XI
TERESA'S life was full, and, on the whole, free and happy. She desired nothing more for herself, except that it should not change. Her occasional clouded moods were due, if not to some temporary and slight disagreement with Basil, in which she usually by insistence got the best of him, then to a vague perception of forces within and without that menaced her happiness of careless youth and love. She saw that she herself changed, that her love and need of Basil deepened. She saw that he changed—that he became more tranquil toward her, and more interested in the play of life outside than he had been during his year of absorption in her. And this shifting of the balance frightened her. If she should come to need him more than he needed her, it would destroy their first relation, in which he had given to her out of a free abundance of life and joy, and she to him calmly, tenderly, and with a smile on her lips, and in her heart. And this change, too, would destroy her own poise, and leave her at the mercy of chance or fate, in a dependence on Basil which she obscurely dreaded when she thought of it.
The tragedy of life she felt all about her, like the great humming city; only so far it had not touched her nearly. Since her marriage, the most tragic thing in her world had been Gerald Dallas. Dallas had given her his best affection, admiration, and a delicate tact and sympathy for her moods invariable, except on the rare occasions—not more than three—when she had seen him in the toils of his slavery. He had a feeling for Teresa which perhaps a more respectable man could not have had. Teresa knew that poor Gerald was disreputable; that he lived with a ballet-dancer; that he had undoubtedly seen his only good days, and was steadily going down hill. He would end perhaps as one of those beery, dirty old men that haunt the edge of the city streets, wreckage cast off by the whirling machinery. Teresa had not remonstrated with him since the early days of their friendship. Once, when she had begged Basil to try to stop him, she had been answered in the words of Confucius: "Reprove your friend once and twice, but if he does not heed you, stop. Do not disgrace yourself." And she had come to feel that Basil was right, that nothing could be done. There was no spring of regeneration in the man. At forty he had lived his life, and all but burnt himself out. He did not talk about himself to Teresa; and it was one of his charms for her. The men she saw most of—mainly artists in one way or another, or detached philosophers—were all bent, first on amusing, and secondly on analysing themselves. Many of them had reached the age when the second mode of pleasure outweighs the first. They experienced only in order to contemplate their experience and themselves. Teresa had a way of listening, and asking intelligent questions. None of her acquaintances needed much coaxing. Soon or late all blossomed into anecdote, narrative, and reflections on their lives. Some were clever men. But Teresa, when she repeated what they said to Basil, often made them appear irresistibly comic; and Basil, between roars of laughter, would add details discreetly omitted by the autobiographer. Teresa, listening to these foot-notes with drooping eyelids and contemptuous lips, said sometimes:
"I could never fall in love with a man that you knew well!"
"I don't do it on purpose!" he had replied with a joyous shout. "Only I like to tell you things!"
It was Basil who had told Teresa about the ballet-dancer. Gerald never talked about himself or his affairs to her. He appeared as much bored by all that related to himself as he was interested in all that concerned her. On the occasions when he buried himself in obscurity, she missed him, and thought much about him.
••••••
The morning after Alice's dinner, word came from Gerald, after a long silence. He was ill in a public hospital, and asked Basil to come to him. Basil was not at home; Teresa read the note, and, as she was going out, took it herself to the studio. She found Basil hard at work with a model. But he at once dismissed the girl, changed his coat, and departed, promising to come back in an hour at most and report to Teresa. …
The day was hot. The smell of paint and turpentine in the studio was stronger than the now fading lilacs. The room looked disorderly, cumbered by a sort of scaffolding on which the model had been posing, and by various draperies flung on chairs. Teresa looked at the cartoon which Basil was making for a decorative panel. The model came out, dressed, and with a slight salutation to Teresa, went away. She was a tall girl, with an ordinary face, and rough skin, but a pretty figure. When she had closed the door behind her the studio was silent, except for the echoes of steps in the corridors, or a voice uplifted in. some neighbouring room, or a faint whistling farther off. The building was a hive of desultory business, sheltering many attempts to produce the Beautiful. Teresa called it "the factory."
She sat down, took her little clay statuette of the faun out of its moist wrappings, and began working on it languidly. Her corner was the most attractive part of the room. It was partly shut off by a carved screen, and had cushioned chairs of green wicker, and a table with a tea- service, and a low pedestal with a vase of flowers. The flowers were fading. Bought, like the lilacs, in the city streets, they had lasted but a day. Teresa frowned as she noticed their faint, sickly odour, and rose to set them away. She had rolled up the sleeves of her thin, white blouse, but had not taken off her hat. Her head drooped as she took up her work again, and she sighed, and paused to look at herself in a mirror. Under the shadow of the black hat her eyes looked back at her with a strange melancholy and uneasiness. After a moment her face looked to her like that of a stranger, some woman oppressed and sad, and this impression frightened her. She turned away abruptly, and began with a little tool to model the faun's thick neck and shaggy shoulder. He seemed a trivial creature, as she handled him; Basil's cartoon, reflected in the mirror, appeared to her meaningless and absurd. The air of the studio, of the building, of the whole city, seemed stale and oppressive. She thought of the woods, of the sea, and a desire to go far away, away from Basil, from everything, came upon her. She was tired, and a thought, a fear, a possibility, lay heavy on her heart. It had come to her in the night, and she had not slept.
There was a knock at the door. Teresa called, "Come in," but apparently was not heard. After a moment the knock was repeated, sharply, and she went to open the door impatiently. A woman stood there, with a long, light cloak over her dress, and a white veil tied over a small hat, but not covering her face.
"Isn't Mr. Ransome here?" she asked in a quick, decided voice, inclining her head slightly.
"No. He may be back in half an hour. Won't you come in?"
"Just a minute. I don't think I'll wait." She walked in, and said with a smile: "You're Mrs. Ransome. I know you from your pictures here, and perhaps you know me?"
"Yes," said Teresa, also smiling, as she shut the door.
"You've seen my portrait—how do you like it?"
She was looking about for the picture as she spoke. Teresa looked at her earnestly. The white veil, drawn across the brow and tied under the chin, framed her face like a nun's garb. Her dark eyes were piercing and impatient under their straight-scored brows. Her complexion suffered from the white frame.
"I thought it very interesting—before I had seen you," said Teresa slowly.
"Ah, you can't tell with this thing on—wait." She untied the veil, and took off her hat, showing black hair, thick about her low forehead, and parted in the middle, and beautiful modelling about the chin and throat. "Now, what do you think?"
"As I remember the picture, the likeness is there," said Teresa. "But it looks older than you do—and sadder. Basil's portraits are almost always like that—what the person will be like in ten years, say—the character accentuated, the lines sharper—I reproach him for it," she added smiling. "It would be better to paint a pretty woman as she is, don't you think so?"
Mrs. Perry had listened with interest, her big, dark eyes fixed on Teresa.
"I don't know—perhaps his way is more an interpretation," she said abruptly. "It is interesting, at least. Anyone almost can paint a pretty woman, but to see what she is"
"He only paints what he sees, of course—only he sees, perhaps, what isn't there!"
"No, it's all there—all that may be, all that we must be—we must grow old—and sad! I wish we could see the picture."
Teresa waved a doubtful hand toward the rows of canvases stacked face inward against the wall.
"We might try," she suggested.
"No—I won't wait. And, besides, you're busy. I'm—no, I'm not sorry I interrupted you, for I'm very glad to have seen you," she said with a quick smile, as she went to the mirror to put on her hat and veil. "I know you work here sometimes—Mr. Ramsome showed me some of your work—I thought it extremely good. I wonder when I could come to sit again—I'm most anxious to get on with the portrait. Do you think Mr. Ransome would like me to come to-morrow?"
"I think he would."
"Well, then, would you tell him that I'll come at half-past three, unless I hear from him? Thank you. And I wonder—would you both come and dine with me one day this week? Do—let us say Thursday—at eight? I would come to see you before, but I shall be out in the country almost every day, looking after a house I'm building. Good-bye—till Thursday, then."
She put out her hand, but Teresa smilingly showed her own, moist from the clay. With a nod, Mrs. Perry rustled out of the studio. A perfume of iris lingered in the dead air.
Basil came back a few minutes later, grave and worried. He flung his hat down and shook his shoulders with a familiar impatient gesture. His mouth and jaw had settled into the dragging look of despondency, which showed the weight laid on his spirit.
"Well?" said Teresa sharply, wrapping up the clay faun again.
"Pneumonia. He was picked up somewhere and taken to the hospital four days ago. The crisis came night before last. He'll get well, they think, though he had a narrow shave—the whisky nearly did for him. I found him in the common ward. He wanted me to get him a private room, and send a letter to—his place—and so on. I arranged it."
"How is he now?" asked Teresa, after a pause, during which Basil tramped sombrely up and down the room.
"Oh, he looks like the devil. A wreck. It would have been better for him if he'd played out for good, I'm afraid."
"You men are rather hard on one another—and for the same sort of thing that you all do, more or less."
"Yes, but it's the more or less. With the less a man can get on, but with the more he goes to the wall—and perhaps the sooner the better."
Basil's face somewhat belied the hardness of his words, and showed how deeply he had been disturbed. Teresa was silent for some moments, then she told him of Mrs. Perry's visit. He brightened.
"Oh, I'm glad she's back. I want to get on with the portrait—I believe it's pretty good. To-morrow afternoon, she said?"
"Yes, but—I wanted you to-morrow afternoon."
"What for?"
"I want you to take me into the country. I want to go now, this morning, and stay several days. I must get away somewhere."
"Why—what's the matter?—oh!" A shadow came over his face, his eyes softened into tenderness.
"You're still worrying?" he said gently, and came and knelt beside her chair.
"I want to go away," repeated Teresa, her eyes cast down, pulling on her gloves nervously. "Let us go to that little place where we lunched the other day, and stay two or three days—will you?"
"Of course I will—anything in the world you want, dearest."
"And by that time I shall know, I suppose, and"
"No, no, don't worry about it. I don't believe it is that. Come—we can catch the twelve o'clock train, and be out there in time for lunch."
"We must stop and tell Mary, and get a bag or so. We can't exactly go without anything."
"They'd take us for a runaway couple—wouldn't that amuse you?"
"I don't believe anything would amuse me just now. You don't mind running away from Mrs. Perry?"
"Oh, hang Mrs. Perry! I'll write her not to come."
He sat down at his table and scratched off a note, Teresa looking over his shoulder; then caught up his hat and hurried Teresa away, locking the door behind him.
••••••
It was a moonlight night, and they took a boat and rowed about the smooth bay. Teresa was silent. Once she began to sing Schubert's "Water Song," but the light music faltered and died; and she sang instead the "König im Thule," sang it dreamily and mysteriously; then the marvellous plaint of Gretchen's disturbed heart for the absent Faust. And then, "Im wunderschönen Monat Mai," and here she broke down and cried passionately:
"Oh, we have only had a year!"
Basil shipped his oars, and moved nearer her in the rocking boat.
"Upset it, and let us both drown!" she cried.
"Dearest—my sweetheart—don't be a blazing idiot—you're cold, you're shivering—we'll go in, and I'll comfort you, my own"
"I never wanted to marry you anyway," she cried.
"But you did. Wrap that coat round you, you foolish girl."
He bent to the oars and sent the boat leaping along the track of the moon toward the pier. In a few moments they were in their room at the inn, and Basil made Teresa drink half a wine-glass of brandy. He wrapped her in blankets, and held her in his arms, kissing her temple, her hair, her cheeks. She kept her eyes hidden.
"I hate you," she murmured once softly.
"Do you, dearest?" he said, a little drearily.
Then her arms went round his neck, and she laid her wet cheek to his.
"No, not you, but life. I only wanted to be left alone. I was so happy with you. And now all will be different, if this is true—we can never be the same. And I shall be ugly, and you will stop caring for me"
"I shall love you more than ever. I didn't think it possible, but I shall. You're not sorry you married me, are you?"
"'Que le bonheur passe vite, mon Dieu, qu'il passe vite, et quant on souffre en y pensant plus tard!'" murmured Teresa.
"Don't, you silly child. Be brave, Teresa; you won't regret in the end"
"How do you know? I don't want to be brave, I want to be happy. I don't want responsibilities, I don't want to be tied down—I want nothing but you. I hate babies."
"You won't, if you have one of your own. It will be better for you in the end, for us both, for our relation. I'm sure it will—it's natural and right"
"Don't preach. I don't want it."
"You don't want anything till you get it. You didn't want me, but you're not sorry, are you?"
"No—the queer thing is, that, in spite of everything, I'm not sorry. I've always been glad, every moment, that I married you, even when I disliked you most."
"Yet you refused me seven times. So you see! You don't know what you want. Take what life gives you, Teresa; take it with both hands, don't be afraid. Drink deep, even if you suffer. Life—that's the main thing—it's more life you need, not less."
She looked into his eyes, where the flame of life indeed glowed keen and strong; and she clung to him, with the first feeling that his strength might protect her, with the first conscious yielding to it. She lay looking at him curiously.
"I believe you're glad," she said suddenly.
"I should be, if you were not unhappy," he answered, and looked almost shamefaced.
"It's odd that, though you're fond of me, you don't mind my suffering, or even that I might die. Remember your mother, she"
"Oh, don't! oh, don't!" he cried. "I couldn't live without you."
The tears rolled down his cheeks; and then Teresa, as always when she had moved him, became gentle, coaxing, and gay.
"Never mind what I say, I have no intention of dying. You won't have to live without me, but with me, and I warn you, that may be even more difficult. I shall be as nasty as possible; I shall worry the life out of you. You poor old creature, you'll rue the day that you asked me for the eighth time! I gave you seven chances of happiness, and you refused them. Now, you're bound, and this—this—settles it. You can never get away from me, nor I from you. … I always liked to think, you know, that we were both free, and neither needed to put up with the other a day longer than we both wanted. But now we're both going to be slaves. Oh, you'll see, you'll see! I tell you our youth is over. Now we pass under the yoke. This is the real yoke, not marriage. Oh, you'll regret it, when you see me fat and ugly, my figure gone, my good temper gone"
"My slim mermaid!"
"Mermaid! I shall look like this!"
She made a caricature with the blankets. Then she stretched out her arms and looked down at her long slim body sadly.
"Good-bye to my beauty," she murmured. "You will need to love me, to make up for it! But when it's gone, perhaps you won't—love me any more."
"Is it for that only that I love you? You're the love of my soul, too." And he caught her in a passionate, sad embrace.