E. H. Young

“ Theresa asked lazily, and was so much startled by Grace's quick and emphatic, "Oh no, thank you!" that she almost felt it in her conscience to follow her; but she sat still, frowning, and put a direct question when Grace, returned, unusually silent, and stood to warm her hands before the fire.
"Have you been out with a man?"
"Theresa, you're horrid. No, I have not. You talk to me as though I were a servant girl."
Theresa smiled. "I wish you were as unsusceptible as Bessie. She gets all her romance out of novelettes, bless her!" ”

“ He thought of Nancy, of Grace and Theresa in their beds: Nancy, with her hand under her cheek, and the humorous, half-mocking smile on her lips, even in sleep; Grace, with her nose in the pillow, and Theresa widespread, tossing her tawny head. Heaven keep them and him! If only the darkness had not been so thick—thick, yet unsteady, promising cracks of light which did not come, and, as he grew more dazed, taking unwelcome shapes of small and evil things, of things nameless, gigantic, formless, yet hideous in suggestion, that came slyly through the folds of mist to push him from his place. ”

“ Theresa, can you love me back? I am not satisfied with serving. I will not say I am. I want all I have ever seen, or heard, or dreamt of you, and all I do not know, all you may grow to be. Last night, when I was lying outside your door, listening for the sound of you, I did not think about my mother; I did not think about my father or yours. I remembered how you had put your head against my arm, under the yews, and how you had smiled at me in the firelight, and I could not sleep for hoping, and I thought you must have heard me crying out to you ”

“ 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 ”

“ How to live on it! Theresa! I did not know you were there."
"Yes, I followed you." Her voice shook with pity for him. "Mother saw me." People's eyes! She saw them socketless, like those she had once detached from the head of Grace's favourite doll. "Is it only money? Then we'll manage. I'm not going to eat meat any more. I loathe the stuff, and lentils are cheap. I'll tell Bessie to order them." They both smiled wanly, strangely alike in that moment. "You needn't laugh. We must be practical. Grace is nearly keeping herself, and I shall be soon. I wish you wouldn't look so miserable." ”

“ When she reached the docks a sailing ship was in the river, following a little tug with a reproving grace, under which she hid her limitations from herself. There were men looking over her side and waving farewell with such attractive foreign gestures that Theresa stood close to the water's edge and gazed, with her hands tightly clasped behind her. The wind acted like a great fan on her hair, stirring it at its roots and flinging its long red fingers all about her head, thrumming, too, on her short skirts, lifting them with a twist, and whipping her tight-stockinged legs. ”

“ An apology from Theresa was almost more alarming than a scolding. "No, no, dear, I quite understand," Mrs. Morton said in haste, while Basil smiled slowly, a little stiffly, conquering uneasiness with love.
In the smoking-room, Theresa sat down emphatically and spoke with great decision.
"I'm horrid to your mother," she said.
"You are not very nice."
"She raises the devil in me!"
"Theresa!"
"It's true. I wanted to throw the wine-glasses about, I wanted to dance on the table. She always makes me feel like that. What am I to do? How are we to live peaceably together?" ”

“ Sometimes, as the train carried him on, with, to his imagination, something remorseless and inimical to him in its energy, he would look up from his book and stare longingly at the country which the fast wheels spurned; but on his lonely Saturday and Sunday, when he was stranded in some town, he seldom had energy to obey adventure's whisper, and explore farther than a quiet place where he could read, and write his daily letter to his wife. But, Theresa having a hunger for adventure, her father had decided that at least she should be satisfied by proxy, and he had sought the mountains. ”

“ Looking at it, Alexander wore an expression between pride of possession and youthful reserve; he lay on his stomach, nibbling a heather stalk, and frowning that he might not smile. This was his mountain, all the mountains were his, and he would have led hither no one whom he could not trust; but Edward Webb's long-drawn sighs, the restless movements of a pleasure that looked and was not able to express itself, and then the settled quiet of his drinking gaze, assured him that he had made no mistake. This man understood that he was in the presence of the mighty. ”

“ It was May, but a cold wind rattled the windows, and Nancy had her feet inside the fender and a shawl round her shoulders. Theresa was sewing, as a silent protest against the ardent letter-reading upstairs. Her lips were tightened, and conscious virtue enveloped all of her but the hair that flamed in love's own colour. She was now eighteen, and the hair was massed on her head, overweighting it, strengthening the pallor of a face where only a few golden freckles broke the white.
She shivered. "May is the worst month of all," she said, and threw down her sewing. ”

“ The months after Theresa's departure had been black ones for Alexander. For a time her face lived before him like a flame, but it had been extinguished by the winds of the mountains as he battled through them, and though his hands were burnt, he was glad of the scars. They told him he was stronger than the small vivid woman who had tried to steal his heart and the singleness of mind that meant so much to him. ”

“ But, Alexander, it isn't only mothers who die in bearing children." She checked a sob, dropping her head to her knees, and, looking past her, Alexander watched the shadows on the hills.
"To-morrow Grace will come, and Uncle George. They wouldn't understand if we looked happy, would they? Nobody would understand that death could be so beautiful." She rose and stood beside him. "Alexander, why don't you speak to me?"
He gave her the quick look she had loved to remember through the years. "Theresa, do you see what he has done? He's joined us with a seal we dare not break." ”

“ With the upper froth of her mind, she was learning to be social.
"Grace," she said one night, as they lay in bed, "I wish you'd furbish me up a little bit, and—and drag me about with you to places, if I shouldn't be a nuisance."
"Oh, Terry! Would you really come?" There was a break in Grace's voice, and her hand sought Theresa's. "Would you? I've always wanted to."
"Have you? Won't you be ashamed? I'm such a gawk."
"Ashamed! You're lovely. I shall be so proud to show you off. There's no one like you, Terry. You're—you're a person! And if you'd only be a little tidier, you would be pretty. ”

“ It sang through her dreams at night and mingled with the talking of the dark lake's water, for she was restored to her place under the mountain, and now, while she waited, she had no doubt of whose footfall she expected, whose hand she wished to grasp, and, when the morning came, flashing truth on her receptive mind, she had to own her need of Alexander. But, indeed, she was glad to own it. She had gone past a state in which pride could be greater than her love and, as if to make amends for her disloyalty, she acclaimed him. ”

“ Her cheeks were a pale pink, her eyes were very bright, and at the sight of her he felt as though he had been bathing in some rare air where prejudices could be blown away, and youth regained and strengthened.
"May I be the first to wish you a very happy New Year?" he said.
"You are too late. Bessie, our domestic drudge and best friend, was the first; then Uncle George. He seemed to have very little hope. You are the third—and thank you. And a happy New Year to you, too."
"It has begun happily," he said gravely.
"Yes. I can smell the spring coming through the mist. ”

“ Early on the Saturday morning when her father was expected to return, Theresa awoke and, quickly flinging off the bedclothes, sat up with a jerk. The busy fingers of the wind were tapping at the pane, calling her to come out and play, and from the bottom of the hill there rose a more imperative summons, the hooting of a steamer making her way out of the docks. It was high tide, and she smiled her pleasure, hugging her knees. Every day that sound was borne up to her on the hill, like a trumpet call to life. ”

“ She rubbed her untidy head against his shoulder. "I'll work at home," she whispered. "There'll be lots of time. I won't—I won't be beaten, I promise you." She felt again the smouldering force within, and triumphantly she cried: "If there's any power, it can't be crushed, it can't! You'll see. And oh!" she added more softly, "let me make up if I can. I was wicked. I'll even be an angel to Uncle George!"
She could almost hear the slipping of his burden. "Thank you, Theresa. Thank you, my child. You never fail me." ”

“ With the fluty song beguiling him, he left the road and walked by the banks of the Broad Beck, until his bathing pool shone out among the birches. He saw himself mirrored dimly in the water, and the blurred image appeared to him as the true presentment of the thing he was, vague and incomplete, the rough shape his soul must perfect. The trees, in their drooping, veiled the fading light and curtained Alexander from the rest of the world, but he felt the Blue Hill behind him and fancied he could hear its breathing. ”

“ I want the sun."
They followed the grassy track and struck across the new green of the bracken to the stream that rioted among the rocks, teasing itself into foam, lashing itself into waterfalls, or lying in still pools. By one of these, on a broad slab of stone, Theresa and Alexander halted. The sun struck on the water and on them; it gilded the purple of Theresa's gown until it was illuminated like a missal; it found the lurking red in Alexander's hair, it turned hers to flame, and to each one it showed the suffering of the other. ”

“ With a little twist of bitterness about her lips, she looked back at her girlhood and saw a fiercely independent Theresa stretching out hands to a future made glorious only by her own powers, subject only to her own genius, and here was Theresa, grown a woman, wearing out her strength with longing, conscious that her whole life had been bound by human beings, that she had no genius but that of drawing people to her and giving them of herself. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The luminous eyes looked steadily at Theresa: they had lost their sparkle, and showed dark and unsuspected depths. "Who taught you to be love's advocate?"
Grace made a weak little movement with her hands and turned to look out on the docks. In the silence Theresa heard her breathing and saw the throbbing pulse in her throat. Speech came with difficulty.
"Love itself, I suppose," Theresa heard.
"Are you ill?" She forced a place for herself on the window-sill, and took Grace's hands. "Grace, what has happened?" Fear pumped at her heart and shook her body. "Grace, tell me." ”

“ Common kindnesses and loyalty will not be memorial enough for him. We can give him nothing but the highest. Ah! you mustn't think I wouldn't want to give it to you, that you don't shine for me until I feel it's sacrilege to touch you, but though we may live all our lives in more worship of each other than we dream of yet, there'll be other things, Theresa. Hard work, and trouble, and weariness, and poverty, and they may breed anger, and hard words, and that unfaithfulness of the mind that's worse than any fleshly one. ”

“ He could not turn his back to that awful emptiness, and climb the steep rocks he could hardly see; his own daring of descent amazed him. He was a little giddy; he blinked in the darkness. He would have to stay there, shivering and afraid. He was having his adventure and he did not like it, but across his troubled thoughts words of Theresa came, bracing him to courage.
"I hope I'm brave," she said to him one day, inflecting her voice inquiringly.
"I hope so, too," he answered, and felt a pang.
"I like brave people," she said. "I like them to be brave and clever." ”

“ Clara outwatched him. She lay in the extraordinary stillness to which she had trained herself, with patiently closed eyes and an untroubled brow, but there was the pain of controlled weeping in her throat. She had taught herself to keep her mind clear of regrets, of anger and scorn, that there might always be room for the flooding brightness of her love, but she had not yet learnt to keep back that hard, constricting hurt that stretched across her throat from ear to ear, and made a raw place in her breast. ”

“ 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. ”

“ She knew she was endangered by his complaisance, and she wanted to be loyal. She would be loyal. She stared at the fire through mist and strands of hair, and slowly the mist gathered itself into drops that fell with a little crack on her silken petticoat. She was cold, though the flames were bright. She was not conscious of the room. All round her there was a dark loneliness like nothing she had ever seen or tasted. It was not the lonely terror of the sea, nor the great cleansing solitude of the mountains, but something formless, perilous. ”

“ She lived and ate, and slept through the medium of a body which had no connection with herself. She would rather have suffered tortures, but she could not regain her personality or any of the emotions it would have felt. While Uncle George went gloomily about the house and Bessie sobbed in the kitchen and Grace lay prone upon her bed, Theresa, feeling ashamed of her coldness, seemed to live a life whose normality was only broken now and then by the sight of a fleeting, ghostlike figure that could not find rest. ”

“ Morton is a man of breeding and education. His devotion to Theresa is evident. My objections are all of that strongest, inexplicable sort, and I feel that she has already gone from me for ever. Perhaps I have dwelt too persistently on the thought of her all these years, if one can think too much of what one loves; perhaps my perception of most things has become blunted by looking too keenly at the one thing. I do not know. It all seems very dark to me, and the burden of child-bearing is not all the mother's. I have borne Theresa for five-and-twenty years, and now she is snatched from me. ”