Vera

'What are you thinking of?' asked Wemyss, who having finished with her shoulder noticed how quiet she was.

She could tell him truthfully; a moment sooner and she couldn't have. 'I was thinking,' she said, 'that you are my heart.'

'Take care of your heart then, won't you?' said Wemyss.

'We both will,' said Lucy.

'Of course,' said Wemyss. 'That's understood. Why state it?'

She was silent a minute. Then she said, 'Isn't it nearly tea-time?'

'By Jove, yes,' he exclaimed, pulling out his watch. 'Why, long past. I wonder what that fool—get up, little Love—' he brushed her off his lap—'I'll ring and find out what she means by it.'

Lucy was sorry she had said anything about tea. However, he didn't keep his finger on the bell this time, but rang it normally. Then he stood looking at his watch.

She put her arm through his. She longed to say, 'Please don't scold her.'

'Take care,' he said, his eyes on his watch. 'Don't shake me–'

She asked what he was doing.

'Timing her,' he said. 'Sh—sh—don't talk. I can't keep count if you talk.'

She became breathlessly quiet and expectant. She listened anxiously for the sound of footsteps. She did hope Lizzie would come in time. Lizzie was so nice,—it would be dreadful if she got a scolding. Why didn't she come? There—what was that? A door going somewhere. Would she do it? Would she?

Running steps came along the passage outside. Wemyss put his watch away. 'Five seconds to spare,' he said. 'That's the way to teach them to answer bells,' he added with satisfaction.

'Did you ring, sir?' inquired Lizzie, opening the door.

'Why is tea late?'

'It's in the library, sir.'

'Kindly attend to my question. I asked why tea was late.'

'It wasn't late to begin with, sir,' said Lizzie.

'Be so good as to make yourself clear.'

Lizzie, who had felt quite clear, here became befogged. She did her best, however. 'It's got late through waiting to be 'ad, sir,' she said.

'I'm afraid I don't follow you. Do you?' he asked, turning to Lucy.

She started. 'Yes,' she said.

'Really. Then you are cleverer than I am,' said Wemyss.

Lizzie at this—for she didn't want to make any more trouble for the young lady—made a further effort to explain. 'It was punctual in the library, sir, at 'alf-past four if you'd been there to 'ave it. The tea was punctual, sir, but there wasn't no one to 'ave it.'

'And pray by whose orders was it in the library?'

'I couldn't say, sir. Chesterton–'

'Don't put it on to Chesterton.'

'I was thinking,' said Lizzie, who was more stout-hearted than the parlourmaid and didn't take cover quite so frequently in dumbness, 'I was thinking p'raps Chesterton knew. I don't do the tea, sir.'

'Send Chesterton,' said Wemyss.

Lizzie disappeared with the quickness of relief. Lucy, with a nervous little movement, stooped and picked up Wuthering Heights, which was still lying face downward on the floor.

'Yes,' said Wemyss. 'I like the way you treat books.'

She put it back on its shelf. 'I went to sleep, and it fell down,' she said. 'Everard,' she went on quickly, 'I must go and get a handkerchief. I'll join you in the library.'

'I'm not going into the library. I'm going to have tea here. Why should I have tea in the library?'

'I only thought as it was there–'

'I suppose I can have tea where I like in my own house?'

'But of course. Well, then, I'll go and get a handkerchief and come back here.'

'You can do that some other time. Don't be so restless.'

'But I—I want a handkerchief this minute,' said Lucy.

'Nonsense; here, have mine,' said Wemyss; and anyhow it was too late to escape, for there in the door stood Chesterton.

She was the parlourmaid. Her name has not till now been mentioned. It was Chesterton.

'Why is tea in the library?' Wemyss asked.

'I understood, sir, tea was always to be in the library,' said Chesterton.

'That was while I was by myself. I suppose it wouldn't have occurred to you to inquire whether I still wished it there now that I am not by myself.'

This floored Chesterton. Her ignorance of the right answer was complete. She therefore said nothing, and merely stood.

But he didn't let her off. 'Would it?' he asked suddenly.

'No sir,' she said, dimly feeling that 'Yes sir' would land her in difficulties.

'No. Quite so. It wouldn't. Well, you will now go and fetch that tea and bring it up here. Stop a minute, stop a minute—don't be in such a hurry, please. How long has it been made?'

'Since half-past four, sir.'

'Then you will make fresh tea, and you will make fresh toast, and you will cut fresh bread and butter.'

'Yes sir.'

'And another time you will have the goodness to ascertain my wishes before taking upon yourself to put the tea into any room you choose to think fit.'

'Yes sir.'

She waited.

He waved.

She went.

'That'll teach her,' said Wemyss, looking refreshed by the encounter. 'If she thinks she's going to get out of bringing tea up here by putting it ready somewhere else she'll find she's mistaken. Aren't they a set? Aren't they a set, little Love?'

'I—don't know,' said Lucy nervously.

'You don't know!'

'I mean, I don't know them yet. How can I know them when I've only just come?'

'You soon will, then. A lazier set of careless, lying–'

'Do tell me what that picture is, Everard,' she interrupted, quickly crossing the room and standing in front of it. 'I've been wondering and wondering.'

'You can see what it is. It's a picture.'

'Yes. But where's the place?'

'I've no idea. It's one of Vera's. She didn't condescend to explain it.'

'You mean she painted it?'

'I daresay. She was always painting.'

Wemyss, who had been filling his pipe, lit it and stood smoking in front of the fire, occasionally looking at his watch, while Lucy stared at the picture. Lovely, lovely to run through that door out into the open, into the warmth and sunshine, further and further away....

It was the only picture in the room; indeed, the room was oddly bare,—a thin room, with no carpet on its slippery floor, only some infrequent rugs, and no curtains. But there had been curtains, for there were the rods with rings on them, so that somebody must have taken Vera's curtains away. Lucy had been strangely perturbed when she noticed this. It was Vera's room. Her curtains oughtn't to have been touched.

The long wall opposite the fireplace had nothing at all on its sand-coloured surface from the door to the window except a tall narrow looking-glass in a queerly-carved black frame, and the picture. But how that one picture glowed. What glorious weather they were having in it! It wasn't anywhere in England, she was sure. It was a brilliant, sunlit place, with a lot of almond trees in full blossom,—an orchard of them, apparently, standing in grass that was full of little flowers, very gay little flowers, of kinds she didn't know. And through the open door in the wall there was an amazing stretch of hot, vivid country. It stretched on and on till it melted into an ever so far away lovely blue. There was an effect of immense spaciousness, of huge freedom. One could feel oneself running out into it with one's face to the sun, flinging up one's arms in an ecstasy of release, of escape....

'It's somewhere abroad,' she said, after a silence.

'I daresay,' said Wemyss.

'Used you to travel much?' she asked, still examining the picture, fascinated.

'She refused to.'

'She refused to?' echoed Lucy, turning round.

She looked at him wonderingly. That seemed not only unkind of Vera, but extraordinarily—yes, energetic. The exertion required for refusing Everard something he wanted was surely enormous, was surely greater than any but the most robust-minded wife could embark upon. She had had one small experience of what disappointing him meant in that question of Christmas, and she hadn't been living with him then, and she had had all the nights to recover in; yet the effect of that one experience had been to make her give in at once when next he wanted something, and it was because of last Christmas that she was standing married in that room instead of being still, as both she and her Aunt Dot had intended, six months off it.

'Why did she refuse?' she asked, wondering.

Wemyss didn't answer for a moment. Then he said, 'I was going to say you had better ask her, but you can't very well do that, can you.'

Lucy stood looking at him. 'Yes,' she said, 'she does seem extraordinarily near, doesn't she. This room is full–'

'Now Lucy I'll have none of that. Come here.'

He held out his hand. She crossed over obediently and took it.

He pulled her close and ruffled her hair. He was in high spirits again. His encounters with the servants had exhilarated him.

'Who's my duddely-umpty little girl?' he asked. 'Tell me who's my duddely-umpty little girl. Quick. Tell me–' And he caught her round the waist and jumped her up and down.

Chesterton, bringing in the tea, arrived in the middle of a jump.

XXIV

There appeared to be no tea-table. Chesterton, her arms stretched taut holding the heavy tray, looked round. Evidently tea up there wasn't usual.

'Put it in the window,' said Wemyss, jerking his head towards the writing-table.

'Oh–' began Lucy quickly; and stopped.

'What's the matter?' asked Wemyss.

'Won't it—be draughty?'

'Nonsense. Draughty. Do you suppose I'd tolerate windows in my house that let in draughts?'

Chesterton, resting a corner of the tray on the table, was sweeping a clear space for it with her hand. Not that much sweeping was needed, for the table was big and all that was on it was the notepaper which earlier in the afternoon had been scattered on the floor, a rusty pen or two, some pencils whose ends had been gnawed as the pencils of a child at its lessons are gnawed, a neglected-looking inkpot, and a grey book with Household Accounts in dark lettering on its cover.

Wemyss watched her while she arranged the tea-things.

'Take care, now—take care,' he said, when a cup rattled in its saucer.

Chesterton, who had been taking care, took more of it; and le trop being l'ennemi du bien she was so unfortunate as to catch her cuff in the edge of the plate of bread and butter.

The plate tilted up; the bread and butter slid off; and only by a practised quick movement did she stop the plate from following the bread and butter and smashing itself on the floor.

'There now,' said Wemyss. 'See what you've done. Didn't I tell you to be careful? It isn't,' he said, turning to Lucy, 'as if I hadn't told her to be careful.'

Chesterton, on her knees, was picking up the bread and butter which lay—a habit she had observed in bread and butter under circumstances of this kind—butter downwards.

'You will fetch a cloth,' said Wemyss.

'Yes sir.'

'And you will cut more bread and butter.'

'Yes sir.'

'That makes two plates of bread and butter wasted to-day entirely owing to your carelessness. They shall be stopped out of your–Lucy, where are you going?'

'To fetch a handkerchief. I must have a handkerchief, Everard. I can't for ever use yours.'

'You'll do nothing of the kind. Lizzie will bring you one. Come back at once. I won't have you running in and out of the room the whole time. I never knew any one so restless. Ring the bell and tell Lizzie to get you one. What is she for, I should like to know?'

He then resumed and concluded his observations to Chesterton. 'They shall be stopped out of your wages. That,' he said, 'will teach you.'

And Chesterton, who was used to this, and had long ago arranged with the cook that such stoppages should be added on to the butcher's book, said, 'Yes sir.'

When she had gone—or rather withdrawn, for a plain word like gone doesn't justly describe the noiseless decorum with which Chesterton managed the doors of her entrances and exits—and when Lizzie, too, had gone after bringing a handkerchief, Lucy supposed they would now have tea; she supposed the moment had at last arrived for her to go and sit in that window.

The table was at right angles to it, so that sitting at it you had nothing between one side of you and the great pane of glass that reached nearly to the floor. You could look sheer down on to the flags below. She thought it horrible, gruesome to have tea there, and the very first day, before she had had a moment's time to get used to things. Such detachment on the part of Everard was either just stark wonderful—she had already found noble explanations for it—or it was so callous that she had no explanation for it at all; none, that is, that she dared think of. Once more she decided that his way was really the best and simplest way to meet the situation. You took the bull by the horns. You seized the nettle. You cleared the air. And though her images, she felt, were not what they might be, neither was anything else that day what it might be. Everything appeared to reflect the confusion produced by Wemyss's excessive lucidity of speech.

'Shall I pour out the tea?' she asked presently, preparing, then, to take the bull by the horns; for he remained standing in front of the fire smoking in silence. 'Just think,' she went on, making an effort to be gay, 'this is the first time I shall pour out tea in my–'

She was going to say 'My own home,' but the words wouldn't come off her tongue. Wemyss had repeatedly during the day spoken of his home, but not once had he said 'our' or 'your'; and if ever a house didn't feel as if it in the very least belonged, too, to her, it was this one.

'Not yet,' he said briefly.

She wondered. 'Not yet?' she repeated.

'I'm waiting for the bread and butter.'

'But won't the tea get cold?'

'No doubt. And it'll be entirely that fool's fault.'

'But–' began Lucy, after a silence.

'Buts again?'

'I was only thinking that if we had it now it wouldn't be cold.'

'She must be taught her lesson.'

Again she wondered. 'Won't it rather be a lesson to us?' she asked.

'For God's sake, Lucy, don't argue. Things have to be done properly in my house. You've had no experience of a properly managed household. All that set you were brought up in—why, one only had to look at them to see what a hugger-mugger way they probably lived. It's entirely the careless fool's own fault that the tea will be cold. I didn't ask her to throw the bread and butter on the floor, did I?'

And as she said nothing, he asked again. 'Did I?' he asked.

'No,' said Lucy.

'Well then,' said Wemyss.

They waited in silence.

Chesterton arrived. She put the fresh bread and butter on the table, and then wiped the floor with a cloth she had brought.

Wemyss watched her closely. When she had done—and Chesterton being good at her work, scrutinise as he might he could see no sign on the floor of overlooked butter—he said, 'You will now take the teapot down and bring some hot tea.'

'Yes sir,' said Chesterton, removing the teapot.

A line of a hymn her nurse used to sing came into Lucy's head when she saw the teapot going. It was:

What various hindrances we meet—

and she thought the next line, which she didn't remember, must have been:

Before at tea ourselves we seat.

But though one portion of her mind was repeating this with nervous levity, the other was full of concern for the number of journeys up and down all those stairs the parlourmaid was being obliged to make. It was—well, thoughtless of Everard to make her go up and down so often. Probably he didn't realise—of course he didn't—how very many stairs there were. When and how could she talk to him about things like this? When would he be in such a mood that she would be able to do so without making them worse? And how, in what words sufficiently tactful, sufficiently gentle, would she be able to avoid his being offended? She must manage somehow. But tact—management—prudence—all these she had not yet in her life needed. Had she the smallest natural gift for them? Besides, each of them applied to love seemed to her an insult. She had supposed that love, real love, needed none of these protections. She had thought it was a simple, sturdy growth that could stand anything.... Why, here was the parlourmaid already, teapot and all. How very quick she had been!

Chesterton, however, hadn't so much been quick as tactful, managing, and prudent. She had been practising these qualities on the other side of the door, whither she had taken the teapot and quietly waited with it a few minutes, and whence she now brought it back. She placed it on the table with admirable composure; and when Wemyss, on her politely asking whether there were anything else he required, said, 'Yes. You will now take away that toast and bring fresh,' she took the toast also only as far as the other side of the door, and waited with it there a little.

Lucy now hoped they would have tea. 'Shall I pour it out?' she asked after a moment a little anxiously, for he still didn't move and she began to be afraid the toast might be going to be the next hindrance; in which case they would go round and round for the rest of the day, never catching up the tea at all.

But he did go over and sit down at the table, followed by her who hardly now noticed its position, so much surprised and absorbed was she by his methods of housekeeping.

'Isn't it monstrous,' he said, sitting down heavily, 'how we've been kept waiting for such a simple thing as tea. I tell you they're the most slovenly–'

There was Chesterton again, bearing the toast-rack balanced on the tip of a respectful ringer.

This time even Lucy realised that it must be the same toast, and her hand, lifted in the act of pouring out tea, trembled, for she feared the explosion that was bound to come.

How extraordinary. There was no explosion. Everard hadn't—it seemed incredible—noticed. His attention was so much fixed on what she was doing with his cup, he was watching her so carefully lest she should fill it a hair's-breadth fuller than he liked, that all he said to Chesterton as she put the toast on the table was, 'Let this be a lesson to you.' But there was no gusto in it; it was quite mechanical.

'Yes sir,' said Chesterton.

She waited.

He waved.

She went.

The door hadn't been shut an instant before Wemyss exclaimed, 'Why, if that slovenly hussy hasn't forgotten–' And too much incensed to continue he stared at the tea-tray.

'What? What?' asked Lucy startled, also staring at the tea-tray.

'Why, the sugar.'

'Oh, I'll call her back—she's only just gone–'

'Sit down, Lucy.'

'But she's just outside–'

'Sit down, I tell you.'

Lucy sat.

Then she remembered that neither she nor Everard ever had sugar in their tea, so naturally there was no point in calling Chesterton back.

'Oh, of course,' she said, smiling nervously, for what with one thing and another she was feeling shattered, 'how stupid of me. We don't want sugar.'

Wemyss said nothing. He was studying his watch, timing Chesterton. Then when the number of seconds needed to reach the kitchen had run out, he got up and rang the bell.

In due course Lizzie appeared. It seemed that the rule was that this particular bell should be answered by Lizzie.

'Chesterton,' said Wemyss.

In due course Chesterton appeared. She was less composed than when she brought back the teapot, than when she brought back the toast. She tried to hide it, but she was out of breath.

'Yes sir?' she said.

Wemyss took no notice, and went on drinking his tea.

Chesterton stood.

After a period of silence Lucy thought that perhaps it was expected of her as mistress of the house to tell her about the sugar; but then as they neither of them wanted any....

After a further period of silence, during which she anxiously debated whether it was this that they were all waiting for, she thought that perhaps Everard hadn't heard the parlourmaid come in; so she said—she was ashamed to hear how timidly it came out—'Chesterton is here, Everard.'

He took no notice, and went on eating bread and butter.

After a further period of anxious inward debate she concluded that it must after all be expected of her, as mistress of the house, to talk of the sugar; and the sugar was to be talked of not because they needed it but on principle. But what a roundabout way; how fatiguing and difficult. Why didn't Everard say what he wanted, instead of leaving her to guess?

'I think–' she stammered, flushing, for she was now very timid indeed, 'you've forgotten the sugar, Chesterton.'

'Will you not interfere!' exclaimed Wemyss very loud, putting down his cup with a bang.

The flush on Lucy's face vanished as if it had been knocked out. She sat quite still. If she moved, or looked anywhere but at her plate, she knew she would begin to cry. The scenes she had dreaded had not included any with herself in the presence of servants. It hadn't entered her head that these, too, were possible. She must hold on to herself; not move; not look. She sat absorbed in that one necessity, fiercely concentrated. Chesterton must have gone away and come back again, for presently she was aware that sugar was being put on the tea-tray; and then she was aware that Everard was holding out his cup.

'Give me some more tea, please,' he said, 'and for God's sake don't sulk. If the servants forget their duties it's neither your nor my business to tell them what they've forgotten,—they've just got to look and see, and if they don't see they've just got to stand there looking till they do. It's the only way to teach them. But for you to get sulking on the top of it–'

She lifted the teapot with both hands, because one hand by itself too obviously shook. She succeeded in pouring out the tea without spilling it, and in stopping almost at the very moment when he said, 'Take care, take care—you're filling it too full.' She even succeeded after a minute or two in saying, holding carefully on to her voice to keep it steady, 'I'm not—sulking. I've—got a headache.'

And she thought desperately, 'The only thing to be done with marriage is to let it wash over one.'

XXV

For the rest of that day she let it wash; unresistingly. She couldn't think any more. She couldn't feel any more,—not that day. She really had a headache; and when the dusk came, and Wemyss turned on the lights, it was evident even to him that she had, for there was no colour at all in her face and her eyes were puffed and leaden.

He had one of his sudden changes. 'Come here,' he said, reaching out and drawing her on to his knee; and he held her face against his breast, and felt full of maternal instincts, and crooned over her. 'Was it a poor little baby,' he crooned. 'Did it have a headache then–' And he put his great cool hand on her hot forehead and kept it there.

Lucy gave up trying to understand anything at all any more. These swift changes,—she couldn't keep up with them; she was tired, tired....

They sat like that in the chair before the fire, Wemyss holding his hand on her forehead and feeling full of maternal instincts, and she an unresisting blank, till he suddenly remembered he hadn't shown her the drawing-room yet. The afternoon had not proceeded on the lines laid down for it in his plans, but if they were quick there was still time for the drawing-room before dinner.

Accordingly she was abruptly lifted off his knee. 'Come along, little Love,' he said briskly. 'Come along. Wake up. I want to show you something.'

And the next thing she knew was that she was going downstairs, and presently she found herself standing in a big cold room, blinking in the bright lights he had switched on at the door.

'This,' he said, holding her by the arm, 'is the drawing-room. Isn't it a fine room.' And he explained the piano, and told her how he had found a button off, and he pointed out the roll of rugs in a distant corner which, unrolled, decorated the parquet floor, and he drew her attention to the curtains,—he had no objections to curtains in a drawing-room, he said, because a drawing-room was anyhow a room of concessions; and he asked her at the end, as he had asked her at the beginning, if she didn't think it a fine room.

Lucy said it was a very fine room.

'You'll remember to put the cover on properly when you've finished playing the piano, won't you,' he said.