Theresa

“ And what of Theresa, the richly and fatally endowed, she who, with all the faculties for feeling and bestowing gladness, yet wasted her youth away; she who sadly tested the beautiful combination of genius with womanhood, yet lavished her powers in vain—why need I trace the passing away of one beloved so well? ”

“ 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?" ”

“ Dishevelment is seldom fair to see, and Theresa did not look beautiful. She did not care. She wanted to feel the wind's fingers at the roots of her hair, and she liked the tug and the sound as the strands were whipped this way and that. She stood alone on the mountain top, and gave her body to the elements, yet remained free. ”

“ It was the first time that Theresa had felt the fickleness of popular favor; and who does not know the morbid sensitiveness with which the poet shrinks from censure? To have her fair imaginings thus degraded, her glowing theories prostrated, the golden pinions of her fancy dragged to the dust—were these things the compensation for thought, and toil, and sacrifice? It was a dark wisdom to learn, one that would cast a shade over all future effort—and disappointed and mortified, Theresa threw down the paper, and wept those bitter tears which failure teaches youth to shed. ”

“ 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!" ”

“ That lady of his fancy had been tall and dark, gracious and reserved, with no ink stain on her middle finger, and no happy comradeship with men. She must be above them, loftily enthroned, white-fingered, perfect; yet here he was ensnared by this Theresa with her red hair and her quickness and her fearless glances of eyes that were rarely veiled. ”

“ It was a trying effort for Theresa to bury the conflict of her impetuous emotions in the stillness of her own bosom—the more trying because she had never before known cause for reserve; but the power of endurance in womanhood is mighty, and she did conceal even from my watchful eyes, the triumph of certainty over hope. I knew not then that the silver chord was already severed, and the veil lifted from the pale face of grief, never again in mercy to lend its secrecy. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Theresa was as guileless as any being of mortal mould may be; but even the most artless woman cannot be altogether free from some touch of instinctive artifice—that innocent and gentle guile is to woman what nature has bestowed on all, even the humblest of its creatures, her true weapon of defence, her shield against the brute tyranny of man. And Theresa was a woman. She replied, therefore, without an instant’s hesitation, although her voice did falter somewhat, and her cheeks burn, as she spoke⁠—
“That you are angry with me, cousin Durzil.” ”

“ Theresa gained upon me every day. Fresh characteristics were for ever cropping up to charm me with new aspects of her nature. She was hearty, genuine, cheerful; piquant with candour, amusing with originality. Moreover, I found my admiration of her fine face and figure [7] increase in proportion as I grew familiar with them. The longer Conny remained silent the more powerful became my regard for her cousin. I pictured that fair-haired girl devoted—to Curling; and jealousy stung me, and turned me to Theresa, and obliged me to think of her. ”

“ Suddenly he broke silence, and Theresa again listened to the avowal of his love. But now the voice was low and broken, and he spoke mournfully and hopelessly; for in the same hour in which he owned his passion for the Countess, he also acknowledged to her his marriage with the peasant.
Ernest had, in truth, been spoilt by circumstances; his conquests had been too easy, and he had mistaken vanity and interest for love. But a deep and true feeling elevates and purifies the heart into which it enters. His passion for Theresa brought back his better nature ”

“ 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. ”

“ Fortune now seemed to favor Maria Theresa everywhere. In Italy, too, events had shaped themselves to her advantage, and at the close of the year 1742 she could look cheerfully into the future, although the sky was not entirely cloudless; for in Italy there were many knots to be untied that only the sword could loosen. ”

“ I know how they smell. Why is it? Why is it?"
He made no answer, and they both gazed in the fire, and, defying the habits of youth and age, it was Theresa who saw the scrolls of the past, and Edward Webb who looked towards the future.
"I want you to promise me something," he said at last.
"What is it?"
"You'll marry no one whom you do not love with your best self; you will try not to be the servant of your imagination. Teach it to serve you, Theresa." ”

“ Theresa forgot everything in the sight of the child's peril. Dashing forward, she caught him up in her arms, dropping basket and can and everything, and staggered across the road with him, just as a pale-faced gentleman, in semi-military dress, came rushing up in a terrible state of anxiety and excitement. ”

“ It is a bold woman that would squeeze Heaven into a pigeon-hole.
Theresa stopped in front of the gardener’s chair. Theresa’s surname had been blown away from her with the first Atlantic wind. So had the shining system in her yellow hair. So had most of her land conventions. She was not a thing of the ocean, but a thing of the ocean liner. She had immediately become Everybody’s Theresa. I could not say that everybody loved Theresa, but I know that everybody felt they ought to. ”

“ As your wife, the enemy may never suspect whom she really is. If it pleases you—if it pleases Theresa, my dear boy—I am [Pg 126] agreeable to all that you may do and desire. But for myself, I shall remain here. I have enough money to buy the place—the money I have saved for Theresa, and I think that the evening of my life may be spent in comparative happiness now that I know my beloved child is well provided for. Treat her tenderly, Sir Harold, for she is like a delicate flower, that would droop and die if neglected or deprived of the sunshine of your love. ”

“ Theresa was the most guileless creature, and had never dreamt of love till she felt it; the world to her was bounded by the wild moor and deep wood which surrounded their cottage. The only human beings she had ever beheld were the ancient domestics at the Castle, and a few of the peasants far poorer than themselves ”

“ Thus, while in some ways Maria Theresa had only to maintain what her noble father had planned and begun, in others she was obliged to act on her own responsibility and strive to remedy evils that needed a stronger and more masculine hand than is often possessed by a woman. But to her had been granted the clear, judicious mind and resolute spirit of a born ruler; she was singularly fitted for the difficult task, and what a man might not have been able to accomplish even under the most favorable circumstances, the woman and youthful Empress effected with the happiest results. ”

“ Theresa.
[Reads.]
"Never had hymns more strenuous and high
From seraph lips rung through the listening sky:
Courage! Oh, fallen child of godlike race—"
The Duke.
[Who has entered unnoticed.]
Forgive the interruption, Lamartine!
Maria Louisa.
Well, Franz? A pleasant ride?
The Duke.
Delightful, mother.
But, Mademoiselle, where did my entrance stop you?
Theresa.
[Looking at him with emotion.]
"Courage! Oh, fallen child of godlike race,
The glory of your birth is in your face!
All men who look on you—"
Maria Louisa. ”

“ Money, he fell fairly in love with the dove-like eyes and saintly ways of Theresa. Theresa was therefore what her father would have called "out of the swim." She looked tolerantly upon her mother's little gatherings of poets en herbe, artists who were great to their friends, patriots hunting for constituencies, orators who had not yet caught the speaker's eye, and persons who had tried success in all these various paths and failed. She looked on them tolerantly, but her soul was not in them; it floated above them in a purer atmosphere. ”

“ What sin is mine that my misery should be so great that others should be cursed by the relentless fate that pursues me? Theresa, poor little confiding Theresa! Do not look at me in that way, dear one. I will shield you from every threatening storm. You will not be disappointed, Theresa, but we cannot leave London until to-morrow night. I have not completed my business yet; I have arranged for one more interview with—with an old friend.”
She noted his hesitation, and a pang shot through her heart.
“Is it imperative, Harold?” she asked. “I hate London so much—I hate it for your sake, darling. ”

“ They courtesied to Theresa, and gave her an account of all that had occurred while she was absent. "You see here another part of my employment," said Theresa. "Lothario's sister and I have made a league: we educate some little ones in common; such as promise to be lively, serviceable housewives I take charge of, she of such as show a finer and more quiet talent: it is right to provide for the happiness of future husbands, both in household and in intellectual matters. When you become acquainted with my noble friend, a new era in your life will open. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Thus, with a heart overflowing with affection for that wild, willful, passionate boy, released from the only tie of obedience or restraint that could have bound her, poor Theresa was delivered over, fettered as it were, hand and foot, to the perilous influence of Jasper’s artifices, and the scarce less dangerous suggestions of her own affections.
It was strange that, quick as she was and clever, even beyond her sex’s wonted penetration, where matters of the heart are concerned, Theresa never suspected that the old cavalier had long perceived and sanctioned their growing affection. ”

“ The singer was Theresa; there could be no more doubt. Theresa! exercising a grand voice as only a great artist would or could.
The joy of it made me almost faint. I leaned against her door and sobbed. Then when I thought I could speak quite calmly, I went in.
Roger, you must understand me now,—my desire for money and the means I have taken to obtain it. My sister had the makings of a prima-donna. Her husband, of whose ability I had formed so low an estimate, had trained her with consummate skill and judgment. All she needed was a year with some great maestro in the foreign atmosphere of art. ”

“ Thou art ever the same; thy dear smile is unaltered, although I am no longer thy handsome bride, but a hideous and disfigured being, from whom my children deem it fit to conceal a looking-glass. Look at me with thy dear eyes, Franz; thou wert ever my mirror, and in thy light have I seen my brightest day of earthly joy. My departed beauty leaves me not one pang of regret, since thou art gone for whom alone I prized it. Maria Theresa has ceased to be a woman—she is nothing more than a sovereign, and what to her are the scars of the small-pox? ”