For Love Alone (3 page)

“Do you mean that fat one ?” asked Teresa, spitefully.

“Ah, jocund, rubious, nods and becks and wreathed smiles,” said Andrew, writhing on the settee in ecstasy, a broad smile on his face. “I peered in among the roses and then I pretended to see them and I said: ‘I was looking for Mina, Teen and Violet, but all I see are the Three Graces!'”

“You should be ashamed,” said Teresa, morosely.

“That just shows you don't understand the world and your Andrew,” he retorted comfortably, leaning back and flexing and stretching his legs. “The girls were delighted! They went off into happy peals of golden laughter, like peals of bells. Mrs Harkness came running up and said: ‘What have you been saying to my girls, Mr Hawkins? I must know the joke too.' We all laughed again. Mrs Harkness—I wish you could meet her—is a wonderful woman, motherly, but full of womanly charm and grace too. In her forties, plump, round, but not ungraceful, the hearthside Grace. And she too told me how beautiful my hair is. They can't help it, the desire to run their fingers through it is almost irresistible.”

“Did she kiss your hand? Mrs Harkness, I mean,” enquired Teresa in a low voice.

Hawkins looked at her sharply. “Don't jest at things that are sacred to me, Teresa. I have suffered much through love and when you come to know human love, instead of self-love—”

“The beans are done,” called Kitty. Teresa gathered up her sewing.

“If you ever love! For I verily believe that inward and outward beauty strike one chord.”

“You do,” said the girl, “do you? Well, I don't. How simple that would be.”

“An ugly face is usually the dried crust of a turbid, ugly soul. I personally,” he said in a low, vibrant voice, “cannot stand ugliness, Trees. I worship beauty,” he said, throwing his limbs about in a frenzy of enthusiasm, “and all my life I have served her, truth and beauty.”

Teresa took the worn damask cloth out of the sideboard drawer and set five places.

“I want to be loved in my own home,” said Hawkins, contemplating his long legs and speaking in a fine drawn silken murmur. “Sometimes I close my eyes and imagine what this place would be like if it were a Palace of Love! All your ideas of decorating the walls with fifteenth-century designs, peepholes, twisted vines, naked-bottomed fat and indecent infants on the ceiling—that's dry, meaningless, dull work, but if this house were peopled with our love, murmurous with all the undertones, unspoken understanding of united affection—a-ah!” He opened his beautiful blue eyes and looked across at her. “And yet, in a way, you're like my dear Margaret, but without her loving nature. How tender she was! I was her whole life, I and you babies. She knew that I had something precious in my head, like the whale with ambergris—”

“A sick whale has ambergris,” said Teresa. “A whale that's half rotting while it swims is the sort they go after, because they hope it has ambergris in its head. And you know how they bring in every soapy thing from the beach, everything that's greasy and pale, for ambergris.”

“And she was modest,” said the beautiful man, joining his hands and looking down at them. “She had a curious thing she used to say: ‘Andrew, how did a mouse like me get a man like you?' What charm there is in a modest woman! If you could learn that, Teresa, you would have charm for men, for they can forgive a lot in a woman who is truly devoted to them. What do we look for in women—understanding! In the rough and tumble of man's world, the law of the jungle is often the only law observed, but in the peace and sanctity of the man's home, he feels the love that is close to angels! A pretty face, a lovely form, cannot give that—or not those alone. No, it is because he knows he is loved. … Don't forget, Kitty, to clean my boots,” he said, sitting up. “I'm going into town this afternoon.”

“On the same boat with us?”

“No, later. And ask Trees if she sewed the buttons on my white shirt. Trees! Buttons—shirt?”

“Well, you could have gone to Malfi's wedding, you're going into town,” objected Teresa, bringing in a vase of flowers.

“Ha—I don't approve of that hocus-pocus. You know that, Teresa. Love alone unites adult humans.”

“We're not illegitimate,” Teresa grinned.

He had risen to his feet and half turned to the window; now he partly turned to her, and she could see the flush on his face and neck. “Teresa,” he said gently, “your mother and I were united by a great love, by a passion higher than earthly thoughts, and I should have kept to my principles, and she too was willing to live with me, bound only by the ties of our affection, but—I had already rescued her from the tyranny of that hard old man and we were too young and weak, we could not harden ourselves to hurt her mother's feelings as well.”

The young girl went on smiling unpleasantly, “And if you loved someone else?”

The man looked out over the beach and bay for a moment and the girl flushed, thinking she had gone too far. He said,
sotto voce:
“My girl, since you bring it up, I am in love again, with a young woman, a woman of thirty, a—” His voice dropped. He came towards
her, seized her arms and looked into her face without bending. “A wonderful, proud, fine-looking woman, pure in soul. My whole life is wrapping itself around her, so I'm glad you brought it up for you will understand later on—”

She angrily shook her arms free. “Don't touch me, I don't like it.”

He sighed and turned his shoulder to her. “This is no way to treat men, men don't like an unbending woman.”

“I am unbending.”

“You will be sorry for it.”

“You ordered us never to kiss or coax or put our arms around you or one another.”

“A coaxing woman, a lying, wheedling woman is so abhorrent to men,” he said. “I have seen a woman sitting on a man's lap, trying to coax things out of him. Isn't that shameful to you? I hope it is. I was firm on that one point and your mother agreed with me.
She
never flattered in hope of gain, she never once lied—never once in our whole married life, Trees. Think of your dear mother if temptation ever comes your way—although you will never be tempted to lie, I know, but the other little things in women, the petty, wretched things, the great flaws in female character—flightiness—” He paused and forced himself to go on with a grimace. “Flirtatiousness—though,” he continued, looking round at her with a broad smile,
“that
is not likely to be your weakness, nor Kit's. If, I say, you should ever be tempted to tricks like that, thinking to please some man, remember that they detest those tricks and see through them. They know they are traps, mean little chicane to bend them to woman's purpose. I was at Random's the other day. He let his little daughter climb over him and beg him for something he had refused. He gave in. It was a humiliating sight for me, and for the man. I could see her years later, because she is pretty, a warped, dishonest little creature, only thinking of making men do things for her.”

“Have you ever seen me coax or kiss?” asked Teresa, indignantly. “Have I ever begged for a single thing?”

“No,” he said, “and in a way it's a pity, for you have no attraction for a man as you are now, and it might be better if you knew how to lure men.” He smiled at her, “Why can't you be like me, Trees? I am known everywhere for my smile. I have melted the hearts of my enemies with my smile. You know Random Senior, the man who did me that great injury—we used to pass in the street, afterwards, every morning on the way to work. I always smiled and offered him my hand. After a month or so, he couldn't bear it. He used to go round by a back way, to avoid me, he couldn't bear the smile of the honest man. If you would smile more, men would look at you. Men have their burdens. How delightful it is to see a dear little woman, happy and smiling, eager to hear them, delighted to cheer them. No one can say why a woman's bright face and intelligent eye mean so much to a man. Of course, the sexes are made to attract each other,” he said with an indulgent laugh. “Don't think I'm so innocent as I seem, Teresa, but sex has its delicious aspects. Sex—what a convenient dispensation—yes, sex,” he said, changing his tone and coming close to her, ardently, intently, “I am not one to inveigh against sex! You don't know the meaning, the beauty of that word, Teresa, to a loving man. On the other side of the barrier of sex is all the splendour of internal life, a garden full of roses, if you can try to understand my meaning, sweet-scented, fountains playing, the bluebird flying there and nesting there. There are temptations there but the man sure of himself and who knows himself can resist them and direct his steps into the perfumed, sunny, lovely paths of sex. Oh!” he cried, his fine voice breaking, “who can tell these things to another, especially to you, Trees? You are too cold, you have never responded to me, and my soul, yes, I will use that word, had such great need of understanding! I saw right away that Kitty, my dear girl, was a woman's woman, a womanly little girl, pretty, humble, sweet, but in you I saw myself and I determined to lead you out of all the temptations of your sex, for there are many—many of which you are not aware—”

“There is simply nothing of which I am not aware,” said the girl.

“You don't know what you are saying,” he said tenderly.

Her face became convulsed with anger. “How stupid you are,” she cried and rushed out, upstairs, in the breezy part of the house. All the doors were open. Her room at the back of the house, painted nile green, was an inviting cell, almost bare, neat, cool. She rushed in, flung herself on her bed, and stared upwards at the ceiling, mad with anger. In a short time, however, she cooled down, and thought once more that she would cover the walls, the ceiling, yes, the walls of the corridor, the walls of all the house, with designs. She got up and began to draw fresh designs on a large piece of white paper stretched by drawing-pins on her table. She had combined all sorts of strange things in it; patriotic things, the fantastic heads of prize merino rams, with their thick, parting, curly, silky wool and their double-curved corrugated horns, spikes of desert wheat, strange forms of xerophytic plants, pelicans, albatrosses, sea-eagles, passion-flowers, the wild things she most admired. She forgot all about her dress, which she had to wear at the wedding that afternoon, and which was not yet finished. She came downstairs reluctantly when Kitty called her.

Andrew, viewing her solemnly from the end of the table where he unfolded his worn damask serviette over his bulging naked belly, laughed and chanted as he banged his soup-spoon on the table: “Ants in her pants and bats in her belfry.” Teresa turned pale, half-rose from the table, looking at Andrew, and cried: “You offend my honour! I would kill anyone who offends my honour.” There was an instant of surprise, then a low, long laugh, rolling from one end of the table to the other. Andrew began it, Lance with his hollow laugh, Leo with his merry one, Kitty's cackles joined in. It was far from spiteful, healthy, they had a character there in the simmering Teresa; she never paused for reflection, she rose just the same in defence of her “honour”.

“Your honour,” said Lance, her elder brother, low and sneering. He was a tall, pale, blond lad, chaste and impure.

“A woman's honour means something else from what you imagine,” said her father, laughing secretively.

“A woman can have honour,” declared Leo, a dark, rosy boy. He turned serious in honour of his admired sister.

Lance muttered.

“You would not kill, you would not take human life,” said the handsome man, the family god, sitting at the head of the table. “Don't say such things, Teresa.”

“Honour is more sacred than life,” said Teresa somberly. Andrew said abruptly: “What's the delay? Where's dinner?” Kitty brought in the soup.

No more was said, and they fell to in a gloomy, angry silence.

The unappeased young girl, relentless, ferocious, was able to stir them all. They suddenly felt discontented, saw the smallness of their lives and wondered how to strike out into new ways of living. She did not know this: she brooded, considering her enemies under her brows and made plans to escape. She reconsidered the conversation; she had not said the right thing, but exploded into speech in the usual way. Her father meanwhile had been thinking it over. She supped her soup and without looking up, declared to him: “I am informed, on the moral side. You're ignoble. You can't understand me. Henceforth, everything between us is a misunderstanding. You have accepted compromise, you revel in it. Not me. I will never compromise.”

Lance and Andrew, from laughing up their sleeves, came out into the open and burst into joyous roars of laughter. Leo considered her seriously, from above his soup-spoon. Kitty looked from one to the other. Teresa sat up, with a stiff face and a stiff tongue, too, and tried to crush them with a glance. She buried her mouth in another spoonful of soup. Several of them threw themselves back against their chairs and laughed loudly; but the laugh was short.

“Eat your soup and don't be a fool,” said Andrew.

Teresa flushed, hesitated, but said nothing. Andrew said: “She dares to say her own father is contemptible, her brothers and sister.”

Teresa looked ashamed. Hawkins pursued the subject. “Mooning and moaning to herself and it's evident what it's about—no one is good enough for her. She hates everything. I love everything. I love everyone. My one prayer, and I pray, though to no vulgar god, is for love.”

“You disgust me,” said Teresa, lifting her head and looking at him.

He began to laugh. “Look at her! Pale, haggard, a regular witch. She looks like a beggar. Who would want her! What pride! Pride in rags! Plain Jane on the high horse! When she is an old maid, she'll still be proud, and noble. No one else will count!”

The nineteen-year-old said calmly: “I told you I would kill you if you insult me. I will do it with my bare hands. I am not so cowardly as to strike with anything. I know where to press though—I will kill you, father.” With terror, the table had become silent, only Kitty murmured: “Terry! Don't be silly!” The father turned pale and looked angrily at her.