There were times when she wanted to get away from Collins, yet at others she longed intensely to be near her, longed to force the response that her loving craved for, but quite wisely, was very seldom granted.
She would say: ‘I do love you awfully, Collins. I love you so much that it makes me want to cry.’
And Collins would answer: ‘Don’t be silly, Miss Stephen,’ which was not satisfactory—not at all satisfactory.
Then Stephen might suddenly push her, in anger: ‘You’re a beast! How I hate you, Collins!’
And now Stephen had taken to keeping awake every night, in order to build up pictures: pictures of herself companioned by Collins in all sorts of happy situations. Perhaps they would be walking in the garden, hand in hand, or pausing on a hill-side to listen to the cuckoo; or perhaps they would be skimming over miles of blue ocean in a queer little ship with a leg-of-mutton sail, like the one in the fairy story. Sometimes Stephen pictured them living alone in a low thatched cottage by the side of a mill stream—she had seen such a cottage not very far from Upton—and the water flowed quickly and made talking noises; there were sometimes dead leaves on the water. This last was a very intimate picture, full of detail, even to the red china dogs that stood one at each end of the high mantelpiece, and the grandfather clock that ticked loudly. Collins would sit by the fire with her shoes off. ‘Me feet’s that swollen and painful,’ she would say. Then Stephen would go and cut rich bread and butter—the drawing-room kind, little bread and much butter—and would put on the kettle and brew tea for Collins, who liked it very strong and practically boiling, so that she could sip it from her saucer. In this picture it was Collins who talked about loving, and Stephen who gently but firmly rebuked her: ‘There, there, Collins, don’t be silly, you are a queer fish!’ And yet all the while she would be longing to tell her how wonderful it was, like honeysuckle blossom—something very sweet like that—or like fields smelling strongly of new-mown hay, in the sunshine. And perhaps she would tell her, just at the very end—just before this last picture faded.
4
In these days Stephen clung more closely to her father, and this in a way was because of Collins. She could not have told you why it should be so, she only felt that it was. Sir Philip and his daughter would walk on the hillsides, in and out of the blackthorn and young green bracken; they would walk hand in hand with a deep sense of friendship, with a deep sense of mutual understanding.
Sir Philip knew all about wild flowers and berries, and the ways of young foxes and rabbits and such people. There were many rare birds, too, on the hills near Malvern, and these he would point out to Stephen. He taught her the simpler laws of nature, which, though simple, had always filled him with wonder: the law of the sap as it flowed through the branches, the law of the wind that came stirring the sap, the law of bird life and the building of nests, the law of the cuckoo’s varying call, which in June changed to ‘Cuckoo-kook!’ He taught out of love for both subject and pupil, and while he thus taught he watched Stephen.
Sometimes, when the child’s heart would feel full past bearing, she must tell him her problems in small, stumbling phrases. Tell him how much she longed to be different, longed to be some one like Nelson.
She would say: ‘Do you think that I could be a man, supposing I thought very hard—or prayed, Father?’
Then Sir Philip would smile and tease her a little, and would tell her that one day she would want pretty frocks, and his teasing was always excessively gentle, so that it hurt not at all.
But at times he would study his daughter gravely, with his strong, cleft chin tightly cupped in his hand. He would watch her at play with the dogs in the garden, watch the curious suggestion of strength in her movements, the long line of her limbs—she was tall for her age—and the poise of her head on her over-broad shoulders. Then perhaps he would frown and become lost in thought, or perhaps he might suddenly call her:
‘Stephen, come here!’
She would go to him gladly, waiting expectant for what he should say; but as likely as not he would just hold her to him for a moment, and then let go of her abruptly. Getting up he would turn to the house and his study, to spend all the rest of that day with his books.
A queer mixture, Sir Philip, part sportsman, part student. He had one of the finest libraries in England, and just lately he had taken to reading half the night, which had not hitherto been his custom. Alone in that grave-looking, quiet study, he would unlock a drawer in his ample desk, and would get out a slim volume recently acquired, and would read and re-read it in the silence. The author was a German, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, and reading, Sir Philip’s eyes would grow puzzled; then groping for a pencil he would make little notes all along the immaculate margins. Sometimes he would jump up and pace the room quickly, pausing now and again to stare at a picture—the portrait of Stephen painted with her mother, by Millais, the previous year. He would notice the gracious beauty of Anna, so perfect a thing, so completely reassuring; and then that indefinable quality in Stephen that made her look wrong in the clothes she was wearing, as though she and they had no right to each other, but above all no right to Anna. After a while he would steal up to bed, being painfully careful to tread very softly, fearful of waking his wife who might question: ‘Philip darling, it’s so late—what have you been reading?’ He would not want to answer, he would not want to tell her; that was why he must tread very softly.
The next morning, he would be very tender to Anna—but even more tender to Stephen.
5
As the spring waxed more lusty and strode into summer, Stephen grew conscious that Collins was changing. The change was almost intangible at first, but the instinct of children is not mocked. Came a day when Collins turned on her quite sharply, nor did she explain it by a reference to her knee.
‘Don’t be always under my feet now, Miss Stephen. Don’t follow me about and don’t be always staring. I ’ates being watched—you run up to the nursery, the basement’s no place for young ladies.’ After which such rebuffs were of frequent occurrence, if Stephen went anywhere near her.
Miserable enigma! Stephen’s mind groped about it like a little blind mole that is always in darkness. She was utterly confounded, while her love grew the stronger for so much hard pruning, and she tried to woo Collins by offerings of bull’s-eyes and chocolate drops, which the maid took because she liked them. Nor was Collins so blameworthy as she appeared, for she, in her turn, was the puppet of emotion. The new footman was tall and exceedingly handsome. He had looked upon Collins with eyes of approval. He had said: ‘Stop that damned kid hanging around you; if you don’t she’ll go blabbing about us.’
And now Stephen knew very deep desolation because there was no one in whom to confide. She shrank from telling even her father—he might not understand, he might smile, he might tease her—if he teased her, however gently, she knew that she could not keep back her tears. Even Nelson had suddenly become quite remote. What was the good of trying to be Nelson? What was the good of dressing up any more—what was the good of pretending? She turned from her food, growing pasty and languid; until, thoroughly alarmed, Anna sent for the doctor. He arrived, and prescribed a dose of Gregory powder, finding nothing much wrong with the patient. Stephen tossed off the foul brew without a murmur—it was almost as though she liked it!
The end came abruptly as is often the way, and it came when the child was alone in the garden, still miserably puzzling over Collins, who had been avoiding her for days. Stephen had wandered to an old potting-shed, and there, whom should she see but Collins and the footman; they appeared to be talking very earnestly together, so earnestly