—and the thought that men and women made them so that for centuries they should outlive their own poor human bodies was full of poetry for her. It came to her this morning like a balm, healing the wound made by that genial sailor. He did not know what she was going to be some day, in a future so remote, though shining, that effort to reach it was at present gloriously needless. She would get there; she was already soaring to the heights. She lifted her head, her hair flew free, her hands fluttered like fallen leaves before a wind, and as they are driven, so, elfishly and gaily, she danced along, restored to her belief in herself; so skilfully could Theresa in these days fit herself into the pictures she loved best. Now she was hardly concerned with the details of the life she had chosen; she knew she was to be a person; the rest was no more than the garments which were to clothe her, and fill the sailor and his kind with awe.
Wind-blown, happy, hungry, she mounted homewards, climbed the garden wall, and entered the house, as she had left it, by the garden door.
From the end of the dark basement passage she heard the sound of someone shovelling coal.
"Is that you, Bessie?" she called with a tremor in her voice, for even in the daytime the gloom had perils for her. "Bessie, is it you?"
Round the cellar door a capped head appeared and vanished.
"Of course it's me. Who else gets the coals—or does anything else in this 'ouse?"
Theresa ignored the implication, but she felt it sorely, and at the same time she pitied Bessie. Justice forced her to the admission that she had scanty help, and the sight of her now holding a dripping candle in one hand, and in the other a shovel into which she heaped the coal with a felt-shod foot, gave her a blurred impression to which thus early she could put no name, of physical energy ill-controlled. Bessie, in the bowels of the earth, struggling ineffectually, wasting time because with one hand she must hold that tallow candle which gave off such an offensive smell; grumbling, but toiling doggedly, with all the labour of the day looming up before her like a great ash-heap which she must remove unaided—there was little here of the dignity of labour; it was chaotic, dark, grimy. Theresa felt herself bewildered by the endlessness and the dirt of it. There was no danger to enliven it, no beauty to make it noble; the house did not catch fire, though chimneys smoked and food was burnt. No, there was nothing glorious in Bessie's life. And Theresa's own was to be so brilliant! Poor Bessie, it was not all her fault.
Theresa moved from one foot to the other, and said: "Is mother awake?"
"Yes, but she's breakfasting in bed. 'Asn't slept, so she says. 'Eart bad."
"I wish she didn't have such a bad heart," said Theresa, looking Bessie fairly in the eyes. The reality of her mother's complaint was not very present with her, and Bessie had not tried to hide a like incredulity which may have had its influence with the child, but Theresa was loyal to her mother. If she wanted to have a weak heart she must be supported in her desire, against all the sneers of the kitchen, though Bessie was Theresa's friend.
"So can I, I can tell you. Out of the way, Miss Terry dear." She carried a large scuttle to the kitchen. Theresa followed.
"I think I'd better go and wake Grace, don't you?"
"She won't get up unless. Such laziness! And you'll have to have your breakfasts in the kitchen; I can't be carrying them all up and down the house."
"Oh no! And we like it here. Bessie, is everybody's kitchen as dark as ours?"
"I should think not. You should see Alice's at Mrs. Bendall's. It's on the ground floor and as light! But these old-fashioned 'ouses 'ave no 'earts. Pit ponies, that's what they make me think of."
"I suppose you could get a better place if you wanted to, couldn't you?"
"Now you mind your own business, Miss Theresa, and wake Miss Grace. I'll have your breakfasts ready in five minutes. And don't wake your mother. P'raps she's gone off again."
Theresa dragged the bedclothes from a plump and smiling Grace, and put them beyond her reach. "Get up," she said. "This is a nice day. Father's coming home. If he travelled in the night he'll be here at ten, and if he didn't he won't be here till tea. I hope he'll come at ten. I think he will. Oh, do get up. If I were a fairy I'd turn you into that girl with the fat legs."
"You silly!"
"I saw her yesterday, and she'd got a longer skirt on, but it didn't hide them. I can't bear to see her; I think she must be so unhappy. What would you do if you had legs like that?"
"Dance and dance and dance," said Grace, jumping up in the bed and making the springs creak.
"But you couldn't."
"Yes I could. I could dance if I hadn't any legs at all."
"That's stupid. And don't make such a noise. Mother's in bed."
"Then why did you leave the door open and talk so loud?"
"I didn't talk loud. I've got a little voice. I can never hear myself singing at prayers in school, though I try till I get that horrid aching in my ears. So I don't bother very much now, and I just move my mouth. I tried in the glass, and it looks the same. Oh, I wish we'd had breakfast, and it was ten o'clock. I think I'll go and have it."
In the kitchen Bessie was moving from table to cupboard in that dark groping way of hers.
"I've been more than five minutes," said Theresa.
"Well, I couldn't get the fire to burn. What a grate! Here, Miss Terry, finish laying for me while I stir the porridge. And your father will be back hungry, I daresay, and your mother wanting her tray! That's her bell. Just run up and see what she wants."
Theresa met her mother on the landing going to the bath. Her fair waving hair was piled confusedly on the top of her head; she wore a long blue dressing-gown, which was the colour of her eyes, and over her shoulder she had flung a towel. Theresa thought she looked very lovely, and she clasped her hands in her quick movement of joy.
"Oh," she said, "are you better?" and tiptoed to be kissed.
"So this is a kissing morning, is it?" said Nancy, with her little tilting smile.
Theresa nodded. "When you look like that! Did you want anything?"
"Only to tell Bessie I'll have breakfast with Father when he comes. It wouldn't do to be in bed when he arrived. We won't tell him I wasn't well, Terry, or he'll never want to go away again."
"He doesn't anyhow," she said. "But I won't tell."
"Mother's up," she shouted to Bessie as she went jumping down the stairs. "Let's have breakfast. Oh, Grace, you have been quick. You can't have done your hair properly."
"I did, then."
"Brushed your teeth?"
"Miss Terry, you're very uppish this morning. Just mind your own business, and eat what's put before you. If you were as perticler as Miss Grace——"
"Oh, Bessie, the porridge is burnt! Oh, how hateful!"
"It's not very bad," said Grace soothingly. "If you think of something nice you'll hardly taste it."
"D'you think I'm going to eat it? I hate the stuff anyway; nasty, drab-coloured mess! It makes me think of what pigs have to eat."
"Miss Theresa, for shame! If your mother would get me a new saucepan, a double one—but I think you're likely to have burnt porridge every morning.Ihaven't time to stand over the pot stirring."
"And it smells! Take it away—take it away! And I'm hungry. And the tablecloth's so dirty."
"It's Saturday."
"And why don't we have flowers always, and pretty silvery things like Mrs. Emery has?"
"Oh, be quiet, you little grumbler."
"Here's a crust for you, Terry, a nice burnt one, the kind you like."
"You're spoiling her, Miss Grace. I'd let her starve. Which side did you get out of your bed this morning?"
"Oh, Bessie, don't. I hate that saying. And I got out on the right side, too. I went to the docks. I like them. I saw a boat go through—a beauty."
"You'll fall into the water one of these days."
Theresa leaned her elbows on the table and nursed her chin.
"What do you think," she asked, "would happen if I did? It's dirty water. I should go splash and get a mouthful. It might make me sick. And then?"
Gently waving her teacup, Bessie elaborated. "They'd fish you out—with a 'ook."
"Dead?"
"I should think so. Or p'raps garsping. Your hair'd be black and plastered, and there'd be little bits of things clinging to you."
Theresa clapped her hands. "Oh, you are good at it!"
But Grace cried: "No, no. It's horrid. Be quiet. It's much worse than the porridge. You're spoiling the bread and butter now!"
"We'll wait till we're alone, Bessie," Theresa said with a confidential nod.
When she had helped Grace to make the beds—the one piece of discipline on which their mother insisted—Theresa went into the little-used drawing-room to watch for her father. It was a dreary room in which a fire was seldom lighted except on Christmas Day, and even in summer-time it smelt of cold. The chairs were what Theresa called "rheumatic" on account of the twisted nature of their legs, and the clock, which stood on the mantelpiece and was never wound, presented a supercilious face to anyone who entered. On the walls there were a few faded watercolour sketches which might have been of anywhere, and a chiffonier, filled with odds and ends, stood opposite the fireplace. An empty photograph-frame on a wicker table was emblematic of the place. When Theresa went there she always propped open the door, because she said the room made her feel so lonely, and this though, as Bessie pointed out, there was a portrait of a maternal grandparent on either side of the hearth.
She opened the window wide and leaned out until she was in danger of falling into the area, but finding she could not see far enough down the street, she ran out at the front door and on to the mossy old pavement. It seemed a long time before she saw her father turn the corner of Chesterfield Row, and wave his hand to her.
She ran to meet him. "Hullo, hullo!"
"Well, autumn leaf?" He bent to kiss her, and with a hand on his shoulder she whispered: "Did you get it? You know what!"
"Yes," he said, "I did. A very good one."
"Tell me!"
"Oh, not yet. We must keep it till after tea."
"I don't think I can wait."
"We'll have the fire lighted, but not the gas."
"Oh, is it that kind?"
"It is indeed."
"How lovely. But I'm glad I sleep with Grace."
"But I shan't tell it at all if I hear you've been bad-tempered."
"I think that's rather mean," she said. "We didn't make that arrangement. Don't you think it's rather mean yourself?"
"Well," he said thoughtfully, "perhaps it is. It ought to have been in the bargain."
"I haven't been very bad, anyway. It's been such nice weather for one thing."
"You find that makes a difference?" he asked gravely.
"Oh yes. Don't you? Come on. You're rather slow. Mother's going to have breakfast with you. Shall I carry your bag? I can, really. Well, let me help. I'm strong, you know."
On the doorstep Nancy met him, and turned her soft cheek to his mouth. "Tired, dear?" she asked in her sweet, high voice.
"Very tired."
"Get Father's slippers, Terry."
"I've lost another customer, and if this goes on—thank you, Theresa." He sat on the stairs, and unlaced his boots.
"Go and tell Bessie, dear. She heard you, Ned."
His anxious face took on a greyer shade. "Did she? How careless of me! Perhaps she did not understand. But indeed, Nancy, I am worried, and I cannot blame myself for this. A pure misfortune which might have happened to anyone."
"You shall tell me when you have had breakfast, dear. You must not get disheartened. If only you were a little more conceited, Ned!"
The breakfast-room in the basement was the most cheerful in the house. The kitchen was frankly underground, but the breakfast-room benefited from the sloping ground at the back, and its French windows opened on the garden. Here were the piano, Nancy's work-basket and novels, and the dolls which Grace had not yet discarded. The room had a pleasant air of use, and this morning a clean cloth was spread in honour of the master's breakfast, and Grace, inspired by Theresa's complaint, had arranged a spray of autumn-hued creeper on the table.
Theresa was drumming her fingers on the window. She could see smoke rising from the docks, but at this lower level she could not see the ships. She turned as her father entered.
"Was that the adventure," she asked him quietly, "losing that man?"
"No—oh no, my dear."
"Did you find him again?"
"I didn't really lose him, Theresa. It's just a business expression."
"Oh!" She sighed. "I wish it was tea-time."
"What's going to happen then?" asked Nancy, lifting the tea-cosy.
"Ah," said Theresa.
"I know," said Grace. "Father's going to tell you what happened to him on the mountain."
"Oh yes, Terry, of course—the great adventure!"
Theresa's face had grown very red. Her lips trembled a little. "You didn't tell them, did you?" she asked.
"Yes, Theresa, I told Mother about it in a letter."
"And Mother told me—for a secret."
She tried to steady her lips. "But it wasoursecret. Oh, why did you tell them? Oh, you've spoilt it all!" The corners of her mouth had dropped to their utmost limits, tears were flowing and sobs coming fast, and, angered by her own weakness, she stamped her foot, shaking her little body violently. "Oh, how horrid of you! W-why did you tell them? I don't want to hear about it now. I hate it, I hate it; I hate you all! Treating me like a baby!" She turned to Grace. "You nasty thing!" she cried, and smacked her face.
"Theresa!"
"I don't care—I don't care!" Clenching her hands and setting her teeth, her face as flaming as her hair, she lifted a foot and made a vicious thrust at her sister, but Grace, giggling through her alarm, managed to dodge the blow. Both her own failure and Grace's good-nature increased Theresa's passion.
"You pig!" she cried. "You coward! I wish I had a knife! When we go to bed I'll kill you! O-oh!" With a long wail, she opened a window and rushed down the garden slope.
Grace took a seat on a low stool, and waited for the interesting conversation which must follow, but Nancy was leaning back in her chair.
"What is it, Nancy?" Edward Webb, clasping his table napkin with both hands, had run round the table.
"Nothing much. I'm not very well. And Theresa's temper——"
"You are not going to faint, are you, dear?"
"I'll give you warning," Nancy said, twinkling up at him. "No, I'm better. Grace, go and see what Theresa's doing."
"She's crying," said Grace. "She always does. And then she makes up stories about herself, she told me she did, and after that she comes and does something nice to you. If she's got any money I expect she'll buy me some sweets."
"I think we had better leave her alone. I blame myself, Nancy. I ought to have warned you, but I had not realized what store she was setting on keeping the secret to ourselves. I did not even know it was to be a secret, but I am afraid I've hurt her feelings."
"Evidently," said Nancy dryly.
"Terry," said Grace in her low, husky voice, "always wants things to herself. She won't share anything of mine, and when I have girls to tea she just sits and stares at them. She says she wants a friend of her very own."
"Poor little girl," said Nancy softly.
"I think she likes it," said Grace serenely. "She's funny. Shall I tell you what she told me a little while ago? It isn't a secret."
"Not even one of Theresa's secrets?"
"Well, if it is," said Grace acutely, "it's the kind she'd like you to know. I heard her crying in bed, and I asked her what was the matter. She wouldn't tell me for a long time, and then she said she wished she knew about her real father and mother. She says she knows you found her on a doorstep or something like that. She kept saying, 'I'm a little waif! Oh, Daddy! oh, Mummy!'"
"You ought to have told us before," said her father seriously. "She may have suffered more than we shall ever know."
"Oh, I don't think she minded really, because when she stopped crying she told me the whole story. It was all a make up, and she forgot she was pretending it was real because she went on to when she was eighteen, and—oh, I forget what she did then, but I know she rode to hounds and had a silvery laugh."
Across Edward Webb's worried face a complaisant look was stealing; his eyes had brightened. He met Nancy's laughing glance and answered it, but there was more than amusement in his: there was pride.
"You see," he said to her when Grace had left the room, "she's not an ordinary child."
"I wish her temper were ordinary. It's dreadful, Edward. She threw a plate at Bessie yesterday; I don't know why."
"Surely you ought to have found out, dear, and done something to correct her."
"I went to bed," said Nancy simply.
"You'll have to see a doctor."
"My dear, we simply can't afford it. Besides, I know what to do."
"I don't really need that new suit, Nancy."
"My dear shabby little old man, don't be absurd. I saw Mrs. Emery about Grace. She is willing to apprentice her at once."
"It's too soon. The child is only twelve."
"Nearly thirteen. Of course, it's too soon, but what are we to do?"
"I don't know—I don't know. I do not like to give my daughter so poor an education."
"She's a dunce, anyhow. We must think about it. Mrs. Emery says she will only charge a nominal fee, as she has such a high opinion of her dancing, and finds her such a help already."
"That's a relief. I thought—I was afraid I might have to apply to George for a loan. I should not like to do that."
"He came here yesterday," Nancy said reluctantly, "and hinted again. I wish he'd marry someone."
"My dear, it may come to asking him to live here. It would be a great help, and—I hope I am not pessimistic, but I foresee misfortune. It must be faced—I am a failure, Nancy. My commissions are getting smaller every year. They are bound to remove me soon. I could not blame them. They may give me a clerkship at a paltry income. And there is Theresa's education."
"And Grace's stockings!" said Nancy. "But oh, Edward, George is dreadful! I might do without a servant."
"That's impossible." He spoke with a rare decision. "We must do our best, Nancy."
"I know I'm a bad manager. I'm not economical, but I do try. I suppose I ought to be thankful that the children's appetites are enormous, and that Theresa's energy wears her clothes into rags. And the poor child loathes wearing Grace's outgrown frocks. I dye them and disguise them when I can, but she thinks everybody knows. She doesn't even have clothes of her own!"
"If we can only hold out until she is grown up. She is not an ordinary child."
"Of course she isn't! You knew she wasn't ordinary when she was an hour old. What was it you said—the moulding of her forehead? You made up your mind to it before she was born! And I love you for it—at present."
"What do you mean?"
"Only that some day I may want to hear you sing my praises instead of hers. I suppose"—she gave her twisted smile—"one could become jealous of a daughter."
"You jealous!"
She looked at him with humorous discernment. "Why not?" And without waiting for an answer she went on: "Do you know what I wish for both the children? You'll think it's treachery."
"Tell me."
"Marriage."
He made her a little bow. "May I take that as a compliment. It's perhaps the happiest wish for them, the happiest work, but I can't have Theresa wasted. She must have her chance."
"Don't you think she'll make it if she deserves it?"
"Ah, my dear, that's not quite fair. We must do all we can."
"Then I think we'd better try to cure her temper."
"I'm afraid," he confessed—"I'm afraid I like it in her. It's abnormal, you see."
"Oh, Edward, Edward, isn't that rather like catching at straws?"
"Certainly not," he said, with a little indignation. And then, somewhat shamefacedly, he added: "The fact is, I can't dislike anything in her." He looked through the window, and his brow was wrinkled. "Do you think," he asked half timidly, "that she is suffering?"
"I hope so," Nancy said.
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?"
"Idon'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?"
"Idon'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."
Edward Webb did not deny himself another pilgrimage to the mountains. Tenderly and silently, without disdain or ruthlessness, he put aside Nancy's prejudices. He knew something which was denied to her; he knew that the mountains gave him strength—the strength he so much needed to supplement his own; perhaps, though he hardly thought it, to counteract her weakness. There were days when he felt the desperation of fear: his children and his wife must be fed and clothed and housed if they were to live, and it was only he who could make that possible. He must work yet harder, he must make himself more valuable, he must be braver. He would gather endurance and courage from that vast storehouse where they were garnered, and if he hurt Nancy she would learn some day that it had been to save her.
When he was away he would tell her very simply of his intentions. "To-morrow I go to the farm. I am looking forward to the silence of the hills. They bring me nearer to you and all lovely things." Did she smile happily as she read, or had her lips the bitterer downward twist? He never asked aloud, for on that subject there was silence between them when they met, and it was Theresa's greedy ears that absorbed the tale of his experiences. "Tell me about that boy," and "Tell me about the mountains," were her two demands; but she was a willing listener to all, and Nancy, hearing fragments of their talk, would purse her lips. Yet, in letters, she, too, would be more open. "I'm glad you are going, dear." And then the little thrust, "Be happy there, and forget your worries and your poor useless Nancy." He would sigh over that, grimace over it painfully, and then settle his features with determination. There was Theresa: she must not be wasted. He saw her bright, like a star, and never a day passed but what she seemed more glowing, more necessary to give light to a world which, at times, was very dark. She shone for him, but she must shine for others: she must not be hidden behind the clouds of poverty that threatened. "On, on," he would murmur to himself as he stepped into that shop where, from behind the counters the young women laughed at him; and "On, on," he urged himself again, when his enthusiasm about his wares was failing him. It was hard to be eloquent about hooks and eyes, safety-pins, patent contrivances for the support of skirts, collar-bones and buttons, but there were times when he was served by his very depreciation of the goods, when his nervous "But no, of course, you would have no sale for things like these" persuaded his customer that some deep meaning underlay the words, so that he bought quietly, with covert eagerness. But Edward Webb only heard doubt in the tones of his own voice. "I was not born to be a pedlar!" he cried silently to the heavens. "I have no glibness. It is a gift. I cheapen the things in my very praise of them—but Theresa, Theresa!" That had become his battle-cry.
But it was good to strip himself of what might be called his uniform, don a grey suit and a soft hat, and, carrying a walking-stick, take the train to the little station by the shore. There followed a long walk for a tired man, but he was sure of a welcome at the end of it and, all the way, he had the company of the hills.
On a Friday evening in July, a little less than a year, and for the fourth time, since he had first seen the place, he tapped at Clara's door. She opened to him, and he saw anxiety in her face.
"Oh, come in," she said, and led him to the kitchen. "Jim's away, but Alexander'll be home soon. I wondered if you'd come, and your room's ready."
"You don't look well."
"I've a headache."
"I'm sorry Rutherford's away. Perhaps you'd rather I went back to-night."
"Of course not. I'm glad to see you, and so will Alexander be. And you do him good. He has no friends but you and Janet."
"I'm fond of him," Edward Webb said simply.
Moving in the sure strength that gave meaning to everything she did, she set the table for tea, then stood in the doorway and looked out and up towards the Spiked Crags, shading her eyes.
She turned to him for an instant. "I shan't be long. Will you mind the kettle for me? Tell Alec I've only gone a little way."
A few minutes later he heard Alexander's nailed boots in the passage, saw him enter quickly and look round the room, like a man who takes note of circumstances for the sake of safety.
"Oh, you're there!" They shook hands. "I've been wishing for you," said Alexander.
"Your mother has gone out for a little while. I was to tell you she was not going far."
Alexander leaned against the mantelpiece, and his face was dark with anger. "She'll kill herself, tearing about the place, worrying her life out over him," he said in his monotonous tones. "And I'd as soon see him killed as a rat. Mr. Webb, I hate that man, my father."
"My boy!"
"I do. He's spoilt my life for me. We hate each other, but he hated me first."
"There's more life before than behind you."
"Perhaps, but I'll never be a boy again. I'll never have been young at all. I can't remember anything of him but his scowling face and his drinking fits."
"There are worse men."
"Who do less harm. I believe that."
"Your mother cares for him."
"You think that proves him good. It just proves nothing. And I wish she didn't. If she hadn't watched over him, he might have killed himself long ago. And now he's tired of getting quietly drunk, and he's gone off, and the devil knows where he's gone to. I believe he's mad, but I'll not be his gaoler. I'll neither look for him, nor be glad when he comes back; if I saw him walking straight for death, I'd not touch his coat-tails to keep him back."
"Be quiet!" Edward Webb put up his hand, and there was command in his voice. "Tell me what's happened, and don't stain your mouth with talk like that."
"I'll stain it with no lies, and can you not see that I must speak? Do I talk to my mother like this? I just hold my tongue, but you're the only friend I've got, and if you'll not let me talk to you I'll just have to murder him. I've got to do something. Drunkenness, what's that? It's little enough with some men; I'm not blaming him for that. It's the black selfishness of the beast that angers me. Anger! It isn't anger; it's something hard and hot that's been growing in me since ever I can mind, when he didn't answer my questions and left my mother alone. I've seen her cry. And I've seen him blubbering over her, sorry for himself, not for her! Well, he went off two days ago. A kind of fever took him. He said he couldn't stay, and when she tried to stop him he shook her off. He said, "I'm my father's son"; he kept saying it—"I'm my father's son. He came and went like the wind." And my mother says my grandfather used to wander off when the drinking fits came over him, and no one knew where he went nor when he would come back. So now she's still more to bear. I hopeI'mnotmyfather's son. For two nights I don't believe she's slept—she's listening for him. I'm glad you've come. She wouldn't let me stay away from school; she said it would be better if he came back and didn't find me here; so I went. It's important for me to get that scholarship, you see, but if he's playing these tricks all this next year, well, I'll just have to practise forgetting, when I'm working."
"If you learn to do that, you'll have a valuable possession. Is there anything we can do?"
"I'll not stir a foot."
"To help your mother, I meant."
"That's the best way of helping her."
"We must let her decide that, I think."
Leaning his forehead on the hands that held the mantelshelf, Alexander went on, heedless of all but the desire to speak his black and clustering thoughts. "She knows I hate him. She likes me less for it."
"I don't believe it. She has a wide heart, a great and simple understanding."
"But she likes him best."
"She should."
"I'm not jealous, I don't care, but I tell you I've been robbed of something all my life. I've missed something, and that man's the thief. He's my father, my father, and what has he done for me all these days?"
"No one can tell you that."
"Ah, but I know. It's just nothing."
His listener rose and moved to and fro in agitation.
"You've no right to say that. How can you tell? How can anybody tell? You touch me very nearly. I am a parent. I think—I seem to myself to have done much, very much, given constant thought for my children, yet to Theresa how do I appear? Careless of her, perhaps, selfish, obtuse. I do not know. There's a chasm opened before one—a chasm of ignorance and doubt. One treads so falsely, takes the wrong path, and to her the way to help her may be so plain. Human beings, all of us, yet we speak strange tongues. The Tower of Babel with us still—still. It may be that you misunderstand your father's language, Alexander."
"He never speaks."
"Ah, don't be wilful. Under that ill-temper I believe he suffers."
"But why should I pity him? It's his fault."
"That's why you should pity him. That's the worst suffering."
Alexander shook his head. "I can't feel anything for him but hate. I hate the things he's touched; I hate to think I'm of his flesh."
"That's wickedness."
"Maybe. I feel all black inside. I'm burnt up like a cinder." He went to the door. "She's coming back. I'll make the tea."
"Is she alone?"
"Why, yes. He'll be miles away."
The three found little to talk about that evening. Clara sat sewing, with her ears at stretch; Alexander had a book; and Edward Webb marvelled at the change in him a year had made. Last September he was a moody boy; this month he was a still more moody youth. The bones of his face had grown in prominence; the lines of the jaw and chin were fine and hard, boding trouble for those who brooked him; and the lips, still wanting in maturity, had settled themselves in rather sullen curves. Trouble stirred at the man's heart. He liked this boy: if he had had a son, he thought, he would have chosen such a one: the brow promised brains, the flare of his nostrils was sensitive and proud, and passion brooded in his eyes. There was power in the face, but there was danger too, until his reason should learn to control his will; and before that day came there might come another, bringing tragedy. He moved uneasily. The room to him was like a cup holding a poisonous draught which must be spilled before it could work harm. He cleared his throat, loudly, startlingly, as though to warn a would-be drinker; the two looked up, and Alexander, in that quick hunter's way of his, glanced round the room.
"Nothing," said Edward Webb—"nothing."
"It's time we went to bed," said Alexander. Last year he had been sent there.
"Yes, yes. It's half-past ten."
"You'll go, mother?"
"Yes, I'll go. We'll leave the door unlocked and Jock at the stair-foot. He'll let no stranger past."
"A dog's a grand thing," said Alexander.
They laughed, and bade each other good-night.
Once more Edward Webb lay long awake, listening, as he knew the others did, for the noise of a hurried step outside. "Poor man! poor woman! poor boy!" he murmured, and then his thoughts hung hoveringly over the fact of his own parenthood. What had he done? Worse still, what had he left undone? The wind rose with a gathering swell of sound; rain fell and pattered on the window, pattering, pattering, until it seemed like voices. He fell asleep, but in a little while he wakened. Someone was moving about downstairs. Very quietly he went to the head of the stairs.
"Who's there?" he called.
Clara answered him. "It's only me."
"What are you doing?"
"Just making up the fire. It's such a stormy night—and cold."
The morning was very fair. The world had the washed look it needs in mid-July, and there were still raindrops sparkling in the sun.
"I think he'll come back to-day," Clara said to Alexander. "Will you take Mr. Webb for a walk—a long walk? You'd better not be here, either of you."
"You're not afraid?"
"Afraid! I'm only afraid when you're there, Alexander."
"You needn't blame me."
"I don't," she said.
After breakfast Alexander and Edward Webb set off together.
"Will you have a bathe?" the boy asked when they reached the Broad Beck pool.
"I should like it."
"Can you swim?"
"Yes—well, I can keep up."
"All right, then. Look how deep it is. Last summer it was shallower by four feet."
He stripped and dived, and Edward Webb, not to be outdone, followed him with a splash.
"Ah!" He came up bubbling. "How Theresa would like this. It's cold, distinctly cold, but it does one good, braces one. But I think I'll just get out on this rock for a while."
Alexander, lying on his back and kicking the water gently with his heels, appeared to address the sky. "I thought you had two girls."
"So I have. Oh, I see your point." He slipped into the water again, made three strokes, and found he could touch bottom. "It's shallower here."
"No," said Alexander; "I really thought she might have died, or something."
"I'm very fond of her. Alexander, this water's very cold. I think we ought not to stay too long. But I admit that Theresa does seem more akin to me. I hope I have not let Grace know it. You were right to reproach me."
"I didn't mean to—at least, I hope I didn't mean to."
"You must not think I do not care for Grace, but Theresa—well, Theresa has all the gifts I wanted when I was young. Have you a towel?"
"What were those? No, no towel; the shirt does. What were those gifts?" he was obliged to ask again.
"You haven't seen her. If you saw her, you would understand. I'll bring a picture of her next time I come. I wish you'd get out, my boy; it's very cold."
"I'm used to it. All the year round I bathe here."
"But, besides, she's clever. She'll make a name."
"How?"
Clad now in shirt and trousers, Edward Webb approached the pool, and perhaps he thought the silver birches bowed their heads to hear.
"She's going to write." There was a gentle rustling among the trees, but Alexander, showing no more than his wet face and hair, opened his mouth and said nothing for a space. Then, "Was that what you wanted to do?" he asked, and paddled to shore.
"Yes, yes, it was my ambition. But I had no time. It was a struggle to live, and I married. Only lately——"
"You've been doing it?"
He bowed his head. "I have told no one else," he said, and seemed to wonder at himself.
"Not Theresa?"
"No, no. You see, Theresa is very young. But she shows signs. I have seen little poems."
"Is it prose you write?"
"No. I'm—I'm afraid not. I cannot think that I ought to do it. It's self-indulgence, I believe, but if I have given the palest spark to Theresa, if she——"
"It was you who gave me Keats," Alexander said. "Have you had anything printed?"
"I haven't tried. What does it matter? It's the doing of it, you see. I've never found Theresa care for anything that was not good—strange in a child, I think. Significant. She has unerring taste, if I am any judge."
"I wonder, would you let me see your things? I've never seen anything but printed stuff. I'd like to see it fresh from a man."
Edward Webb flushed deeply. "I should be very grateful for your criticism."
"I couldn't give that."
"To oblige me, please. I—I haven't had the benefit of your education. I had to leave school early, and I know but little of the classics. I thought once of pursuing them, but there is so little energy when one's work is done—exhausting, uncongenial work. I know no scholars; in fact, I know few men, and those I meet are—are like myself. I want to give Theresa more than I had."
"Yes. Shall we be going on? Across the stream. There's a little bridge farther down."
They crossed and, emerging from the birch-wood, were on the flank of the Blue Hill. A narrow path led them upwards and soon they looked down on the level valley, its few houses, the church among its yews and the winding river, fringed by trees, flowing into the wide lake. And far off there shone a thin line which was the sea. But the path wound round the hill, so that they must turn their backs on these things and face a steep ascent, with another stream rushing down the hollow at their right. Without speaking, they toiled on, Alexander walking as one born to the hills, Edward Webb panting with an attempt at noiselessness. He turned once with a forced smile, for the going was hard.