VII
TWO days later came the first snow storm of A the winter. The house was cold and uncomfortable. Basil was alone in it all day, for Teresa had gone, early in the morning, to look up a real estate agent. Their plan of buying a house had lain dormant all this time, but now the idea had taken possession of her mind, and with all her energy she was bent on working it out. For one element of doubt, which had lately reduced all plans to chaos, was now removed. It was certain, at least, that she and Basil were not to separate. They would go on together; on what terms Teresa was not yet absolutely sure, but, she rather thought, on her terms.
She came back late for dinner, tired, chilled, unsuccessful in her first search, but cheerful, to find Basil hanging restlessly about the house, not having been able, he said, to work that day. Over their dinner she described gaily the outrageous defects of the houses she had seen, and praised their present domicile by comparison. Basil was gloomy, drank a great deal of whisky, listened absently to what she was saying, and finally said that he thought they would have to stay where they were for the winter; they couldn't afford anything better. Teresa disagreed instantly. She had her plan. "We are going into town for three months," she announced firmly. "At least, as soon as your picture is finished. And we shall do that every year. Neither of us can live absolutely buried as we are here, all the year round. We're too young—or not young enough—for that! You need people and I need them."
"I don't need anything but work and peace," said Basil sombrely, "and we're in debt."
"No matter. You'll sell your picture, and I shall make something. And we'll make up next year. We shall take this house on a long lease, or buy it on the instalment plan. We shall live here nine months of the year. We can live quietly and cheaply, and you can work. This studio suits you, and I can make a charming garden. After what I've seen to-day, I'm sure we can't do much better. By degrees we'll make the house over to suit us. It will be comfortable, except in the dead of winter, and then we shall take a little apartment in New York. There, Basil, that's my idea—do you like it?"
"Well enough. But I don't believe we can make it go."
"I shall make it go," said Teresa. "To-morrow I shall look for a place in town—something over in the old Chelsea district—cheap and not too nasty. How did work go to-day?"
"Not so well. I'm still trying to pull those two figures together. It'll come, I think. But I couldn't work to-day. Everything seems so grey—all the colour gone out of the world. I feel terribly old."
"You've been working hard this month."
"It isn't that. But I'm sad. I've been sadder to-day than ever before in my life. I've been taking account of stock."
They had dined at a small table before the great log-fire in the studio. Now the table had been pushed away. Teresa was leaning back in a low chair, very tired and drowsy from the heat after her long drive. Basil got up and walked about the room, stopping before his picture, of which the glowing blue and yellow colour and the sharp lines made an almost violent effect, even in the subdued light.
"Yes, Basil?"
"An account of stock," he repeated. "I've done a lot of thinking to-day, because I couldn't work. And I couldn't work because you weren't in the house. I thought about you. And I was sad because I know now that I can never get away from you. For a while I thought I might—I wanted to. I wanted to have some new experience, new life, apart from you—something that wouldn't cost me so dear. I want it still—but I know I can't get it. I can't get away from you. You're in my blood …"
He turned and walked abruptly up and down. Teresa was silent, spreading her long fingers to the blaze of the fire.
"Always before," he went on, "I've had a feeling that there were any amount of things before me, in work, in life. It's still so—more than ever so—in my work. I'm at the beginning of something infernally interesting. If you've considered that thing I'm doing, you can see it. … But I don't care about work alone, if I can't live too … if I can't be happy or at peace …"
Still she was silent, and after a moment, standing before the picture but not looking at it, he said:
"Here I am then—thirty-three years old, with a family, not enough money to live on comfortably, with an idea of painting which it will take me years to work out, and which probably won't bring in any money for some time to come, if it ever does. I believe in it. I could work with more interest, more intensity than ever before, if the other conditions of my life were right. But I'm not sure that I can work in spite of them."
"What conditions?"
"Well, money. I feel I ought to be making some, but if I do that, I can't do anything else."
"As to money, give my plan a trial for a year. Let me see what I can do. I've ideas for some work too—some models for little things in silver that I'm sure will sell. And we are not so far behind now. I'm sure by next year we shall have caught up. If necessary I'll borrow from Aunt Sophy. She'd be glad to lend me anything."
"Borrow? I can't see that that would make us better off."
"Only for the time. We've been extravagant this last year, and then my—my illness"
Teresa's head drooped, and her eyes closed sadly. Basil looked at her for a moment, then came up and touched her hair.
"Poor Teresa," he said softly.
That note of tenderness had been missing these many weeks. Teresa sat motionless; two tears rolled from under her closed eyelids.
"Well … what else was it, besides money?" she asked, after a moment.
"Oh, I have been thinking about you—and how we are bound together."
"Yes."
"And yet you did a great deal to break that down. You made me want to break it. You've made me suffer—and I can't love you as I did before."
"Can't you,"
"No, you don't belong to me as you did. You were such a beautiful thing to me. I care for you more in one way than I did, now that I realise all the strength of your hold on me. I couldn't work to-day because you weren't in the house. I want you with me, all the more perhaps because you're not really with me. But it isn't as it was once. The peace and sweetness of it is gone …"
He spoke almost dreamily, as though the whole thing were remote, objective, and he looked at Teresa as though she were miles away.
"We shall get it back," said Teresa.
"No … never …"
"Then we shall get something better. Peace and sweetness aren't all … what I see," she said, still with her eyes closed and the tears on her cheeks, "is that what we have is the main thing, the best thing. I feel now that it can't be destroyed, neither by what I do nor by what you do … You take me with my weaknesses, as I take you with yours. I don't say it will be all peace and sweetness—we're too near one another for that. I suppose you will often hurt or irritate me—perhaps I shall hurt or irritate you. I don't want to do it—but I can't promise that I shan't—I promise, though, to leave you as free as possible."
"But I can't promise to leave you free," said Basil darkly.
"No matter."
"No—you mean you'll take as much freedom as you want. But what I can't endure is suspecting you."
With sudden violence he took up a letter that had been lying on his desk and threw it into Teresa's lap. She saw Crayven's writing on the envelope. Without hesitation she took it, bent forward and dropped the unopened letter into the hottest part of the fire.
"Why did you do that? Were you afraid I should want to read it?" demanded Basil.
"No. I'm tired of all that."
"Of what? Not of his letters?"
"Yes—everything about it. It doesn't matter "
"But it does …!"
"I tell you it doesn't! What you do matters more, because you don't love me as much as I do you."
"Love me? You're in love with Crayven!"
"You've let me nearly die this last month of your indifference …" A sob broke Teresa's voice. "I tell you I can't live in that way. If you didn't love me"
"Someone else would, I suppose."
"No, if you didn't, I should die. I have been dying this last month—I've been really ill. Look at me—do you see how thin I am?"
She sprang up and went close to Basil.
"I see that you're beautiful," he said softly. "Ah, you have me! …"
"Then be good to me! We shan't live forever!"
"I feel that I've lived a hundred years or so."
She answered with Lady Macbeth's appeal: "'We are but young'!"
And half-smiling, passionately, she drew him down, in her arms, into the great chair, and curled against him. They were both silent for a time, cheek to cheek, looking into the fire … Each of them was seeing, perhaps, their past together, and its many memories. Each of them was silent before the future.
THE END