The Bond/Part 3/Chapter 5
V
IT was after all an artificial balance, she perceived suddenly—the whole relation had been artificial. For three weeks now she had seen Crayven every day—they had been alone together every day for some hours. It had been tacitly assumed that both wanted this solitude à deux. It had been recognised that Crayven had come and was staying on Teresa's account, and she had testified with the greatest frankness that his presence gave her pleasure. She had not asked herself exactly what sort of pleasure; it had seemed simple and innocent enough.
It was impossible for her to live in isolation. She must have some intimate social relation, something that carried on from day to day, with a dramatic interest, with an element of excitement. Instinctively she desired to have things happen; calm was not natural to her and monotony irritated her. The same instinct that had led her to make scenes for Basil when the emotional tone of their relation showed signs of lowering ever so slightly toward the commonplace, was working in her now. And coquetry was working in her, and was stirred by Crayven's change of tone. Yet she was in a way angry with him for the change; it was a shock, it revealed to her keen perception the truth that they had been proceeding on a falsely romantic basis. They had been living for three weeks a sort of idyl—practically alone together, strangers to one another, wandering in the midst of this wild, fresh, seductive nature, in a harmony of disagreement which showed the strength of mutual attraction. Conventions had been thrown overboard; Teresa had ignored the surprise and mute protest of her relatives. Here was a companionship which soothed and amused and pleased her, which satisfied her constant need of attention and interest, and in her present mood she had seized upon it as a necessity. From everything else in her life, at present, she suffered, in one way or another; she was bruised, aching, in mind and nerves. She consciously lived, really, only for her moments of lyric exaltation; the essence of life, all that w r as worth living for, might from her actions have been summed up in those moments, when a passionate fervour, a passionate delight in feeling, in the grace, beauty, and joy of it, swept her up, rapt her away. All pleasure had to her an element of intoxication, some faint reflection of the ecstasy of those supreme moments. Crayven had been a pleasure to her, apparently a calm, quiet, prosaic pleasure. They had played at being old, tried, staid friends. His inexpressive homage had warmed her in her melancholy; the wings of her spirit had begun to unfold from their limpness and flutter a little.
Now she saw why this had been. They could no longer play at being old friends. Crayven had abruptly changed the key of the tune; and this key once struck, one could never go back to the other. What then? … The first effect of all this was a feeling of loneliness, of intense, more bitter melancholy, which demanded relief. She recognised that she was deeply restless, and for the first time in her life inclined to be really reckless.
Something had changed in her, as she had said to Basil, long ago, it seemed. Something was changed between Basil and herself. She no longer felt that they belonged absolutely to one another. The bond that was too strong to break, that had been too strait to bear, was in some way loosened. She no longer felt accountable to Basil for herself.
She played bridge that night as usual—played absently and lost steadily—and when Crayven, walking with her to the hotel, suggested a walk for the next day, she said she had some work to do. He said calmly, "Oh, I'm sorry," and made no effort to persuade her. They parted, coolly.
Early in the morning he went off for a mountain climb, starting with two other men in his hotel. They refused guides. In the afternoon, when Teresa went to take tea with Nina, the little town was buzzing with news of an accident. It was late at night before the facts were known. Meantime Crayven had come back, alone. He had separated from the other two, who had insisted on taking a short cut and had been caught by an avalanche; one of them had been killed and the other seriously hurt.
That night there was a moon, nearly full, shining down from a cloudless sky on the jagged, snowy crests of the Dents du Midi, and touching the mysterious black shadows of the pine forests. Teresa sat on her balcony, watching, troubled in mind. Crayven had come to see her for a moment, having heard of the accident on his return. He had been grave but not moved, and in the shrug of his shoulders and the curt way in which he had condemned the foolhardiness of his companions she had read his indifference to one human life, as such, more or less. There had been a certain physical radiance about him from his long day above there on the rocks. … Teresa wondered why he did not go away, for the real climbing he had meant to do. These mountains after all were child's play to him, and she could not see what there was to content him in the quiet life of the valley. In a month or so he would have to go back to his post. Looking up at the cold mountain-peaks she pictured the desert—the rolling hills of sand, the noise of the angry camels, the long march made on the Arab fare of dates and coarse bread, the blazing sun—and she saw herself there with Crayven. It was an image so clear, so vivid, that she shut her eyes and bowed her head on her hands. … She thought coolly, as she went in to bed, that when he did go, as he must soon, she would miss him enormously. The accident of the day had moved her to a keener feeling about him. If the avalanche had caught him instead of the two Frenchmen—no, she said to herself, it could not have made any great difference to her. All the same, she was glad that he was alive, and that she was to see him the next day.
••••••
They started at ten in the morning for a long walk, meaning to lunch at a chalet up in the mountains. The day was glorious—clear, warm, and fresh. Teresa, in her short white dress, with a sweater tied round her waist—for they were going up into the snow—felt once more young, vigorous, and gay. She sang a little as they walked along the road between the flowery meadows, which the peasants were beginning now to mow—dull, unpicturesque figures, like automatons wound up to a slow, steady motion of the arm and the scythe.
"They are exactly like their cows," she said lightly. "It's strange they should be brutalised so by all this nature. It excites me, stimulates me—it's so wonderfully fresh and full of life, this air"
"Yes—but living in it forever, year after year—I rather think there wouldn't be anything left of one except the brute," said Crayven. "One could forgive the Swiss if they were nice brutes, like the cows. But how they drink!"
A look of disgust crossed his face.
"You hate drinking, don't you?" said Teresa curiously. "Do you never, yourself?"
"Never touch it. Why should I? Beastly stuff."
"I've noticed that you never take any wine or anything. Is it principle?"
"No, just taste. Don't see any use in muddling one's brain further than nature has already done it. My mother died of it—drugs and things. Went quite off her head, the last years of her life—lived in the dark, like a cat. Not pleasant."
"How oddly you English talk about your relatives!" said Teresa. "Now, if we have a person—not quite right—in the family, we try to keep it dark."
"Why? It's not your affair, after all, what your relatives do. Everybody's got some queer person or other about."
"You see, people like to muddle their heads," reflected Teresa. "Some of them have to do it—some of the best. A man, a very clever one, once said to me that some sort of 'dope' was absolutely necessary, when one had once got one's eyes open. The strongest dope, he said, was religion. The others were love, work, and whisky. His was whisky—he said it was the most reliable. … Yours, I suppose, is work."
"Well, it isn't religion, love, or whisky," said Crayven drily. "But—yes, perhaps my work is that, to a certain extent. It keeps one from thinking too much. Out there in the desert one would get a bit queer sometimes, I fancy, if there weren't a perpetual round of little daily affairs to keep one going. … Yes, I suppose it is a dope. And yours—what is yours?"
"Mine? I'm not sure that I have one—yet. I never thought I needed one"
"You had one, when I saw you first. It was love."
Teresa flushed hotly.
"It is not a 'dope'—it is the only real thing in the world," she said passionately.
"Is it?" murmured Crayven.
"It is the only thing that lifts one out of the ruck of the world, that makes one feel happy and free and alive!"
"No—whisky 'll do that," said Crayven. "It's but a temporary intoxication, in any case."
His tone was subacid, with all its lightness. It seemed to Teresa that he delighted in making her combative on this subject. He always watched her face when she asserted her belief in joy, in happiness; when her cheeks flushed and her narrow eyes flamed.
"You don't believe that," she said suddenly.
"What does it matter what I believe? The grapes are sour—that's what it amounts to. I told you I had not got what I wanted."
"Ah, it was that, then," she murmured.
They were silent. The wood was silent, too, except for the rush of the stream, up the bank of which the road mounted steeply. Crayven walked with long, easy strides, and Teresa was always conscious that he was subduing his pace to hers. Mentally, too, he always seemed to be taking her pace, and not his own natural gait. He seemed to be following her, waiting on her mood, watching her. He had no need, apparently, of expressing himself—the essentially masculine need, Teresa had always considered it. She often found herself wondering what he was really like—for example, what woman counted in his life. It was not his wife, she was sure of that. Was it, perhaps, some Eastern woman, someone behind the veil? She had tried, but Crayven was not to be drawn on that point. His reserve irritated her, especially as he plainly wanted to find out all he could about herself. But just now he had said something that broke that reserve. She took it seriously, and glanced even timidly at his face. He met her with a long, grave look, which seemed to weigh her somehow. "If I tell you something," he said, "promise me not to be angry."
"Angry? Why—what could you tell me that could make me angry? What is it?"
He smiled. "I know you will not like it."
Her eyes questioned him eagerly, but half-offended already.
"It's this. Ages ago—ten years ago—I was tremendously in love. And you are like her. That's it."
"Like her? How am I like her? And is that what you meant I should be angry at? I don't understand. How am I like her?"
"You look like her. It's the same type. It's quite extraordinary. Though she was blonde, rather—light-brown hair. But there's the same modelling of the face, the same eyes. … Is your family, by any chance, English, do you know? What was your maiden name?"
"Grange. My father's family was English. How odd!"
"That isn't the name—but there may be some connection somewhere. Her name was Mowbray."
Teresa shook her head. "I've got a family tree somewhere or other, but I don't remember all the names. Perhaps she's a far-away cousin. But it must be your fancy that I look like her."
"It's no fancy. I was struck by it the first time I saw you—still more so the second time, that night at the dinner. You even wore her colour—blue. She was stronger, more robust physically than you, but you have the same look of vitality, of life. There's so much vigour in your face—and when I saw you in Paris you looked as she did when I saw her the last time. She was in mourning then, and sad—but one felt that she couldn't be sad forever."
He spoke quietly, without emotion, and seemed more interested in Teresa than in what he was telling her.
"But—she but why"
"Why was it no good, you mean? Oh, it was very simple. She happened not to like me—preferred somebody else. Absurd, isn't it?"
"I don't understand that! She must have liked you!"
"You're very good. Or perhaps you believe that love wins love. It generally does. But in this case, you see, I didn't get her. … It was rather a knock-down blow. A man ought to succeed, you see, in that adventure. If he doesn't, he never feels quite sure afterward that he's the admirable creature he ought to be. Something has beaten him, and he rather expects to be beaten again."
"Again? But not in that way"
"Why not? Does one love only once and forever? … That may be, I grant you, when from being in love you come really to love—when habit and experience hold you to it. But re- member, she never belonged to me. She was only a wonderful possibility."
They were in the depths of the fir-wood now, climbing steeply. Teresa paused for breath, and sat down, panting a little, on a log by the roadside. The stream hummed far below, invisible. Crayven lit a cigarette, first offering Teresa one, and stood leaning against a tree beside her.
"You were twenty-six then," she said, looking off into the forest.
"Yes, I was a boy. It was the time to love—I needed it, and"
"Have you a picture of her?" asked Teresa, after a moment.
"Not here. I don't carry it next my heart."
"Was she unkind to you?"
"I didn't want her to be kind. I wanted her."
"I can't understand why you didn't get her. You seem to me the sort"
"Women didn't like me then. I was too eager. I've observed that they like me better now—because I don't want anything much of them, I suppose."
"And you never have—since?"
He was silent, till she looked up at him and met his eyes.
"Not in the same way," he said. He moved abruptly, and sat down on the log beside her. "Not with the same belief and hope. That was youth. … You I meet you … and you happen to be married, you see."
"I? … Was she married, then?"
"No, no, she wasn't, then. But you are."
"This is a little difficult. You are married, too, aren't you?"
"Well, I am, I suppose."
He laughed and dropped his cigarette-end.
"But there are degrees in being married," he added. "I am married in the least degree possible."
When he did speak he was frank enough! Teresa felt he was moving now rather too rapidly.
"We were cousins," he went on calmly. "It was a family arrangement, I am sorry we have no children. It has been rather a failure—except that Adela has her freedom and can live where she likes. She hates the East, and, of course, it's no place out there for a woman—no theatres, no places to dine, no bridge—a savage place. Adela uses all her influence to get me into a better one, and I use mine to stay where I am. It's unfortunate she hasn't a husband that could be pushed on."
After a silence he asked:
"What are you thinking about—dreaming about? Your eyes are full of dreams."
"About what you've told me," she answered with a certain effort. "Come, let's walk on."
They were silent till they had passed the pinewood and come out into the Champs de Barmaz, a field shut in by a sheer wall of rocks on one side and on the other sloping up to the foot of the high peaks.
"Sit down a minute—you look pale and tired," said Crayven, gently. "I'll bring you some gentians."
He went off to a great patch of snow lying at the edge of the Champs, and Teresa watched his alert, strong figure with a curious feeling of disenchantment. So this was the reason of his interest in her—a fancied resemblance to a boyish love! He had said she would not like it—and she did not like it. Her vanity was hurt, and she felt suddenly remote from him, bored, and thought of Basil. Why had she buried herself here? At least with Basil one lived. Her quarrel with him appeared absurd. How foolish, in a world of such mischances and maladjustments, to throw away a day of happiness! Who knew what the next day might bring forth? Who knew what change there might be in Basil, when she saw him again? His letters indicated no change, but what were letters after all? They said only what one wanted them to say. She felt a sudden hatred of the casual, the meaningless, in human relations. Why waste time on people who, after all, counted for nothing? There was only one person who really counted to her, Basil. Why not allow, once for all, for a certain amount of the casual and meaningless in his life—since men were made in such a foolish fashion? Why not forgive him his folly, as she did Ronald when he frescoed the wall-paper with ink, in pathetic male ignorance what else to do with himself? … But that woman! She could forgive Basil easily enough, if it were not for the insistent figure of Isabel—her eyes, her mouth, her nervous, seeking hands, her perfumes. … If only it had been a woman she did not know! She turned hot and cold with a desire to rend Isabel limb from limb, to crush her. She remembered women she had seen fighting in the streets in London. Happy world, where people could give their instincts full sway, where one could tell an interloper what one really thought of her! She remembered the last scene in the studio—that look she had given Isabel—with thirsty satisfaction. Isabel knew that she knew—that was something. But Basil must still pay the score that he had heaped up for himself by trying to stand between them—an absurd male buffer between two frank female egotisms which at least did not attempt to deny the obvious. …
She had forgotten Crayven, and she started when he came up to her, his hands full of the vivid indigo-blue and dark-purple flowers of the snow. But she smiled at him warmly and took the gentians with joy in their wonderful colour. "How intense everything is here in nature!" she said. "What a flame in that blue! And even the dandelions are orange instead of yellow. And the green of the meadows, the green brook, the black shadow of the pines, and then that sky—what a day!" She sprang up. "On, on!" she cried. "I wish I could climb up there on those peaks, up into the clouds!"
"I'm afraid you'll find Barmaz high enough," said Crayven. "It's rather a pull, this last bit. Sure you're not too tired?"
"I'm not tired at all. And I want my lunch. Do I look tired?"
She did not, now. Her face was eager and full of life. They walked on rapidly. The road shot steeply up, then doubled and redoubled and doubled again on itself along the pine-clad rock. They met a dull-faced peasant coming down, leading a huge cow.
"Here, as Heine said of Göttingen, the cows are the most intelligent part of the population!" Teresa gasped, as they stood aside to let the animals pass. Then, getting her breath, she repeated a verse that always sang in her memory:
"'Mir träumte einst von wildern Liebesglühn
Von hübschen Locken, Myrten und Resede,
Von süssen Lippen und von bittrer Rede,
Von düstrer Lieder, düstern Melodien …'
"What melody! What a poet! How, he handles that German language of horses! What a singing quality in that
"'Myrten und Resede
Von süssen Lippen und bittrer Rede …'
He knew the touch of sweet lips and of bitter herbs! … I feel like singing myself."
"Do," said Crayven gravely.
"Not going up a hill like this! Immer zu, immer zu, ohne Rast und Ruh!"
She led the way, breathless, and Crayven followed, taking one long step to her two. The sun was hot on the face of the rock, but when they reached the top and Teresa sank down, panting and smiling, by the roadside, a cool wind met them, a rollicking wind fresh from the snows. She took off her hat and lifted her face to drink it in.
"Put on your sweater, or you'll take cold," said Crayven, standing before her with his hands in his pockets and looking suddenly stolid and British.
She laughed.
"How odd—when you give an order I see you are a real Englishman! Or, perhaps, it was the poetry I quoted, was it? … Don't mind me; this day, this air, has gone to my head! I must laugh—at you, at anything, at nothing!"
"Well, laugh, but put on your sweater. I hate women with colds in their heads."
He stooped down, took the sweater from round her waist and put her into it.
"Now, come on—you must have some hot milk to drink, or you may be a little dizzy. People often are, getting up here."
"Dizzy? No, I am only drunk with this air!"
But warned by a slight beating in her ears and temples, she got up and they rounded the corner into the plateau of Barmaz, dotted with cows and a few small chalets. A charging troop of cows drove them off the path. Crayven caught Teresa with one arm and swept her up on a hillock, and the cows tore past, their heads down, their tails in the air, their huge bodies gambolling wildly. Teresa shrieked with laughter.
"That's exactly how I feel!" she cried. "Now I know how a Swiss would look, if he ever enjoyed himself! But he doesn't—it's only the cows that are sensitive to the skyey influences!"
Crayven took her hand and led her down, still laughing, to the chalet which promised "Bon repos"; and ordered hot milk and lunch on the veranda.
"If it isn't too cold for you out here," he added.
"Not a bit—it's perfect," said Teresa promptly, establishing herself at a table.
But the waitress, with sloe-black, keen eyes under her scarlet head-dress, enquired if a room inside was desired by Madame. There was, she said, a very nice private room. When she had gone, Teresa laughed again.
"One sees that we are on the Continent!" she said.
Crayven made no response, and looked gravely at her.
"How sadly you take your pleasure," she protested. "You haven't smiled since we left the Champs. I feel gay, light-hearted, for the first time in—oh, ages—you mustn't be dull! I've forgiven you freely for being interested in me only because I remind you of someone else. I'm glad if I give you any such pleasure. Now, don't spoil mine, will you?"
"I'll try not to, Teresa," he said, gazing steadily at her.