Emily's Quest (1927)

Chapter 14

I

"The early bird catches--the desire of his heart," said Teddy, slipping down beside Emily on the long, silken, pale-green grasses on the bank of Blair Water.

He had come so silently that Emily had not heard him until she saw him and she could not repress a start and blush--which she hoped wildly he did not see. She had wakened early and been seized with what her clan would doubtless have considered a temperamental desire to see the sun rise and make new acquaintances with Eden. So she had stolen down New Moon stairs and through the expectant garden and Lofty John's bush to the Blair Water to meet the mystery of the dawn. It had never occurred to her that Teddy would be prowling, too.

"I like to come down here at sunrise, now and then," he said. "It's about the only chance I have of being alone for a few minutes. Our evenings and afternoons are all given over the mad revelry--and Mother likes me to be with her every moment of the forenoons. She's had six such horribly lonely years."

"I'm sorry I've intruded on your precious solitude," said Emily stiffly, possessed of a horrible fear that he might think she knew of his habits and had come purposely to meet him.

Teddy laughed.

"Don't put on New Moon airs with me, Emily Byrd Starr. You know perfectly well that finding you here is the crown of the morning for me. I've always had a wild hope that it might happen. And now it has. Let's just sit here and dream together. God made this morning for us--just us two. Even talking would spoil it."

Emily agreed silently. How dear it was to sit here with Teddy on the banks of Blair Water, under the coral of the morning sky, and dream--just dream--wild, sweet, secret, unforgettable, foolish dreams. Alone with Teddy while all their world was sleeping. Oh, if this exquisite stolen moment could last! A line from some poem of Marjorie Pickthall quivered in her thought like a bar of music--

Oh, keep the world forever at the dawn.

She said it like a prayer under her breath.

Everything was so beautiful in this magical moment before sunrise. The wild blue irises around the pond, the violet shadows in the curves of the dunes, the white filmy mist hanging over the buttercup valley across the pond, the cloth of gold and silver that was called a field of daisies, the cool, delicious gulf breeze, the blue of far lands beyond the harbour, plumes of purple and mauve smoke going up on the still, golden air from the chimneys of Stovepipe Town where the fishermen rose early. And Teddy lying at her feet, his slim brown hands clasped behind his head. Again she felt inescapably the magnetic attraction of his personality. Felt it so strongly that she dared not meet his eyes. Yet she was admitting to herself with a secret candour which would have horrified Aunt Elizabeth that she wanted to run her fingers through his sleek black hair--feel his arms about her--press her face against his dark tender one--feel his lips on her lips--

Teddy took one of his hands from under his head and put it over hers.

For a moment of surrender she left it there. Then Ilse's words flashed into memory, searing her consciousness like a dagger of flame. "I've seen him accepting tribute"--"graciously bestowing a touch as a reward"--"saying to each one just what he thought she wanted to hear." Had Teddy guessed what she had been thinking? Her thoughts had seemed so vivid to her that she felt as if any one must see her thinking. Intolerable. She sprang up abruptly, shaking off his fingers.

"I must be going home."

So blunt. Somehow, she could not make it smoother. He must not--should not think--Teddy rose, too. A change in his voice and look. Their marvellous moment was over.

"So must I. Mother will be missing me. She's always up early. Poor little Mother. She hasn't changed. She isn't proud of my success--she hates it. She thinks it has taken me from her. The years have not made it any easier for her. I want her to come away with me, but she will not. I think that is partly because she cannot bear to leave the old Tansy Patch and partly because she can't endure seeing me shut up in my studio working--something that would bar her out. I wonder what made her so. I've never known her any other way, but I think she must have been different once. It's odd for a son to know as little of his mother's life as I do. I don't even know what made that scar on her face. I know next to nothing of my father--absolutely nothing of his people. She will never talk of anything in the years before we came to Blair Water."