Celia's House (20 page)

Mark was early for his appointment and Tessa had not arrived when he reached the rendezvous. He had not been to the Peel Tower since last year, and he looked around at the old place with affection and respect. The staircase (which went up at one side and ended in a small square platform) seemed to have suffered a good deal of damage from the frost and snow of winter. Some of the stones had fallen from their places, others had been loosened and were balanced precariously on the edge of the wall, but Mark managed to climb up safely, and standing on the little platform he looked over the tops of the trees toward Ryddelton House. Yes, there was Tessa. He could see her in the distance coming toward him through the fields…and, because he was so impatient to speak to her, he could not wait for her to come but hastened down the steps and through the woods and, jumping over the gate, ran to meet her.

“You seem in a hurry!” cried Tessa, waving her hand.

“I love you,” Mark said breathlessly. “I want to marry you.”

The next moment she was in his arms and he was kissing her.

“You
are
funny,” Tessa said, laughing excitedly. “You
are
funny, Mark. We've been seeing each other for days and days. Have you only just discovered that you love me?”

“I've loved you for years—you know that perfectly well—but I couldn't ask you to marry me when I was working at the hospital.”

“Have you resigned?”

“Yes, I've resigned. Dad is going to buy a partnership for me. It's with Dr. Anderson at Timperton. You'd like it, wouldn't you? We could have a dear little house of our own. I've seen the very house.”

She smiled at him. “You seem to have arranged it all!”

“Darling, you're pleased, aren't you?” Mark asked a trifle anxiously. “I wanted to have things arranged so that I would have something to offer you. Of course it isn't really fixed yet, so if you don't like the idea…or if you'd rather go somewhere else…”

“No,” Tessa said slowly. “No, Mark, I think it would be rather nice—just for a little while. It would be fun to have a house of our own—just you and me.”

“It would be heavenly!” cried Mark and he kissed her again.

“When did you begin to love me?” Tessa asked.

“Ages ago,” he replied. “Long before the play. I wanted to ask you then—you knew that, didn't you? You knew I meant it when I said, ‘Gentle Hermia, may I marry thee?'”

Tessa laughed. She said, “Why didn't you ask me then? You
were
an old stupid.”

“Would you have said yes?”

“Of course I would.”

“But I couldn't,” Mark declared, suddenly grave. “I hadn't even qualified. I had nothing to offer you at all.”

“I think you had a good deal to offer me,” said Tessa, laughing. She put her arm through his and they began to walk across the meadow. Neither of them had much idea where they were going.

“You
will
marry me,” said Mark. “You really mean it?”

“Yes, of course. I've told you so about three times already. What sort of person do you think I am?”

“The most wonderful person in the world,” Mark assured her earnestly.

“I'm not really,” she replied, “but, never mind. I like you to think I'm wonderful. I think you're rather a dear.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, rather a funny dear. What did you mean when you said you had nothing to offer me?”

“I just meant what I said…”

Tessa gave his arm a slight squeeze. “We needn't
pretend
,” she said. “I hate shams and it's natural to look to the future. Someday Dunnian will be yours and you'll let me share it, won't you? I've always told you how much I love Dunnian.”

Mark stopped dead. He felt as if he had been turned to stone. He could not answer her.

“Someday,” repeated Tessa, smiling at him. “Not for years and years, of course, but it's natural to think of the future when you're young. Why shouldn't you be glad to think that someday Dunnian will be yours?”

“Because,” he said hoarsely. “Because it won't be—mine—ever.” It was not what he had meant to say. He had no words to express his feelings.

“It won't be?” she repeated in a bewildered tone.

“No,” said Mark.

“But what do you mean? You're the eldest son.”

“Yes, of course, but Dunnian isn't entailed. It doesn't come to me.”

They were standing in the middle of the meadow, ankle deep in the sweet lush grass that was full of golden buttercups. The larks were singing and the sky was very blue, but to Mark it seemed as if a thick black cloud had come over the sun.

“I don't understand,” said Tessa, and there was a new note in her voice, a strange sharp note that Mark had not heard before. “I don't understand. Who does it go to if it doesn't come to you? Can your father leave it as he likes?”

“No,” Mark said dully.

“But that's dreadful!” she cried. “That's dreadful! I can't believe it!”

“I thought you knew.”

“How could I know? How could I possibly know unless someone told me?”

“You knew I was studying medicine.”

“Oh, that!” Tessa cried scornfully. “I knew
that
, of course, but I thought you were just amusing yourself—”

“Amusing myself!” he cried.

“Oh, you know what I mean,” she replied, stamping her foot on the ground. “I thought you were just marking time until—until Dunnian was yours.”

“Tessa!”

“You haven't played fair,” she said angrily. “No, you haven't. Why didn't you tell me long ago?”

“I've told you; I thought you knew—”

“You deceived me—”

“Oh, Tessa, this is dreadful!” cried Mark. “What's happening to us?”

She took no notice. “It wasn't fair,” she continued in trembling tones. “It wasn't right. You let me go on thinking—thinking that you—why didn't you tell me long ago?”

She was behaving like a child, unreasonably, illogically. She was just a child really, and such a beautiful child. Her face was flushed and her eyes were sparkling with tears. Suddenly Mark caught her in his arms and she did not resist him. They kissed each other for the third time, a long lingering kiss.

“Tessa, you do love me?”

She sighed. “Yes.”

He was suddenly caught up to heaven. The sun was shining again in Mark's sky. “Darling, I knew it was all right,” he whispered. “You've forgiven me, haven't you? We'll be so happy together.”

He waited for a reply, but she said nothing.

“We'll be so happy that we won't—we won't mind about—about anything,” Mark stammered. “We'll be so happy together.”

She drew herself out of his arms and stood back. Her eyes were tearful, but her mouth was firm. “I'll have to—to think about it,” she said.

“But, Tessa, if we love each other—”

“You've deceived me, Mark. That's what hurts.”

“I didn't mean to,” Mark said earnestly. “You know that, don't you? You know I didn't mean to. It was all a mistake, Tessa.”

“Was it?”

“Yes, all a mistake. We love each other, don't we? This doesn't make any difference, does it?”

“I think it makes a good deal of difference.”

“But, Tessa—”

“But, Mark, don't you see—we should be nobodies without Dunnian,” Tessa said.

• • •

Mark did not go home to lunch. He went up the hill and sat there for a long time with his back against a rock, looking at the fair spread of country with unseeing eyes, looking down at Dunnian with its lawns and gardens and terraces half hidden among the trees. A little more than a year ago Deb had brought her troubles to this very spot, but Mark did not know that. His thoughts veered to and fro: at one moment he saw things from Tessa's point of view and the next moment from his own. It must have been a shock and a disappointment to Tessa—she was so fond of Dunnian. She loved him—he was sure of that—but she did not love him enough.
She
did
not
love
him
enough
to
marry
him
without
Dunnian
tacked
on!
She wanted Dunnian and she wanted the position Dunnian would give her; she had seen herself as mistress of the lovely old place—not now, of course, but in the future. The prospect of living out her life as a doctor's wife did not appeal to her at all. She might change her mind, of course, but Mark did not think it likely, for Tessa always knew exactly what she wanted and was not given to changing her mind.

Now that this dreadful thing had happened, Mark could not think why he had never mentioned the fact to Tessa—the fact that Dunnian would not be his. (
If only I had
told
her
, thought Mark, biting hard on the mouthpiece of his empty pipe.) Why hadn't he told her? The answer was
because
he
never
thought
about
it himself.
He had never envisaged the place as his. It was a fixed fact in his mind that Dunnian would eventually belong to Celia. (Long ago when Humphrey had informed Mark of the provisions of old Aunt Celia's will, Humphrey had impressed upon him that it was a secret; he could speak to his mother about it, but to nobody else. Nobody else was to know—Celia herself was not to know until she was twenty-one. She was to be brought up just like the other children, not treated differently nor set apart from the rest of the family. Mark had seen the wisdom of this decision and had subscribed to it, but he had never realized how it affected himself.) He saw now that he had been sailing under false colors:
everyone
must think he was his father's heir…

Mark had been so happy. He had been so sure of Tessa, so certain that she returned his love and would marry him. The way had seemed so smooth, the sky had seemed so clear. It was a thunderbolt.

I should have asked her first
, thought Mark.
I should have made sure of the most important thing first. What good is the partnership without Tessa!

It was not much good. Mark wished with all his heart that he had not sent his resignation to the hospital, for it would have been better to go back to London and work like a slave and try to forget what had happened.

Several days passed and there was no word from Tessa, no message, and at last Mark heard that she and Oliver had left Ryddelton and gone back to London…and with this news his last hope vanished. He was very miserable; he was angry and wounded and sad. Sometimes he blamed himself for what had happened; sometimes he blamed Tessa. Dunnian had lost its power to heal and soothe him, for his confusion and grief were connected with the place. The sun shone and Dunnian glowed like a jewel, but it did not glow for him. He felt lonely—and that was queer, because he had never felt lonely before (he had liked to be with people, but he had always felt happiest alone). Now, suddenly, the world felt big and drafty.

If he could have confided in his father it would have helped a good deal, but there were all sorts of reasons why he could not do so…no, he could not tell his father what had happened. He could not have borne his father's sympathy nor to have to sit and listen to criticisms of Tessa, and, last but not least, he could not have borne his father's distress. Mark knew his father had always wanted him to have Dunnian and that for some reason his father felt himself to blame for the curious provisions of Aunt Celia's will. Mark knew that Humphrey was even a trifle ashamed of the oddness of the will (Humphrey did not like to feel that people were talking about his family). It was one of the reasons why he had wanted to keep the will a secret. Humphrey would feel that
this
was his fault too. He would be distressed beyond measure when he heard what had ensued from his desire to keep the family skeleton in the cupboard.

Humphrey asked no questions—he was too wise—but he could not fail to see that something was amiss. His eyes seemed to be saying, “Is everything all right, Mark?” But Mark could not reply. The nearest Humphrey got to asking the all-important question was when the papers relating to the partnership came from the lawyers to be signed.

“You're sure you really want it?” Humphrey asked with his pen poised in the air.

“Of course I want it, Dad,” replied Mark. It was pride, chiefly, which made him say the words, for by this time pride had come to Mark's aid. He intended to make a life for himself without Tessa, and it would be a good life too.

Mark was not the least surprised that everything went through without a hitch. It had seemed too good to be true, but now the snag had appeared. That was how Mark saw it.

The papers were signed and, a day or two later, Humphrey said good-bye and returned to his command in the Mediterranean, and still Mark had not said a word. He had decided to write to his father and tell him everything, for he felt it would be easier to write. The only person in whom Mark could have confided was Deb—and Deb was not here.

It was very quiet at Dunnian now. Humphrey was gone, Deb was still at Bournemouth, Celia was busy with her lessons. Mark spent a good deal of time with his mother on the terrace. She would sew quietly, sitting in old Aunt Celia's chair, and Mark would sit near her reading and smoking his pipe. Sometimes she would talk, but her talk was a little vague, as if some part of her mind had moved on to a different plane. When she spoke of the future she spoke as if she would not be here, and yet Mark did not think she was aware of this herself.

“It will be so nice for Humphrey to have you settled at Timperton,” Alice said one day. “When Humphrey retires he may find it a little dull and lonely.”

“But he'll have
you
,” Mark pointed out.

“Yes, of course,” agreed Alice, but she looked puzzled and doubtful.

“He doesn't want anyone else when he has you.”

“No,” said Alice, smiling. She was silent for a while and then she said, “We haven't seen Tessa lately. You haven't quarreled with Tessa, have you?”

“No, I haven't quarreled with her,” replied Mark. “She's gone away.”

“Don't let her come between you and Humphrey,” Alice said vaguely. “Humphrey will need you, Mark.”

“How could she come between us?”

“She wants you all to herself,” Alice replied. “She's like that, you know. At one time I thought she was very sweet, but, lately, I've begun to see things differently. Sometimes things seem very clear and sometimes everything is misty. I can't explain it properly.”

He was worried about Alice (if she did not improve soon he decided she must be taken to see a specialist). He was worried about Becky as well. Becky gave him a fright. She fainted one day when she was going upstairs and Mark found her lying on the landing. For one awful moment he thought she was dead and his own heart almost stopped beating. It was one thing, Mark found, to be cool and collected when you were called in to see an ordinary patient, but it was quite another when you discovered one of your oldest and dearest friends lying in a twisted heap at the bottom of a flight of stairs.

Mark examined her carefully and found that no bones had been broken—which amazed him considerably—and they managed to carry her up to bed and revive her with smelling salts. “We had better send for Dr. Ferguson,” Mark said in an undertone to one of the maids who had helped him to carry Becky up the stairs.

“Shall I go telephone for him, sir?”

“Yes, please,” said Mark.

“I'll not have any doctor but you,” declared Becky, opening her eyes.

Mark was so unutterably relieved to hear this characteristic statement delivered in Becky's own firmly determined voice that he could not help laughing.

“I'll not,” repeated Becky, looking at him defiantly. “I'll not have that old curmudgeon putting a finger on me. If I'm to be doctored, it's you that'll have to do it.”

“You don't sound as if you needed much doctoring,” said Mark. “Let's have a look at you…”

“You can look at my tongue,” Becky replied, pulling up the sheet and holding it under her chin.

“I want to examine you thoroughly.”

“You can't. I'm perfectly all right. There's nothing wrong with me at all.”

Mark was usually considered pretty good with recalcitrant patients, but he had met his match in Becky and he knew it. He felt her pulse and looked at her tongue—though what use that was he did not know—and inquired feebly whether she felt any pain.

“No pain at all,” Becky replied promptly.

“You've been overdoing it,” Mark told her. “It has been very hot and you've been running up and down stairs. A few days in bed will do you a lot of good, and after that, you'd better have a holiday.”

“A holiday indeed!” exclaimed Becky. “Where would I go? Would I go to my sister and do all the cooking, or else to my niece and be landed with the baby? No, no, I'll maybe take a day in bed and you can give me a bottle—I suppose you can write out a bottle for me, can't you?”

Mark assured her that it was well within his power to prescribe a “bottle.”

“You're sure?” she asked with some anxiety. “I'm not wanting to be poisoned or anything…”

“Oh, Becky, you're priceless!” declared Mark. “You're worth your weight in gold.”

Becky smiled primly and replied, “Well, you should know about that since you carried me up the stair.”

Becky was left reposing peacefully in bed, but that night, after dinner, when Mark went up to see his patient, he found she had disobeyed his orders. She had risen and dressed and was sitting in the old nursery sewing industriously.

“Becky, this is ridiculous!” exclaimed Mark. “I told you to stay in bed. If you don't do what I tell you, we must get another doctor. You're a silly old woman; that's what you are.”

“That's enough,” replied Becky. “I may be a silly old woman, but you're a very silly young man. There's some people can't tell gold from brass when it's under their very noses.”

Mark sat down. He was feeling lonely and miserable and Becky's conversation was always entertaining; besides, he had a feeling that Becky had something she wanted to tell him.

“In what way am I silly?” he asked.

“Oh, I'll not say you aren't well enough as a doctor; the bottle has done me a power of good already.”

Mark smiled. It was just like Becky to make this absurd statement, to be convinced—because she happened to be feeling a little better—that one dose of his simple prescription of strychnine and glycerophosphates had worked a miracle.

“I'm quite a good doctor,” said Mark, “but I can't tell the difference between gold and brass; that's what's the matter with me, is it?”

Becky hesitated for a moment and then she closed her lips.

“Do you remember,” Mark said after a short silence. “Do you remember when you used to tell me stories—all sorts of interesting stories about Dunnian? I've never forgotten them, Becky.”

“You were a nice wee boy.”

“It seems a long time ago.”

“Not to me. The years pass quickly when you get old. I've seen you all grow up, but it seems like yesterday you were children in the house.”

“It's a quiet house now.”

Becky nodded. “Too quiet. We should have Miss Deb back; Mrs. Dunne will be very lonely when you've gone to Timperton.”

“I know,” agreed Mark, “but Deb is enjoying herself—she's having a holiday.”

“She'd come back tomorrow if you asked her.”

“I wonder,” said Mark.

“You needn't wonder,” Becky replied tartly. “If you had left her alone and not tormented her she would never have gone away.”

Mark was silent. He watched Becky's nimble fingers. Her needle flashed as it went in and out of the soft fine fabric she was sewing.

“What's that you're making?” Mark asked at last.

She shook it out and held it up before his eyes. It was a dress of fine white gauze trimmed with silver, with a silver girdle around the waist.

“It looks like a fancy dress!” Mark exclaimed in surprise.

“It
was
a fancy dress, but I'm altering it. I'm making it into an evening frock for Celia. It's doing no good lying there in the cupboard.”

“I don't remember seeing it before.”

“That's not surprising,” Becky replied dryly. “It's never been worn. It's the dress Miss Deb was going to wear in the play.” She hesitated for a moment and then added in a lower tone, “It was not like you to turn her out of the play, Mr. Mark.”

“Turn her out of the play!” Mark cried in amazement.

“That's what I said. It wasn't like you. It wasn't fair. It was a shabby thing to do.”

“You've got it all wrong, Becky. We didn't turn her out, as you put it. She turned herself out. She funked it at the last moment; that's what happened. She couldn't learn her part.”

“Her part was learned. She said it to me over and over; she had it all off by heart—every word—and her dress was ready. She made it herself, every stitch.”

“Then why—” Mark began in bewildered tones.

“She was looking forward to it,” Becky told him. “She wasn't frightened of it. Why should she be frightened?”

“But, Becky, she told Tessa she was frightened—”

“No, Mr. Mark.”

“Yes, honestly.”

“I was here,” said Becky, raising her eyes and looking Mark straight in the face with her level gaze. “I was here in this very room when Miss Skene came in. She sat on that table and she laid down the law. You wanted Miss Angela in the play—that was what she said—and there was no part for her unless Miss Deb would give up Titania. ‘You don't mind, do you?' she said; those were her very words.”

“Becky!”

“Of course Miss Deb minded. She's only a young thing for all her old-fashioned ways. ‘We don't need you now,' said Miss Skene. Then Miss Deb said, ‘Did Mark say that?' ‘Yes, of course,' said Miss Skene.”

“Oh, Becky, I can't believe—”

“You think I'm lying to you?” asked Becky, who never minced her words.

“No,” Mark said unhappily.

“I wouldn't lie to you—even for your good,” declared Becky, and with this somewhat enigmatic statement she took up the dress and began to sew.

“It's dreadful,” Mark said at last. “It's so mean and petty. She let me go on thinking that Deb had let us down. How could she do that?”

“That's the worst bit of it,” Becky agreed in a cheerful tone.

“Of course it is. It was bad enough to take the part away from her. I wanted Deb to play it; I thought it would be good for her—”

“So it would have been.”

“—but it was far worse to let me think that Deb had let us down.”

“Far worse,” Becky agreed, more cheerfully still. “A person who could do that could do almost anything.”

Mark got up and went away, for he was so upset that he could not discuss it further. At first he clung to the idea that there must be some mistake, and he cast his mind back and tried to remember what Tessa had said to him about it. He remembered that he had been studying in the library and Tessa had come in and perched herself on the arm of the chair. “I'm afraid Debbie has got cold feet,” she had said, looking down at him with a worried expression on her face. “Poor little Debbie, we can't make her go on with it, Mark.” Mark remembered that he had risen and said he would speak to Deb, but Tessa had prevented him. “Don't do that,” Tessa had said. “You'll only make her unhappy. She's shy and frightened—she can't help it, you know—and she's so afraid you'll be angry with her. I said I'd put it all right with you.” “But, Tess, what are we to do? She
must
go on with it,” Mark had said. Tessa had shaken her head at that. “No, Mark,” she had said. “It would be unkind to make her do it when she dreads it so much; besides, she would probably let us down on the night.” Mark had been angry and disappointed in Deb—it was rotten of her to let them down like this—and Tessa had taken Deb's part and stood up for Deb. “She can't help it,” Tessa had reiterated.

Oddly enough, Mark remembered every word of the argument and of the discussion that had ensued as to who could be roped in at the last minute to take the vacant place. He had suggested Angela, and Tessa had clapped her hands and exclaimed, “Of course! Angela! She's the very person!”

There was no mistake possible, no shadow of a mistake. It was almost past belief that anyone could have been so deceitful, could have acted the abominable part with such conviction, but Tessa was a very good actress and Tessa had acted it. Why had she done it? Why had she wanted Deb out of the play? It seemed senseless to Mark. It was not as if Angela had played the part better; Angela was no actress and her memory was poor, and she had been the weak link in the play…but
that
was all over now,
that
didn't matter. What mattered was the discovery of Tessa's nature. “A person who could do that could do almost anything.” Yes, it was perfectly true.

It took Mark all night, turning and twisting in his bed, before he could face the thing squarely, but once he had managed it he felt a good deal better. The only thing to do was to take Tessa right out of his life and make up his mind to forget her. This seemed difficult, but it was not quite so difficult as it seemed because the Tessa he had worshipped was not a real person but merely a figment of his imagination. The flaws he had found in her and for which he had found excuses were part of her nature. She was rotten to the core.

In one way, at least, Mark found instant relief: Tessa had accused him of deceiving her and this had worried him a good deal, but, whereas he had deceived her unwittingly, Tessa had deceived him with deliberate intent; he need distress himself about
that
no more, thought Mark with a wry smile.