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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/33086-8.txt b/33086-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..828f566 --- /dev/null +++ b/33086-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,19306 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Duchess of Wrexe, by Hugh Walpole + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Duchess of Wrexe + Her Decline and Death; A Romantic Commentary + + +Author: Hugh Walpole + + + +Release Date: July 5, 2010 [eBook #33086] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUCHESS OF WREXE*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Lybarger, Mary Meehan, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +THE DUCHESS OF WREXE + +Her Decline and Death + +A Romantic Commentary + +by + +HUGH WALPOLE + +Author of "Fortitude," etc. + + + + + + + +New York +George H. Doran Company + +Copyright, 1914, +By George H. Doran Company + + + + + TO + MY MOTHER +A SMALL EXPRESSION OF GRATITUDE + BEYOND WORDS + + + "And we'll have fires out of the Grand Duke's Wood." + _Letter to Maria Gisborne_ + + + + +THE RISING CITY: I + +THE DUCHESS OF WREXE + +_NOTE: This is an age of Trilogies and Sequels. The title at the +beginning of this book, "The Rising City: I," may lead nervous readers +to fear yet another attempt in that extended and discursive direction_. + +_To reassure them I wish to emphasize this point--that_ The Duchess of +Wrexe _is entirely a novel complete and independent in itself. It is +grouped, with the two stories that will follow it, under the heading of +"The Rising City" because the three novels will be connected in place, +in idea, and in sequence of time. Also certain of the same characters +will appear in all three books. But the novels are not intended as +sequels of one another, nor is "The Rising City" a Trilogy.--H. W._ + + + + +CONTENTS + + +BOOK I: THE DUCHESS + + I Felix Brun, Dr. Christopher, Rachel Beaminster--They + Are Surveyed by the Portrait + + II Rachel + + III Lady Adela + + IV The Pool + + V She Comes Out + + VI Fans + + VII In the Heart of the House + + VIII The Tiger + + IX The Golden Cage + + X Lizzie and Breton + + XI Her Grace's Day + + XII Defiance of the Tiger--I + + XIII Defiance of the Tiger--II + + +BOOK II: RACHEL + + I The Pool and the Snow + + II A Little House + + III First Sequel to Defiance + + IV Rachel--and Christopher and Roddy + + V Lizzie's Journey--I + + VI All the Beaminsters + + VII Rachel and Breton + + VIII Christopher's Day + + IX The Darkest Hour + + X Lizzie's Journey--II + + XI Roddy Is Master + + XII Lizzie's Journey--III + + +BOOK III: RODDY + + I Regent's Park--Breton and Lizzie + + II The Duchess Moves + + III Roddy Moves + + IV March 13th: Breton's Tiger + + V March 13th: Rachel's Heart + + VI March 13th: Roddy Talks to the Devil and the Duchess + Denies God + + VII Chamber Music--A Trio + + VIII A Quartette + + IX Rachel and Roddy + + X Lizzie Becomes Miss Rand Again + + XI The Last View from High Windows + + XII Rachel, Roddy, Lord John, Christopher + + XIII Epilogue--Prologue + + + + +BOOK I + + +THE DUCHESS + + + + +CHAPTER I + +FELIX BRUN, DR. CHRISTOPHER, RACHEL BEAMINSTER--THEY ARE SURVEYED BY THE +PORTRAIT. + + +I + +Felix Brun, perched like a little bird, on the steps of the Rede Art +Gallery, gazed up and down Bond Street, with his sharp eyes for someone +to whom he might show Yale Ross's portrait of the Duchess of Wrexe. The +afternoon was warm, the date May of the year 1898, and the occasion was +the Young Portrait Painters' first show with Ross's "Duchess" as its +principal attraction. + +Brun was thrilled with excitement, with emotion, and he must have his +audience. There must be somebody to whom he might talk, to whom he might +explain exactly why this occasion was of so stirring an importance. + +His eyes lighted with satisfaction. Coming towards him was a tall, gaunt +man with a bronzed face, loose ill-fitting clothes, a stride that had +little of the town about it. This was Arkwright, the explorer, a man who +had been lost in African jungles during the last five years, the very +creature for Brun's purposes. + +Here was someone who, knowing nothing about Art, would listen all the +more readily to Brun's pronouncement upon it, a homely simple soul, +fitted for the killing of lions and tigers, but pliable as wax in the +hands of a master of civilization like Brun. At the same time Arkwright +was no fool; a psychologist in his way, he had written two books about +the East that had aroused considerable interest. + +No fool, Arkwright.... He would be able to appreciate Brun's subtleties +and perhaps add some of his own. + +He had, however, been away from England for so long a time that +anything that Brun had to tell him about the London world would be +pleasantly fresh and stimulating. + +Brun, round and neat, and a citizen of the world from the crown of his +head to the top of his shining toes, tapped Arkwright on his shoulder: + +"Hallo! Brun. How are you? It _is_ good to see you! Haven't seen a soul +I know for the last ever so long." + +"Good--good. Excellent. Come along in here." + +"In there? Pictures? What's the use of me looking at pictures?" + +"We can talk in here. I'll tell you all the news. Besides, there's +something that even you will appreciate." + +"Well?" Arkwright laughed good-humouredly and moved towards the door. +"What is it?" + +"The Duchess," Brun answered him. "Yale Ross's portrait of the Duchess +of Wrexe. At last," he triumphantly cried, "at last we've got her!" + + +II + +The Duchess had a small corner wall for her own individual possession. +The thin glowing May sunlight fell about her and the dull gold of her +frame received it and gave it back with a rich solemnity as though it +had said, "You have been gay and unrestrained enough with all those +crowds, but here, let me tell you, is something that requires a very +different attitude." + +The Duchess received the colour and the sunlight, but made no response. +She sat, leaning forward a little, bending with one of her dry wrinkled +hands over a black ebony cane, a high carved chair supporting and +surrounding her. She seemed, herself, to be carved there, stone, marble, +anything lifeless save for her eyes, the tense clutch of her fingers +about the cane, and the dull but brooding gleam that a large jade +pendant, the only colour against the black of her dress, flung at the +observer. Her mouth was a thin hard line, her nose small but sharp, her +colour so white that it seemed to cut into the paper, and the skin +drawn so tightly over her bones that a breath, a sigh, might snap it. + +Her little body was, one might suppose, shrivelled with age, with the +business and pleasure of the world, with the pursuit of some great +ambition or prize, with the battle, unceasing and unyielding, over some +weakness or softness. + +Indomitable, remorseless, unhumorous, proud, the pose of the body was +absolutely, one felt, the justest possible. + +On either side of the chair were two white and green Chinese dragons, +grotesque with open mouths and large flat feet; a hanging tapestry of +dull gold filled in the background. + +Out upon these dull colours the little body, with the white face, the +shining eyes, the clenched hand, was flung, poised, sustained by its +very force and will. + +Nothing in the world could be so fierce as that determined absence of +ferocity, nothing so energetic as that negation of all energy, nothing +so proud as that contemptuous rejection of all that had to do with +pride. + +It was as though she had said: "They shall see nothing of me, these +people. I will give them nothing" ... and then the green jade on her +bosom had betrayed her. + +Maliciously the dragons grinned behind her back. + + +III + +Arkwright, as he watched, was conscious suddenly of an overwhelming +curiosity. He had in earlier days seen her portrait, and always it had +been interesting, suggestive, provocative; but now, as he stood there, +he was aware that something quite definite, something uncomfortably +disconcerting had occurred; life absurdly seemed to warn him that he +must prepare for some new development. + +The Duchess had, he was aware, taken notice of him for the first time. + +Little Felix Brun watched Arkwright with interest. They were, at that +moment, the only persons in the room, and it was as though they had +begged for a private interview and had been granted it. The other +portraits of the exhibition had vanished into the mild May afternoon. + +"She doesn't like us," Brun said, laughing. "She'd turn the dragons on +to us if she could." + +"It's wonderful." Arkwright moved back a little. "Young Ross has done it +this time. No other portrait has ever given one the least idea of her. +She _must_ be that." + +Brun stood regarding her. "There'll never be anything like her again. As +far as your England is concerned she's the very, very last, and when she +goes a heap of things will go with her. There'll be other Principalities +and Powers, but never _that_ Power." + +"She's asked us to come," said Arkwright, "or, at any rate, asked _me_. +I wonder what she wants." + +"She's only asked you," said Brun, "to tell you how she hates you. And +doesn't she, my word!" + +There were voices behind him; Brun turned, and Arkwright heard him +exclaim beneath his breath. Then in a moment the little man was received +with: "Why, Mr. Brun! How fortunate! We've come to see my mother's +portrait." + +Arkwright caught these words, and knew that the lady standing there must +be Lady Adela Beaminster, the Duchess's only daughter. He had never seen +Lady Adela before, but it amused him now that she should resemble so +exactly the figure that he had imagined--it showed, after all, that one +could take the world's verdict about these things. + +The world's verdict about Lady Adela was that she was dull, but +important, bearing her tall dried body as a kind of flag for the right +people to range themselves behind her--and range themselves they did. +Standing now, with Felix Brun in front of her demanding a display of +graciousness, she extended her patronage. Thin, with her sharp nose and +tight mouth, she was like an exclamation mark that had left off +exclaiming, and it was only her ability to be gracious, and the sense +that she conveyed of having any number of rights and possessions to +stand for, that gave her claim to attention. + +Her black hat was harsh, her hair iron-grey, her eyes cold with lack of +intelligence. Arkwright thought her unpleasant. + +Standing a little behind her was a tall thin girl who was obviously +determined to be as ungracious as a protest against her companion's +amiability should require. The girl's thinness was accentuated by her +rather tightly clinging white dress, and beneath her long black gloves +her hands moved a little awkwardly, as though she were not quite sure +what she should do with them. A large black hat overshadowed her face, +but Arkwright could see that her eyes, large and dark, were more +beautiful than anything else about her. Her nose was too thin, her mouth +too large, her face too white and pinched. + +Her body as she stood there was graceful, but not yet disciplined, so +that she made movements and then checked them, giving the impression +that she wished to do a number of things, but was uncertain of the +correctness of any of them. + +She was of foreign blood Arkwright decided--much too black and white for +England. But it was her expression that demanded his attention. As she +watched Felix Brun talking to Lady Adela, she seemed to be longing to +express the contempt that she felt for both of them, and yet to have +behind that desire a pathetic hesitation as to whether she had a right +to be contemptuous of anyone. + +It was the pathos, Arkwright decided, that one ultimately felt +concerning her. She looked lonely, she looked frightened, and she looked +"in the devil of a temper." Her black eyes would be beautiful, whether +they were filled with tears or with anger, and it seemed that they must +very often be filled with both. "I wouldn't like to have the handling of +her," thought Arkwright, and then instantly after, "I'd like to take +away some of that loneliness." + +"She'll have a fine old time," he thought, "if she isn't too sensitive." + +Lady Adela had now moved forward with Brun to look at the picture, but +the girl did not move with them. She did not look at the portrait nor +did she appear to take any interest in the other pictures. She stood +there, making, every now and again, little nervous movements with her +black gloves. + +Arkwright moved about the gallery by himself a little, and he was +conscious that the girl's large black eyes followed him. He fancied, as, +for an instant he glanced back, that the Duchess from her high wall +leaned forward on her cane just a little further, so that she might +force the girl to give her attention. "That girl's got plenty of +spirit," thought Arkwright, "I'd like to see a battle between her and +the old lady. It would be tooth and nail." + +Then once again the door opened--there was again an addition to the +company. Arkwright was, at that moment, facing the girl, and as he heard +the sharp closing of the door he saw in her eyes the welcome that the +new-comer had received. + +She was transformed. The pallor of her face was now flooded with colour, +and she seemed almost beautiful as the hostility left her, and her mouth +curved in a smile of so immense a relief that it emphasized indeed her +earlier burden. Her whole body expressed the intensity of her pleasure; +her awkwardness had departed; she was suddenly in possession of herself. +Arkwright's gaze went past her to the door. The man who stood there was +greeting the girl with a smile that had in it both surprise and +intimacy, as though they were the two oldest friends in the world, and +yet he was astonished to see her there. The man was large, roughly +built, with big limbs and a face that, without being good-looking, +beamed kindness and good-nature. His eyes and mouth were sensitive and +less ragged than the rest of him, his nose the plainest thing about him, +was square and too large for his mouth. His hair was white, although he +looked between forty and fifty years of age. His dress was correct, but +he obviously did not give his clothes more consideration than the +feelings of his friends required of him. Ruddy of face, with his white +hair and large limbs and smiling good-humour, he was pleasant to look +upon, and Arkwright did not wonder at the girl's welcome; he would be, +precisely, the kind of friend that she would need--benevolent, +understanding, strong. + +They greeted one another, and then they moved forward and spoke to Lady +Adela and Brun. + +Arkwright watched them. There they all were, gathered together under the +sharp eyes of the Duchess, and she seemed, so Arkwright fancied, to hold +them with her gaze. Little Brun was neater than ever, and Lady Adela +drier than ever by the side of the stranger. They talked; they were +discussing the picture--their eyes travelled up to it, and for an +instant there was silence as though they were all charging it with their +challenge or surrender, as the case might be. The girl's eyes moved up +to it with a sudden sharpened, thinning of the face that brought back +the gleam of hostility that it had worn before. Then her eyes fell, and, +with a smile, they sought her friend. + +Arkwright did not know any reason for his interest, but he watched them +breathlessly, and the sense that he had had, on first entering the room, +of being on the verge of some new experience, deepened with him. + +Brun was apparently suddenly conscious that he had left his friend alone +long enough, for he detached himself from the group, shook hands with +Lady Adela and the girl, bowed stiffly to the man and joined Arkwright. + +"Seen enough?" he said. + +"Yes," said Arkwright. + +They went out together. + + +IV + +Felix Brun and Arkwright were not intimate friends. No one was intimate +with Brun, and the little man came and disappeared, was there and was +not there, was absent for a year, and then back again as though he had +been away a week, was, indeed, simply a succession of explanatory +footnotes to the social history of Europe. + +It was for the social history of Europe that he lived, for the eager +penetrating gaze into this capital and that, something suddenly noted, +some case examined and dismissed. Life is discovered most accurately by +those who learn to watch for its accidents rather than its intentions, +and it was always the things that occurred by change that gave Brun his +discoveries. He was a cosmopolitan of a multitude of acquaintances, no +friends, no occupation, an enthusiasm only for cynical and pessimistic +observation, invaluable as a commentator, useless as a human being. + +When, as was now the case, some chance meeting had assisted his theories +his neat little body shone like a celluloid ball. If, having made his +discovery, he might also have his audience to whom he might declare it, +then his very fingers quivered with the excitement of it. His hands, +white and thin and tapering, waved now. His eyes were on fire. As they +walked up Bond Street one might have imagined air-bladders at his +armpits, Mercury's wings at his heels. The quiet evening air was charged +with him. + +"Well," said Arkwright, smiling and looking down at his companion. "Who +are they all?" + +"Lady Adela Beaminster, Rachel Beaminster, Christopher----" + +"Christopher?" + +"Dr. Christopher, the Harley Street man. He's the Duchess' doctor, has +been for years. The girl was the Duchess' granddaughter--Lady Adela's +niece." + +"Well?" + +"The girl's coming out in three days' time. They're giving a ball in +Portland Place for her. Nobody knows much about her. She's been educated +abroad, and always kept very close when she's here. I shouldn't think +the old Duchess loves her much. She loved the girl's father, but he +married a Russian actress, bolted to Russia with her, and the old lady +never forgave him. He and the actress were both killed in a Petersburg +fire, and the child was sent home--only tiny then----" + +"Ah! that explains the foreign air she had. She didn't look as though +she loved her aunt very much either." + +"No--don't suppose she does. But that's not it--that's not it." + +They had arrived now at the top of Bond Street, and they paused for a +moment to allow the Oxford Street traffic to sweep past them. + +It was an hour of stir and clatter--hansoms, carts, lumbering omnibuses, +bicycles, all were hurled along as though by some impatient hand, and +the evening light crept higher and higher along the walls of the street, +leaving grey-purple shadows beneath it. + +They crossed over, and were instantly in a dim, golden, voiceless +square. It was as though a door had been closed. + +Brun still held Arkwright's arm. "Now we can talk--no noise. Francis +Breton has come back." + +To Arkwright this name, unfortunately, conveyed nothing. + +"You don't know?" Brun was disappointed. + +"Never heard of him." + +"Fancy that. World of wonders; what have you been doing with your time? +He is the Duchess's grandson, son of the beautiful, the wonderful Iris +Beaminster, who eloped with Kit Breton thirty years ago. I believe the +old Duchess pursued her relentlessly until the end. They were married +only a few years and then Iris Breton committed suicide. Kit Breton beat +her and was always drunk; an absolute rascal. There was one boy, and he +wandered about Europe with his father until he was twenty or so. Then +Kit Breton died, and the boy came home. Revenge on his grandmother was +his one idea. He was taken up by her enemies, of whom she always had a +goodly store, and they might have made something out of him, if he +hadn't developed his father's habits and finally been mixed up in some +gambling scandal, and forced to leave the country. + +"You can imagine what all this was to the Beaminsters--the great +immaculate Beaminsters--you can picture the Duchess.... He went and saw +her once ... but that's another story. Well, abroad he went, and abroad +he stayed--just now, coming out of the Gallery, I saw him----" + +"You are sure?" + +"Positive. There could be no mistake. He's just the same, a trifle +tireder, a trifle lower down--but the same, oh yes." + +It was when Brun was most excited that he was unmistakably the +foreigner. Now little exclamations that escaped him revealed him. As a +rule in England he was more English than the English. + +They had left the square and were passing up Harley Street. The houses +wore their accustomed air of profitable secrecy. The doors, the windows, +the brass knockers, the white and chastened steps were so discreet that +Sunday morning was the only time in the week when they were really +comfortable and at home. In every muffled hall there was lying in wait a +muffled man-servant, beyond every muffled man-servant there was a +muffled waiting-room with muffled illustrated papers: only the tinkling, +at long intervals, of some sharp little bell from some inner secrecy +would pierce that horrible discretion. Upon both men that shining +succession of little brass plates produced its solemnity. + +Arkwright was nevertheless interested by Brun's discoveries. He was +accompanied, as they talked, by that picture of the thin, dark girl +moving restlessly her long, gloved hands. He could see now that look +that she had flung at the picture.... Oh! she was interesting! + +"But tell me, Brun," he said, "you go on so fast. As I understand you +there are these two, Breton and the girl, both of them the result of +tragedies.... Do they know one another, do you suppose?" + +"No. The girl was only a small child when Breton was in England, and you +can be sure that she was carefully kept out of his way. But now that +he's back ... now that he's back!" + +"It's the girl that interests me!" said Arkwright. + +"Oh! the girl!" Brun was almost contemptuous. "There you go--English +sentiment--missing all the time the great thing, the splendid thing." + +"Explain," Arkwright said, laughing; "I know you won't be happy until +you have." + +"Why--it's the Duchess, the Duchess, the Duchess all the time. She's the +centre of the picture; she _is_ the picture. _She's_ the subject." + +Arkwright said nothing. Brun tossed his hands in the air. + +"Oh--you English! No wonder you're centuries behind everything--you miss +the very things under your nose. There's the Duchess, sitting there--a +great figure as she has been these sixty years, but a figure hidden, +veiled. There she has been for the last thirty years, shut up in that +great house, wrapped about and concealed. Nobody knows what the matter +was--I don't know. I should think Christopher's the only man who can +tell. At any rate, thirty years ago she retired altogether from the +world, and sees only the fewest of people. But all the ceremony goes on, +dressing up, receiving, and the influence she has! She was powerful +enough before she disappeared, but since! Why, there's no pie she hasn't +her finger in: politics, society, revolution, life, death; nothing goes +on without her knowledge, her approval, her disapproval----" + +"Her family, poor dears!" + +"Oh; they love it--at any rate, the ones who are left do. The rebels are +the younger generation. Society in England, my dear Arkwright, is +dissolved into three divisions--the Autocrats, the Aristocrats, and the +Democrats. I take my hat off to the Aristocrats--the Chichesters, the +Medleys, the Darrants, the Weddons. All those quiet, decorous people, +poor as mice many of them, standing aside altogether from any movements +or war-cries of the day, living in their quiet little houses, or their +empty big ones, clever some of them, charitable all of them, but never +asserting their position or estimating it. They never look about them +and see where they are. They've no need to. They're just there. + +"The Democrats are quite a new development--not much of them at +present--the Ruddards, the Denisons, the Oaks--but we shall hear a lot +of them in the future, I'm sure. They'll sacrifice anything for +cleverness; they must be amused; life must be entertaining. They embrace +everybody: actors, Americans, writers; they're quite clever, mind you, +and it's all perfectly genuine. They're not snobs--they say, 'Here are +our lands and our titles. You're common and vulgar, but you've got +brains--you're amusing and we're well born--let's make an exchange. Life +must be fun for us, so we'll have anyone with money or talent." + +"Then, last of all, the Autocrats--the Beaminsters, the Gutterils, the +Ministers. I'm using Autocrat in its broadest sense, but that's just +what they are. You _must_ have your quarterings, and you must look down +on those who haven't. But, more than that, everything must be preserved, +and continual ceremonies, dignities, chastities, restraints, pomps, and +circumstances. Above all, no one must be admitted within the company who +is not of the noblest, the stupidest, the narrowest. + +"The Beaminsters are the bodyguard of this little army, and the Duchess +is their general. There, behind her shut doors, she keeps it all going; +an American like Mrs. Bronson, a democrat like George Lent, she spoils +their games here, there, everywhere. So far all has been well. But at +last there are enemies within her gates--that girl, Breton. Now, at +last, for the first time in her life, she must look out." + +He paused. They had reached Portland Place. To right and left of them +the broad road was golden in the sun--dark trees guarded one end of it, +bronzed roofs the other. + +Two carriages stood like sentinels at the upper end. + +Brun raised his hand as though he would invoke the spirit of it. "There, +Arkwright, there's your subject. The Duchess, tiny, indomitable, +brooding over this place. This square of London round the Circus, your +prostituted street, this splendour, Harley Street, Morris Square with +its respectability, Ferris Street with its boarding-houses, over them +all the Duchess is ruling. There's not one of them, I dare fancy, that +is not conscious of her existence, not one of them that will not see +life differently when she is gone. Meanwhile, she'll fight for her +Autocrats to the last breath, and she's got a battle in front of her +that will take her all her time. And when she goes the Autocrats will go +with her, the Beaminsters as Beaminsters will be done for; life here +round the Circus will never be the same again. There's a new city +rising, Arkwright, and the new citizens may forget, the Aristocrats may +compromise with the Democrats, but they'll turn out the Autocrats. A lot +of good things will go with them--good old things--but a lot of fine new +things will come in." + +As they passed out of Portland Place the wooden-legged crossing-sweeper +touched his hat to them. + +"Will _he_ come in?" said Arkwright, laughing. + +"Perhaps," said Brun gravely. + +Arkwright shook his head. "You can talk, Brun, you can say a lot. But +it's artificial the whole of it. Your subject, as you call it, is in the +air. We're realists nowadays, you know." + +Brun's flat stared at them with its hideous red brick and ugly +shapelessness. No romance for Dent Street; the glittering expanse of +Portland Place was gone. + +"You can't be a realist only, if you're to do the Duchess properly," +said Brun. "There's more than that wanted." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +RACHEL + + "My dear thing, it all comes back, as everything always does, + simply to personal pluck. It's only a question, no matter when + or where, of having enough."--HENRY JAMES. + + +I + +No. 104 Portland Place was the house where the Duchess of Wrexe had +lived now for sixty years. On the left as you go towards the park it had +an air that no other house in the Place had ever been able to catch. +There were certain buildings, Nos. 31, 26, 42, for instance, that were +obviously doing their little best to present a successful imitation, but +they were left a long, a very long way behind. The interesting thing +would be to know whether No. 104 had had that wonderful "note" sixty +years ago, when the Duchess came to it. Probably not; it was, beyond +question, her presence that had thus given it its distinction. Its grim +facade, without her, would not so strangely have hinted at beauties and +wonders and glories within, nor would the windows have gleamed so +finely, nor the great hall-door have symbolized such rich dark depths. + +Here the temple of the Beaminsters, here, therefore, the shrine of all +that is best and finest in English aristocracy. It was indeed the +largest house in Portland Place, and most of the houses there were +large, but, across that blank austere front more was written than mere +size. It was Age at its most scornful, but observant Age, an Age that +could compare one period with another, an Age that had not forgotten the +things that belonged to its Youth. + +There was very little, up and down Portland Place, at morning, at +midday, at night, that the house did not perceive. Those high, broad, +shining windows were not as other windows--there was assertion in their +very bland stupidity. + +Within the house was dark and cold, with high square rooms, wide stone +staircase, and a curious capacity for clutching any boisterous or seedy +humanity on the very threshold and strangling it. + +From the hall the great stone staircase was the feature. It struck a +chill, at once, into the heart of the visitor so vast was it, so cold +and white, so uncompromising, so scornful of other less solid +staircases. Very ancient, too--went back a long, long way and would +last, just like that, for ever! + +What people it must have known, what scenes, what catastrophes +encountered! About it, on either side, the hall vanished into blackness; +here a gleaming portrait, there some antlers, here again an +eighteenth-century gentleman with a full wig and the Beaminster nose and +comfortable contempt in his eyes ... and, around and about it all, +silence; no sound from any part of the house penetrated here. + +Up the stone staircase, passages, doors, more family portraits, more +staircase, more passages, more doors and, somewhere, in some hidden +solemnity, the ticking of a clock, so lonely in all that silence that +every now and again it would catch its breath with a little whir, as +though it wondered whether it really could go on in the teeth of so +contemptuous an indifference. + +Rachel Beaminster's sitting-room overlooked Portland Place, and caught +the sun on lucky days for quite a time. It was small, square of shape, +like a box with a high window, a tiny fireplace, an arm-chair, and a +squat table with a bright blue cloth. + +Always during the two years that had been devoted to "finishing" in +Munich she had had that little room, cosy, compact, before her. Now did +it seem a little shabby, the carpet and tablecloth and curtains a little +faded; it yet had its cosiness, there in the heart of the great waste +and desert that the house presented to her. + +The little silver clock on the mantelpiece had struck five: she had come +back with Aunt Adela from the picture gallery, and, hearing voices in +the Long Drawing-room (the voices said, "My dear Adela, we just +came...." "Adela dear, how well...."), she slipped up the stairs and +secured her own refuge, and rang for tea to be brought to her there. + +She wanted to think: she wanted to lie in the arm-chair there with the +window a little open and the evening air coming from the park across +Portland Place curiously scented like the sea. + +As she lay back in her chair her body seemed fragile, and, almost, in +its abandonment, exhausted. Under the black eyes her cheeks and neck +were very white, and her black hair gave it all the intensest setting. + +She _was_ tired, horribly tired, and she wondered, vaguely, as she lay +there how she was ever to manage this life that, in three days' time, +she must take up and carry, a life that offered, perhaps, a little +freedom, a little release, but so many, so many terrors. + +As her gaze took in the little room--its grey paper, a photograph of +Uncle John, a book-case with poets, some miscellaneous and +untidy-looking novels, and a number of little red Carlyles, a china +cockatoo with an impertinent stare, a copy of Furze's "Ride," and a +water-colour of red Munich roofs signed "Mary," a tiny writing-table +with one old yellow photograph of a sad dark woman in a silver +frame--these things were, it seemed the only friendly things she knew. +Outside this room there was her grandmother, the house, London, the +world--more and more horrible as the circles grew wider and wider. + +At the mere thought of the things that she must, in three days' time, +face, her heart began to beat so that she could scarcely breathe, and, +with that beating, came the iron determination that no one should ever +know. + +She could not remember a time when these two emotions had not come +together. She saw, as though it had happened only an hour ago, a tiny +child in a black frock stumbling across endless deserts of carpet +towards someone who looked older and more curious than anything one +could have conceived possible. Someone sitting in a high carved chair, +someone leaning on a stick, with two terrifying great dragons behind +her. + +The child was seized with such a panic that her breath came in little +pumping gasps, her legs quivered and trembled, her mouth was open, her +eyes like saucers. And then, suddenly, after what had seemed a century +of time, there came the thin trembling voice: "Why, the child's an +idiot!" + +Since that awful day Rachel had determined that "no one should ever +know." There had come to her, at that moment, the knowledge that round +every corner there might lurk dragons and a witch. Sometimes they were +there, sometimes they were not, but always there was the terror before +the corner was turned. + +Life for Rachel during those early years was one long determination to +meet bravely that half-hour, from six to half-past. Every evening at +five minutes before six down the long passages she would be led, then +would come the short pause before the dark door, a pause when the +beating of the child's heart seemed the only sound in the vast house; +then the knock, someone's voice "Come in," then the slow opening of the +door, the revelation of the strange dim room with the old mirrors, the +purple carpet, the china dragons, and grandmother in the high carved +chair. There was always, in the hottest weather, a fire burning, always +Dorchester, a large ugly woman, behind the chair, always the cockatoo +see-sawing on a golden perch and crying out every now and again with +shrill, hostile cries. And then, in the centre of this, grandmother, +with her terrible hands, her terrible nose, her terrible eyes, and, most +terrible of all, her voice. + +Rachel would sit upright on her chair, and very often nothing would be +said throughout the half-hour. Sometimes Dorchester would ask questions, +such as: "And what has Miss Rachel been doing to-day?" "Did Miss Rachel +enjoy her walk in the park this afternoon?" "Has Miss Rachel enjoyed her +lessons to-day?" Sometimes, and these were the terrible occasions, her +grandmother would speak: "Well, have you been a good little girl?" or +"Tell me what you have been doing, child." + +At the sound of that voice the room would flood with terror: the child +would still, by an effort of will, her body. She could feel now, from +all that distance of years, the discipline that it had needed to steady +her little black legs that dangled from her chair. She learnt, in time, +to control herself so that she could give long answers in a grave, +reserved tone. + +The old lady never moved as she spoke, only bent forward and stared at +her, as though she would see whether it were the truth that she were +speaking. + +As the days passed and Rachel grew older it was around this half-hour +that the house ranged itself. The things in it--the rooms, the passages, +the stairs, the high, cold schoolroom with its shining maps and large +frigid table, the tapestry room, long and dark and mysterious with +strange beasts and horsemen waving in the dusk, the white drawing-room +so delicate and fragile that the furniture seemed to be all holding its +breath as though a little motion in the air would dissipate it, the vast +dining-room with the great hanging candelabra, and the family portraits +and the stone fireplace--all these things existed only that that +terrible half-hour might fling its shadow about the day. + +The child was much alone; she had governesses, a music master, a drawing +master, but from these persons, however friendly they might be, she held +aloof. She told them nothing of her thoughts. She had behind her her +very early years that were now to her like a dream; she did not know +that it had ever really existed, that picture of snow and some dark kind +figure that was always beside her protecting her, and in the air always +a noise of bells. As she grew older that picture was not dimmed in the +vision of it, but only she doubted its authenticity. Nevertheless, the +memory provided a standard and before that standard these governesses +were compelled to yield. + +There were, of course, her uncles and her aunt. Aunt Adela was more +immediately concerned in the duty of her niece's progress than any +other, but as a duty she always, from the first, represented it. From +that first morning, when she had given her cold dry cheek to the little +girl to kiss until now, three days before Rachel's freedom, she had made +no suggestion nor provocation of affection. "It is a business, my dear +niece," she seemed to say, "that, for the sake of our family, we must go +through. Let us be honest and deny all foolish sentiment." + +To this Rachel was only too ready to agree. She did not like her Aunt +Adela. Aunt Adela resembled a dry, wintry tree, a tree whose branches +cracked and snapped, a tree that gave no hope of any spring. Rachel +always saw Aunt Adela as an ugly necessity; she was not a thing of +terror, but merely something unpleasant, something frigid and of a +lukewarm hostility. + +Then there were the uncles--Uncle Vincent, Uncle John, and Uncle +Richard. + +Uncle Vincent, the Duke, was over sixty now and very like his mother, +withered and sharp and shrivelled, but he was without her terror, being +merely dapper and insignificant, and his sleek hair (there was only a +little of it very carefully spread out) and his white spats were the +most prominent things about him. He was fond, Rachel gathered, of his +racing and his club and his meals, and he was unmarried. + +Uncle Richard had been twice Prime Minister and was a widower. He lived +in a beautiful house in Grosvenor Street, and collected wine and fans +and first editions. He was always very kind to Rachel, and she liked his +tall thin figure, bent a little, with his high white forehead, +gold-rimmed pince-nez on the Beaminster nose, and beautiful long white +hands. She went to have tea with him sometimes, and this was an hour of +freedom and delight, because he talked to her about the Elizabethans and +Homer, and, when she was older, Nietzsche and Kant. She liked the warm +rooms, with their thick curtains and soft carpets and rows and rows of +gleaming glittering books, and he always had tea in such beautiful china +and the silver teapot shone like a mirror. But she never felt that she +was of the same value to him as a first edition would be, and he talked +to her of the Elizabethans for their sake, and not for hers. + +Lastly, there was Uncle John, and her heart was divided between Uncle +John and Dr. Christopher. Uncle John was a dear. He was round and fat, +with snow-white hair that had waves in it, and his face resembled that +of a very, very good-natured pig. His nose was not in the least a +Beaminster nose, being round and snub and his eyes beamed kindliness. +Rachel, although she had always loved him, had long learnt to place no +reliance upon him. His aim in life was to make it as comfortable, as +free from all vulgar squabble and dispute, as pleasant for everyone +everywhere as it could possibly be. He was a Beaminster in so far as he +thought the Beaminsters were a splendid and ancient family, and that +there was no other family to which a man might count himself so +fortunate to belong. But he was kind and pleasant about the rest of the +world. He would like everyone to have a good time, and it was vaguely a +puzzle to him that it should be so arranged that life should have any +difficulties--it would be so much easier if everything were pleasant. +When, however, difficulties did arise they must at all costs be +dismissed. There had been no time in his life when he had not been in +love with some woman or other, but the hazards and difficulties of +marriage had always frightened him too much. + +He was not entirely selfish, for he thought a great deal about the +wishes and comforts of other people, but unpleasantness frightened him, +like a rabbit, into his hole. He lived the life of the "Compleat +Bachelor" at 93 Portland Place, having a multitude of friends of both +sexes, spending hours in his clubs with some of them, week-ends in +country houses with others of them, and months in delightful places +abroad with one or two of them. + +He was very popular, always smiling and good-natured, and cared more for +Rachel than for anyone else in the world ... but even for Rachel he +would not risk discomfort. + +There they all were, then. + +Gradually they had emerged, for her, out of the mists and shadows, +arranging themselves about her as possible protections against that +horrible half-hour of hers. She soon found that, in that, at any rate, +they would, none of them, be of use to her except Uncle John. Uncle +Vincent did not count at all. Uncle Richard only counted as china or +pictures counted. + +Uncle John could not count as a very strong defence, it was true, but he +was fond of her; he showed it in a thousand ways, and although he might +never actually stand up for her, yet he would always be there to comfort +her. + +Not that she wanted comfort. From a very early age indeed she +resolutely flung from her all props and sympathies and sentiments. She +hated the house, she hated the loneliness, most of all she hated +grandmother ... but she would go through with it, and no one should know +that she suffered. + + +II + +Then, when she was seventeen, came Munich. + +On the day that she first heard that she was to go to Germany to be +"finished" the flashing thought that came to her was that, for a time at +any rate, the "half-hour" would be suspended. Standing there thinking of +the days passing without the shadow of that interview about them was +like emerging from some black and screaming, banging, shouting tunnel +into the clear serenity of a shining landscape. Two years might count +for her escape, and perhaps, on her return, she would be old enough for +her grandmother to have lost her terrors--perhaps.... + +Meanwhile, that Germany, with its music and forests and toys and +fairies, danced before her. Her two years in it gave her all that she +had expected; it gave her Wagner and Mozart and Beethoven, it gave her +Goethe and Heine, Jean Paul and Heyse, Hauptmann and Mörike, it gave her +a perception of life that admitted physical and spiritual emotions on +precisely the same level, so that a sausage and the _Unfinished +Symphony_ gave you the same ecstatic crawl down your spine and did not, +for an instant, object to sharing that honour. + +Munich also gave her the experience and revelations of May Eversley. + +There were some twenty or thirty girls who were, with Rachel, under the +finishing care of Frau Bebel, but Rachel held herself apart from them +all. She could not herself have explained why she did so. It was partly +because she felt that she had nothing, whether experience or discovery, +to give to them, partly because they seemed already so happy and +comfortable amongst themselves that they had surely no need of her, and +partly because she feared that from some person or some place, suddenly +round the corner there would spring the terror again. She could even +fancy that her grandmother, watching her, had placed horrors behind +curtains, closed doors, grimed and shuttered windows.--"If you think, my +dear," she might perhaps be saying, "that you've escaped by this year or +two in Germany, you're mightily mistaken.--Back to me you're coming." + +But May Eversley was different from the other girls. She was different +because she saw things without a muddle, knew what she wanted, knew what +she disliked, knew what was delightful, knew what was intolerable. + +To Rachel this clear-cut decision was more enviable than any other +quality that one could have. At this stage of her experience it was the +assent, so it seemed to her, that could give life its intensest value. +"Sit down and see, without any exaggeration or false colouring, what +you've got. Take away, ruthlessly, anything that you imagine that you've +got but haven't. See what you want. Take away ruthlessly everything +that you imagine that you would like to have but are not confident of +securing. See what's happened to you in the past. Take away ruthlessly +any sentimental repentances or sloppy regrets, but learn quite +resolutely from your ugly mistakes." + +Rachel's world had hitherto been limited very largely to the schoolroom +in Portland Place, the park and Beaminster House, the country +place-in-chief (three others, one in Leicestershire, one in +Northumberland, one in Norfolk), but even within this limited country +the terrific importance of those rules was driven in upon her. + +She felt that her grandmother was clear-headed, but, no, none of the +others--not Aunt Adela, nor the uncles, nor any of the governesses. She +was allowed to meet one or two little boys and girls of her own age. She +walked with them in the park, played with them at Beaminster House, had +tea with them occasionally, but they were, none of them, clear-headed. + +She was not priggish about this discovery of hers. She did not despise +other people because their definite rules did not seem to them of +importance. She did not talk about these things. + +To see facts very steadily without blinking was impelled upon her by the +necessity for courage. It was the only weapon wherewith to fight her +grandmother. "Now," she might say to herself, "this half-hour of yours. +Is it so bad? What definitely do you fear about it? Is it the knock at +the door? Is it the crossing the room? Is it answering questions?" + +So challenged her terror did fall, a little, away from her, ashamed at +its inadequate cause. So she went to face every peril--"Is the danger +really so bad? What exactly is it?..." + +May Eversley was thin and spare, small with sharp features, pince-nez, +hair brushed sternly back, and every inch of her body trained to the +purpose that it was meant to fulfil. She rang her sentences on the air +like coin on a plate. Meanwhile, as she explained to Rachel, she had +been fighting since she was five. Her mother, Lady Eversley, was the +widow of Tom Eversley, now happily deceased, once the most dissolute +scamp in Europe. He had died leaving nothing but debts behind him. Since +then his widow and his daughter had lived in three little rooms above a +public house off Shepherd's Market, and the widow had battled to keep up +the gayest of appearances. May had been, at a very early age, introduced +to the struggle. "My silver mug and rattle were pawned to get a dress +for mother to go to a drawing-room in. I shouldn't be here now if it +weren't for an uncle, and it's the last thing he'll do for us. So back I +go in two year's time--to do my damnedest." + +Of course she was clear-headed--she had to be. + +"There are only two sorts of people," she said to Rachel. "Like +soup--thick and clear--the Clear ones get on and the Thick don't." + +May obviously liked Rachel, but was amused by her. Nobody, it seemed to +May, showed so nakedly her emotions as Rachel, and yet, also, nobody +could produce, more suddenly, the closest of reserves. May, to whom the +world had been, since she was six, a measured plain of contest, +marvelled at the poignancy of Rachel's contact with it. "If she's going +to be hurt as easily as this by everything, how on earth is she going to +get through?" + +Then, as the Munich days passed, May found, to her own delight, Rachel's +keen sense of humour. Munich afforded enough food for it, and finally +one discovered that Rachel smiled more readily than she trembled, but +she hid her smile because, as yet, she was not sure of it. + +"All she wants," May Eversley concluded, "is to be told things." + +Nobody in the world could be better adapted to give out these +revelations. London, to May Eversley, was an open book; moreover, the +most stormy of battle-fields on which the combatants fought, were +wounded, were slain, were gloriously victorious. + +She told Rachel a great deal--a great deal about people, a great deal +about sets and parties, a great deal about likes and dislikes. She had +on her side one burning curiosity to know about Rachel's Duchess. "Is +she as terrible, so tremendous as people say? Has she such a brain even +now? Old Lady Grandon, who was a great friend when they were both girls, +says that she wasn't clever then a bit--rather stupid and shy--but you +never know. Jealousy on old Grandon's part, I expect. They say she's +wonderful still." + +Questions of taste never worried May Eversley, and it did not worry her +now that Rachel might dislike so penetrating an inquisition. But at +least May got nothing for her trouble. Rachel told her nothing. + +May's final word was, "You care too much about it all--care whether it's +going to hurt, whether it's going to be frightening or not. My advice to +you is, just dash in, snatch what you can, and dash out again. It +doesn't matter a hair-pin what anyone says. Everyone says everything in +London, and nobody minds. They've all got the shortest memories." + +Rachel, sitting now in her little room and thinking of Munich wondered +how completely her own discovery of London would coincide with May's. +May's idea of it was certainly not Aunt Adela's. Aunt Adela, Rachel +thought, was far too dried and brittle to risk any sharp contact with +anything. None of her uncles, she further reflected, liked sharp +contacts, and yet, how continually grandmother provided them! + +How comfortable all of them--Aunt Adela and the uncles--would be without +their mother, and yet how proud they were of having her! For herself, +Rachel faced her approaching deliverance with a tightening of all the +muscles of her body. "I won't care. It shall be as May says--and there +are sure to be some comfortable people about, some people who want to +make it pleasant for one." + +Then there was a tap at the door and Uncle John came in. Uncle John +often came in about half-past five. It was a convenient time for him to +come, but also, perhaps, he recognized that that approaching half-hour +that Rachel was to have with his mother demanded, beforehand, some kind +of easy, amiable prologue. + +To-day, however, there was more in his comfortable smiling countenance +than merely paying a visit warranted. He stood for a moment at the door +looking over at her, rather fat but not very, his white hair, his pearl +pin, his white spats all gleaming, a rosiness and a cleanliness always +about him so that he seemed, at any moment of the day, to have come +straight from his tub, having jumped, in his eagerness to see you, into +his beautiful clothes, and hurried, all in a glow, to get to you. + +"They're all chattering downstairs--chattering like anything. There's +Roddy Seddon, old Lady Carloes and Crewner and some young ass Crewner's +brought with him and your Uncle Dick looking bored and your Aunt Adela +looking nothing at all--and so out of it I came." + +He came over and sat on the broad, fat arm of her chair and looked out, +in his contented, amiable way, over the light, salmon-coloured and pale, +that now had persuaded Portland Place into silence. His eyes seemed to +say: "Now this is how I like things--all pink and quiet and +comfortable." + +Rachel leant a little against his shoulder, and put her hand on his +knee-- + +"You've had tea down there?" + +"Yes, thank you--all I wanted. What have you been doing all the +afternoon?" + +He put his own hand down upon hers. + +"Oh! Aunt Adela and I went to look at grandmother's portrait." + +"Well?" + +"It's as clever as it can be. To anyone who doesn't know her, it's the +most wonderful likeness. It's what grandmother would like herself." + +He caught the note in her voice that threatened the pink security of +Portland Place. He held her hand a little tighter. + +"In what way?" + +"Oh, it's got the dragons and the tapestry and the purple carpet. All +the coloured things that grandmother like so much and that help her so. +Why, imagine her for a second in an ordinary room, in an old arm-chair +with a worn-out carpet and everlastings on the mantelpiece; what _would_ +she do? The young man, whoever he is, has helped her all he can." + +Rachel felt his grasp of her hand slacken a little. + +"Yes, I know it's wrong of me to talk like that. But it's all so sham. +It's like someone in one of those absurd fantastic novels that people +write nowadays when half the characters are out of Dickens only put into +a real background. I'm frightened of grandmother--you know I always have +been--but sometimes I wonder whether----" + +She paused. + +"Whether there's anything really to be frightened of. And yet the relief +when I can get off this half-hour every evening--the relief even now +when I'm even grown up--oh! it's absurd!" + +"Well, my dear, you're coming out, you're going to break away from all +of us--you'll have your own life now to make what you like of." + +"Yes, that's all very well. But I've been brought up all wrong. Most +girls begin to come out when they're about ten and go on, more and more, +until, when the time actually comes, well, there's simply nothing in it. +I've never known anyone intimately except May, and now at the thought of +crowds and crowds of people, at one moment I'd like to fly into a +convent somewhere, and at the next I want to go and be rude to the lot +of them--to get in quickly you know, lest they should be rude to me +first." + +Now that she had begun, it came out in a flood. "Oh! I shall make such a +mess of it all. What on earth am I to talk about to these people? What +do they want with me or I with them? What have I ever to say to anybody +except you and Dr. Chris, and even with you I'm as cross as possible +most of the time. Grandmother always thought me a complete fool, and so +I suppose I am. If people aren't kind I can't say a word, and if they +are I say far too much and blush afterwards for all the nonsense I've +poured out. It doesn't matter with you and Dr. Chris because you know +me, but the others! And always behind me there'd be grandmother! She +knows I'm going to be a failure, and she wants me to be--but just to +prove to her, just to prove!" + +She jumped up, and standing in front of the window, met, furiously, a +hostile world. Her hands were clenched, her face white, her eyes +desperate. + +"--Just to prove I'll be a success--I'll marry the most magnificent +husband, I'll be the most magnificent person--I'll bring it off----" + +Suddenly her agitation was gone--she was laughing, looking down on her +uncle half humorously, half tenderly. + +"Just because I love you and Dr. Chris, I'll do my best not to shame +you. I'll be the most decorous and amiable of Beaminsters.--No one shall +have a word to say----" + +She bent down, put her arms round his neck, and kissed him. Then she sat +down on the edge of the arm-chair with her hands clasped over his knee. +Uncle John would not have loved her so dearly had he not been, on so +many occasions, frightened of her. She was often hostile in the most +curious way--so militant that he could only console himself by thinking +that her mother had been Russian, and from Russia one might expect +anything. And then, in a moment, the hostility would break into a +tenderness, an affection that touched him to the heart and made the +tears come into his eyes. But for one who loved comfort above everything +Rachel was an agitating person. + +Now as he felt the pressure of her hands on his knees, he knew that he +would do anything, anything for her. + +"That's all right, Rachel dear," was all that he could say. "You hold on +to me and Christopher. We'll see you through." + +The little silver clock struck six. She got up from the chair and smiled +down at him. "If I hadn't got you and Dr. Chris--well--I just don't +know what would happen to me." + +Meanwhile Uncle John had remembered what it was that he had come to say. +His expression was now one of puzzled distress as though he wondered how +people could be so provoking and inconsiderate. + +He looked up at her. "By the way," he said, "it's doubtful whether +mother will see you this evening. You'd better go and ask, but I +expect----" + +"What's happened?" + +"I may as well tell you. You're bound to hear sooner or later. Your +cousin Francis is back in London. He's written a most insulting letter +to your grandmother. It's upset her very much." + +"Cousin Frank?" + +"Yes. He's living apparently quite near here--in some cheap rooms." + +May Eversley had, long before, supplied Rachel with all details as to +that family scandal. + +Rachel now only said: "Well, I'll go and see whether she would like me +to come." + +For a moment she hesitated, then turned back and flung her arms again +about her uncle's neck. + +"Whatever happens, Uncle John, whatever happens, we'll stick together." + +"Whatever happens," he repeated, "we'll stick together." + +His eyes, as they followed her, were full of tenderness--but behind the +tenderness there lurked a shadow of alarm. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +LADY ADELA + + "At first it seemed a little speck, + And then it seemed a mist; + It moved and moved, and took at last + A certain shape, I wist." + + _The Ancient Mariner._ + + +I + +Lady Adela had returned from that visit to her mother's portrait with a +confused mind. She was not used to confused minds and resented them; +whenever so great an infliction came upon her she solved the confusion +by dismissing it, by leaving her mind a blank until it should take upon +itself to be clear again. To obtain that blank an interval of reflection +was necessary, and now, to-day, that had been impossible. On returning, +she had been instantly confronted by a number of people who required to +be given tea and conversation, and no time had been allowed her in which +she might resolve that her mind should be cleared. + +Her confusion was that the portrait of her mother was precisely like, a +most brilliant affair, and yet wasn't like in the least. Further than +that, in some completely muddled way, it was in the back of her mind +that her mother, suddenly, this afternoon, presented herself to her as +not entirely living up to the portrait, as being less sharp, less +terrible, less magnificent. Horror lest she should in any way be +doubting her mother's terror and magnificence--both proved every day of +the week--lay, like a dark cloud, at the back of her confusion. + +She could not, however, extract anything definite from the little +cluster of discomforts; old Lady Carloes and Lord Crewner, a young thing +that Lord Crewner had brought with him, and her brother Richard were +all waiting for tea, and floods of conversation instantly covered Lady +Adela's poor mind and drowned it. + +The Long Drawing-room, where they now were, was long and narrow, with +two large open fireplaces, a great deal of old furniture rather faded +and very handsome, silver that gleamed against the dark wall-paper, one +big portrait of the Duchess, painted by Sargent twenty years ago, and +high windows shut off now by heavy dark green curtains. + +The Duchess, it was understood, did not approve of electric light and +the house therefore disdained it. Parts of the room were lighted by +candles placed in heavy old silver candlesticks. Round the fireplace at +the farther end of the light shone and glittered; there the tea-tables +stood, and round about them the company was gathered. + +The rest of the room, hung in dark shadow, stretched into black depths, +lit only now and again by the gleam of silver or glass as the light of +the more distant fire flashed and fell. + +The voices, the clatter of the tea-things, these sounds seemed to be +echoed by the darker depths of the farther stretches of the room. + +Lady Carlos was eighty, extremely vigorous, and believed in bright +colours. She was dressed now in purple, and wore a hat with a large +white feather. Her figure was bunched into a kind of bundle, so that her +waist was too near her bosom and her bosom too near her chin and her +chin too near her forehead. + +It was as though some spiteful person had pressed all of her too closely +together. But this very shapelessness added to her undoubted amiability; +her face was fat and smiling, her hair white and untidy, and she +maintained her dignity in spite of her figure. Nobody knew anything with +certainty as to her income, but she was charitable, and ran a little +house in Charles Street with a great deal of ceremony and hospitality. +Her husband had long been dead and her two daughters had long been +married, so that she was happy and independent. Many people considered +her tiresome because her curiosity was insatiable and her discretion +open to question, yet she was a staunch Beaminster adherent, an old +friend of the Duchess, and saw both this world and the next in the +proper Beaminster light. + +Lady Adela depended on her a good deal, at certain times: she had +forseen that the old lady would come to-day; she had heard of course of +Frank Breton's arrival in town, she would demand every detail; Lady +Adela knew that the account that she gave to Lady Carloes would be the +account that the town would receive. + +By the fire Lord Richard, Lord Crewner and the nondescript young man +were talking together. Lady Adela caught fragments. "But of course +Dilchester is incautious--when was he anything else? What these fellows +need----" + +That was her brother. + +And then Lord Crewner, who believed that the windows of White's and +Brook's were the only courts of Ultimate Judgment. "That's all very +well, Beaminster, but I assure you, they were saying last night at the +club----" + +As far as all that was concerned Lady Adela flung it aside. She must +attend to Lady Carloes, she must give to her the version of Frank +Breton's arrival that her mother would wish her to give. But what _was_ +that version? And _was_ her mother really to be depended upon? + +At so terrible a flash of disloyalty Lady Adela coloured.--Why were +things so difficult this afternoon? And why had she ever gone to that +picture-gallery? + +Lady Carloes had, however, not yet arrived at Frank Breton. She never +paid a visit anywhere without tabulating carefully in her mind the +things that she must know before leaving the house. Her theory was that +she was really very old indeed, and couldn't possibly live much longer, +and that no moment therefore must be wasted. The more news that she +could give and receive before her ultimate departure, the more value +would her life have in retrospect. + +She never went definitely into the exact worth that all the gossip that +she collected might have for anybody or anything; as with any other +collection it was pursuit rather than acquisition that fired the blood. +At the back of her old mind was a perfect lumber-room of muddle and +confusion--dusty gossip, cobwebs of scandal, windows thick with grime +and tightly closed. There was no time left now to do anything to that. +Meanwhile every day something was purchased or exchanged; muddle there +might be, but, thank God, nobody knew it. + +"You must be very busy about the ball, my dear." + +"Yes--it means a great deal of work. It's so long since we've had +anything here, but Norris is invaluable. You don't find servants like +that nowadays." + +"No, my dear, you don't. But, of course, it will go off splendidly. +We're all so anxious that Rachel shall have a good time. It's the least +we can do for your mother." + +At the mention of Rachel Lady Adela's thoughts straightened for a +second; _that_ was where the confusion lay. It had been Rachel's +attitude to the portrait that had caused Lady Adela's own momentary +disloyalty. Of course Rachel hated her grandmother. Lady Adela made a +little sound with her fingers, a sound like the clicking of needles. + +"As far as Rachel is concerned nobody can tell possibly how she's going +to take it all. I don't pretend to understand her." + +Lady Carloes found this interesting--she bent forward a little. "We're +all greatly excited about her. You've kept her away from all of us and +one hears such different accounts of her. And of course her success is +most important--as things are just now." + +Lady Adela answered, "I can tell you nothing. She isn't in the least +like any of us, and I don't suppose for a moment that she'll listen to +anybody. She made a friend of May Eversley in Munich, and I don't think +that was the best thing for her. But you know--I've talked about this to +you before." + +Not only had Lady Adela talked; all of them had done so. In the +Beaminster camp this appearance that Rachel was about to make was of the +last importance. There were enemies, redoubtable enemies, in the field. +Rachel Beaminster's bow to the world was for the very reason that all +the world was watching, a responsibility for them all. + +But there were many rumours. Rachel was not to be relied upon--she hated +her grandmother, she was strange and foreign and morose. Lady Carloes +was not happy about it, and Lady Adela's attitude now was anything but +reassuring. + +John Beaminster came in. Lady Carloes liked him because he was +good-tempered and injudicious. He told her a number of things that +nobody else ever told her, and he had so simple a mind that extracting +news from it was as easy as taking plums from a pudding. He did not come +over to them at once, but stood laughing with Lord Crewner and his +brother. He would come, however, in a moment, so Lady Carloes made a +last hurried plunge at her friend. + +"What's this I hear, my dear, about Frank Breton?" + +"Yes, it's perfectly true. He's come back, and has taken rooms quite +near here. He wrote to mother----" + +Lady Carloes took this in with a gulp of delight. "My dear Adela! What +did he say?" + +"Oh! a very rude letter. He told mother that he knew that she would like +him to be near at hand and that they ought to let bygones be bygones, +and that he was sure that she would be glad to hear that he was a +reformed character. Of course he hates all of us." + +"What will you all do?" + +"Oh! Nothing, of course. We gave him up long ago. By a tiresome +coincidence he's taken rooms in the same house as my secretary, Miss +Rand. I would send her away if she weren't simply invaluable. But it +gives him a kind of a link with us." + +"Monty Carfax saw him yesterday. He's lost his left arm, Monty says, and +looks more of an adventurer than ever. So tiresome for your mother, my +dear." + +Then, as Lord John began to break away from the group at the fireplace +and move towards them---- + +"Roddy Seddon told me he might look in this afternoon.... Your mother's +so devoted to him. He seems to understand her so well." + +The two ladies faced one another. Their eyes crossed. Lady Carloes +murmured, "Such a splendid fellow!" then, as Lord John's cheerful laugh +broke upon them---- + +"Isn't Rachel coming down?" she asked. + + +II + +Lady Adela left her brother and Lady Carloes together and crossed over +to the group at the fireplace. Of all her brothers, she liked Richard +best. He seemed to her to be precisely all that a Beaminster should be: +she liked his appearance--his fine domed forehead, his grey hair, his +long rather melancholy face, his austere and orderly figure. + +He had to perfection that reserve, that kind benignancy that a +Beaminster ought to have; whenever Lady Adela questioned the foundations +upon which the stability of her life depended he reassured her. Without +saying anything at all, he gravely comforted her. That is what a +Beaminster ought to do. + +She knew, as she saw him standing there by the fire, that _he_ would +never doubt his mother. To him she would always be splendid and +magnificent, and with what determination would he expel from him any +base attacks on that loyalty! Lady Adela thought that power to expel +resolutely and firmly everything that attacked the settled assurance of +one's mind the finest thing in the world. + +Lord Crewner was a thin, handsome man of any age at all over forty and +under sixty. He was polished and brushed and scrubbed to such an extent +that he looked like an advertisement of some fine old English firm that +produced, at great cost and with wonderful completeness, Fine old +English gentlemen. He believed in not thinking about things very much, +because thinking let in Radicals and diseases and the poor, and made one +uncomfortable. He loved the London that he knew, a London bounded by +Sloane Square, the Marble Arch, Trafalgar Square and Westminster. + +He was a bachelor, but might have married Lady Adela had the Duchess not +refused to hear of Lady Adela leaving her; he adored the Duchess, +although he was scarcely ever allowed to see her because he bored her. +He always lowered his voice a little when talking to women, and +heightened it a little when talking to men; to his valet he spoke in the +voice that Nature had given him. + +Lady Adela was reassured as she came towards them. Although she did not +especially desire to marry Lord Crewner, the thought that he might, had +affairs been differently arranged, have asked her, placed him, in her +eyes, apart from other men. At any rate these two were comfortable to +her, and, for a moment, she was able to dismiss Rachel and Frank Breton +from her mind. + +They talked easily beside the fireplace. The voices of Lady Carloes and +Lord John, the pleasant murmur of the fire, the ticking clocks, all +helped that lazy swaying of time and space about one, that happy +reassurance that as the world had been so would it continue ever to be, +and that the old emotions and the old experiences and the old opinions +would always hold their own against all invasion and decay. + +Lord Richard talked of Chippendale and some wonderful Lowestoft, Lord +Crewner talked of Madeira and Lady Masters' new house; Lady Adela +listened and was soothed. + +Upon them all broke a voice: + +"Sir Roderick Seddon, my lady." + +There stood in the doorway the freshest, the most beaming of young men. +He was tall and broad; his face was of a red-brick colour, and his dark +London clothes, although they were well cut and handsome enough, were +obviously only worn to please a necessary convention. His hair was light +brown and cut close to his head, and his body had the healthy sturdiness +of someone whose every muscle was in proper training. + +He came forward to the group at the fireplace with the walk of a man +accustomed to space and air and freedom; his smiling face was so genial +and good-humoured that the whole room seemed to break away a little from +its decorous and shining propriety. They were all pleased to see him. +Lady Carloes and Lord John came over and joined the group, and they +stood all about him talking and laughing. + +Roddy Seddon was the only young man whom the Duchess permitted, and +people said that that was because he was the only young man who had +never shown any fear of her. The knowledge of this fact gave him in Lady +Adela's eyes a curious interest. She beheld him always rather as she +would have beheld anyone who had learnt an abstruse language that no one +else had ever mastered or some traveller who was reputed to have said or +done the most extraordinary things in some savage country. How _could_ +he? What talisman had he discovered that protected him? And then, +swiftly on that, came the curious thought that she herself was glad that +she had her terror, that she was proud, in some strange, inverted way, +that any Beaminster could have the effect upon anyone that her mother +had upon her. + +But Roddy Seddon had another especial interest for her, for it was +Roddy, all the Beaminsters had decided, who was to marry Rachel. Roddy +was, in every way, the right person; not very wealthy, perhaps, but he +had one nice place in Sussex, and Rachel would not, herself, be a +pauper. + +Roddy would never let the Beaminsters down; he hated all these new +invaders as strongly as any Beaminster could. He hated this mixing of +the classes, this perpetual urging of the working man to think. + +"Lots of our fellows," Lady Adela had heard him say, "get along without +thinkin'--why not the other fellers?" + +She felt now that a conversation with Roddy would complete the soothing +process that Lord Crewner and her brother had begun. He would finally +reassure her. + +She had no difficulty in securing him. Lady Carloes sat by the fire and +talked to Lord Crewner, and the nondescript, and the two brothers +departed. + +When Roddy had drunk his tea, she led him away to the farther part of +the long dim room, and there by that more distant fireplace the two of +them sat, shadowy against the leaping light, their faces and their hands +white and sharp and definite. + +"Who else is dinin' on Thursday?" + +She gave him names. "The Prince and Princess are coming, you know, but +they aren't alarming. They've been often to see mother when they've been +over here before. They're getting old enough now to be comfortable. He +dances like anything still." + +"I always like dinin' in the place you're dancin' at. You don't get that +shivery feeling comin' up the stairs and puttin' your gloves on. You're +one up on the others if you've been dinin'." + +Lady Adela looked at him, and sighed a little impatiently. He was +incredibly young and might, after all, let them down. + +He was thirty now, but he looked not a day more than nineteen, and he +always talked and behaved as though he were still in his last year at +Eton. She opposed him, in her mind's eye, to that figure of Frank Breton +that had been before her all day. How could a mere boy stand up against +a scoundrel like that? + +Moreover, she had heard stories about Roddy. Women had terrible power +over him, she had been told, and then, with a glance at him, sighed +again at the thought that her own time had gone by for having power +over anybody, even Lord Crewner. + +Well, after all, her mother knew the boy better than anyone did and her +mother loved him--better than everyone else put together her mother +loved him. + +"How's Rachel takin' it?" + +"How does Rachel take anything? She never says anything, and one never +knows. She seems to have no curiosity, or eagerness." + +"I was talkin' to May Eversley about her the other night. May says +she'll be splendid." + +"I don't like May Eversley"--Lady Adela nervously moved her hands on her +lap. "I wish Rachel hadn't made such friends with her in Munich." + +"Oh, May's all right." Roddy's blue eyes were smiling. "Took her down to +Hurlingham yesterday and we had no end of a time." + +It was a pity, Lady Adela reflected, that Roddy was so absolutely on his +own. + +His mother had died at his birth, and his father had been dead for five +years now, and here it seemed to Lady Adela a curious coincidence that +both Rachel and Roddy were orphans--and both so young. + +She leant forward towards him-- + +"You can do a lot for Rachel, Roddy. You can help her to understand her +grandmother, you can reconcile her to all of us." + +"Oh! I say," Roddy laughed. "Perhaps she won't have anythin' to say to +me, you know. My seein' your mother so often is quite enough----" + +"No. She likes cheerful people--Dr. Christopher and John. You're in the +same line of country, Roddy. She doesn't like me, and I haven't got the +things in me to draw affection out of her. I'm not that kind of woman." + +As a rule Lady Adela betrayed no emotion of any kind, but now, this +afternoon, both to Lady Carloes and Roddy she had made some vague, +indefinite appeal. Perhaps the news of Breton's arrival had alarmed her, +perhaps her visit to the gallery with Rachel had really disturbed her. +She seemed to beg for assistance. + +Roddy analysed neither his own emotions nor those of his friends, but, +this afternoon, Lady Adela did appear to him a little more human than +before. He was suddenly sorry for her. + +"Rachel'll be all right," he assured her. "Wait a bit. By the way, I met +that little feller Brun yesterday--said he was comin' on Thursday. He's +wild about your mother's picture----" + +"Yes--we saw him at the gallery this afternoon. Rachel and I were +there." + +"Rachel! What did she think of it?" + +"Seemed to take no interest in it at all. We were there only a few +minutes----" + +Silence fell between them, a silence filled with meaning. Lady Adela had +intended to speak about Breton--now, suddenly, she could say nothing. +The mention of the picture-gallery had brought back all her earlier +discomfort--she saw the picture, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the +white pinched cheeks. Then she saw the great bedroom upstairs, the high +white bed, the little shrivelled figure. + +Had Rachel pointed this contrast? Had Breton? Was it something that +Roddy had discovered already, something that had made his courage so +easy for him? What, what was going to be done with her if she were no +longer afraid? Why, on that terror, on that trembling service, were +built the foundations of all her life. How could she face that picture +that the world had of a splendid, historic, dominating figure if she +herself saw only a sick, miserable old woman tumbling to pieces, passing +to decay? + +The minutes had passed, and she had said nothing. Roddy must be +wondering at her silence. To her relief Lady Carloes came towards her to +say good-bye. + +Roddy's eyes were puzzled. For what had she carried him off if she had +nothing to say to him? + + +III + +When they were all gone she went up to her mother. Before the door she +paused. The house was very still, and her heart was furiously beating. + +She opened the door, and at the sight of the room was instantly +reassured. + +Dorchester met her. "Her Grace went to bed early to-night. But she will +see you, my lady." + +Lady Adela stepped softly to the farther door. All was well. About her, +around her, within her, was that same splendid terror, that same +knowledge that she was approaching some great presence that had been +with her all her life---- + +As she opened the bedroom door and saw the high white bed she knew that +her mother was more magnificent, more wonderful than any painted picture +could possibly make her. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE POOL + + +I + +On that same afternoon in another part of the house Miss Rand, Lady +Adela's secretary, finished her work for the day, and prepared to go +home. + +It was about a quarter-past six, and the May evening was sending through +the windows its pale glow suggesting soft blue skies and fading lights. +Miss Rand's room told you at once everything about Miss Rand. For +efficiency and neatness, for discipline and restraint, it could not be +beaten. Miss Rand herself was all these things, efficient and neat, +disciplined and restrained. + +Her room had against one white and shining wall a black and shining +typewriter. Against another wall was a table, and on this table were so +many contrivances for keeping letters and papers decent and docketed +that it made every other table the observer could remember seem untidy +and littered. There was nothing in the room superfluous or unnecessary, +and even some carnations in a green bowl near the window looked as +though they were numbered and ticketed. + +Miss Rand was a little woman who appeared thirty-five when she was busy, +and twenty-five when someone was pleasant to her. When she was at work +the broad dark belt that she wore at her waist was her most +characteristic feature. Then, in keeping with this, was her dark hair, +beautiful hair perhaps if it had been allowed some freedom, but now +ordered and sternly disciplined; she wore no ornaments, and about her +there was nothing out of place nor extravagant. + +Her face was full of light and colour and her eyes were beautiful, but +no one considered them: it was impossible to look beyond that stern +shining belt--one felt that Miss Rand herself would resent appreciation. + +From ten o'clock in the morning until five o'clock in the evening the +huge Portland Place house absorbed her energies. She saw it sometimes in +her dreams, as a great unwieldy machine kept in place by her hand, but +leaping, did she leave it for an instant, trembling, soaring, carrying +destruction with it into the heart of the city. + +Meanwhile her hand was upon it. From Norris the butler, from Dorchester +the guardian of the Duchess's apartments, down to the smallest, most +insignificant kitchen-maid, Miss Rand knew them all. There was, of +course, Mrs. Newton, the most splendid and elevating of housekeepers, +but when matters below stairs went beyond her control Miss Rand could +always arrange them. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, that, in the +way of managing her fellow-creatures, Miss Rand could not do. + +But it was because Miss Rand never occurred to any single creature in +the Portland Place house as a sentient breathing human being that she +succeeded as she did. She had no prejudices, no angers, no rebellions, +no rejoicings. She was the little engine at the heart of the house that +sent everything into motion. "One can't imagine her eating her meals, +Mrs. Newton," Mr. Norris once said. "And as to her sleeping like you or +me----" + +To see her now as she put the final touches to her room before leaving +it, arranging a paper here and a paper there, going to the bookshelf and +pushing back a book that jutted in front of the others, setting a chair +against the wall, placing the blotting-pad exactly in the middle of the +table, finally taking her hat and coat and putting them on with the same +careful and almost automatic distinction--this sufficiently revealed +her. She seemed, as she looked for the last time about the room with her +bright eyes, like some sharp little bird, perched on a window-sill, +looking beyond closed windows for new adventure. + +It was one of the striking points in her that her eyes always seemed to +be searching for some disorder in some place outside her immediate +vision. + +She closed the door behind her. As she stepped into the passage someone +was coming down the staircase to her right, and looking up she saw that +it was Rachel Beaminster. Rachel was on her way from her grandmother's +room, and before she saw Miss Rand standing there, waiting to let her +pass, her face was grave and, in that half-light, strangely white. Then, +as she saw Miss Rand, she smiled-- + +"Good evening, Miss Rand." + +"Good evening, Miss Beaminster." + +"I'm afraid that this ball is giving you a lot of trouble." + +"I think that everything is arranged now, Miss Beaminster. I hope that +it will be a great success." + +Rachel sighed and then laughed. + +"Don't I wish the whole stupid thing was over. And I expect you do too!" + +Miss Rand smiled a very little. "It's good for the servants," she said. +"They're always happy when they're really busy." + +For a moment they stood there smiling. It occurred to Rachel that Miss +Rand must be rather nice. She had never thought of her before as +anything but Aunt Adela's secretary. + +"Good night, Miss Rand." + +"Good night, Miss Beaminster." + + +II + +In Portland Place Miss Rand drew a little breath and paused. So many +times during the last five years had she walked from Portland Place to +Saxton Square, and from Saxton Square to Portland Place, that the +streets and houses encountered by her had become individual, alive, +always offering to her some fresh adventure or romance. Portland Place +itself was no bad beginning, with its high white colour, its air, and +its dark mysterious park hovering at the edge of it. + +If one had not known, Miss Rand thought, one might have supposed that +just beyond it lay the sea, so fresh and full of breezes was the air. +The light was yellow now and the houses black and sharp against the +faint sky. In another half-hour the lamps would be lit. + +It was pleasant and fitting that the end of Portland Place should be +guarded by the Round Church and the Queen's Hall. "Leave that calm and +chaste society behind you," those places said, "but before you plunge +into the wicked careless world (that is Oxford Circus) choose from us. +Here you have religion or music, both if you will, but here at any rate +we are, the very best of our kind." + +The Queen's Hall looked shabby in the evening light, but Miss Rand liked +that; it heightened her sense of the splendour within--Beethoven and +Wagner and Brahms needed no illumination--it was your musical comedy +demanded that. + +Miss Rand liked good music. + +Then there was the Polytechnic with wonderful offers in the windows +enticing you to see Rome for eleven guineas, and Paris for three, and +there was a hat shop with three glorious hats wickedly dangling on +poles, and there was a pastry-cook's, a tobacconist's, and a theatre +agency: all this variety paving the way between music and religion and +the whirling, tossing, heaving melodrama of Oxford Circus. + +Miss Rand loved Oxford Circus. It was like the sea in that it was never +from one moment to another the same. Miss Rand knew the way that it had +of piling the melodrama up and up, faster and faster, wilder and wilder, +bursting into a frantio climax and then sinking back, for hours perhaps, +into comparative silence. She knew all its moods, from its broom and +milkman mood in the early morning, to its soiled and slinking mood +somewhere between midnight and one o'clock. + +Just now it was getting ready for the evening. Up Regent Street the cabs +and buses were straining, the flower women with their baskets were +bunched in splashes of colour against the distant outline of the Round +Church. Out of every door people were pouring, and in the middle of the +Circus three of the four lines of traffic were turned suddenly into +something sleepy and indifferent by the hand of a policeman. For an +instant the restless movement seemed to be crystallized--the hansoms, +the bicycles, the omnibuses, the carts were all held, then at a sign the +flow and interflow had begun once more; life was hurled in and hurled +out again, stirred and tossed and turned, as though some giant cook were +up in the heavens busy over a giant pudding. + +And the light faded and the lamps came out, and Miss Rand, walking +through two streets that were as dark and secret as though they were +spying on the Circus and were going to give all its secrets away very +shortly, passed into Saxton Square. + +To-night Miss Rand had more to think about than Oxford Circus. She was +tired after all the work that there had been during the last few days, +and she always noticed that it was when she was tired that she was ready +to imagine things. She had been imagining things all day and had found +it really difficult to keep steadily to her proper work, but out and +beyond her imaginations there was, before her, this definite, tremendous +fact--namely, that she would find, this evening, on entering her little +drawing-room, that Mr. Francis Breton was being entertained at tea by +her sister and mother. + +It was a quarter to seven now, so perhaps he had gone, but at any rate +there would be a great deal that her mother and sister would wish to +tell her about him. A week ago Mr. Francis Breton had come to live on +the second floor in 24 Saxton Square, had put there his own furniture, +had brought with him his own man-servant (a most sinister-looking man). +These matters might have remained (although, of course, Miss Lizzie +Rand's connection with the Beaminster family made his arrival of the +most dramatic interest) had not Miss Daisy Rand (Miss Lizzie Rand's +prettier and younger sister) happened, one evening, to run into Mr. +Breton in the dark hall; she screamed aloud because she thought him a +burglar, became very shaky about the knees, and needed Mr. Breton's +assistance as far as the Rand drawing-room. Here, of course, there +followed conversation; finally Mr. Breton was asked to tea and accepted +the invitation. + +On this very afternoon must this tea-party have taken place. Lizzie Rand +knew her mother and sister very well, and she had, long ago, learnt that +their motto was, "Let everything go for the sake of adventure." That was +well enough, but when your income was very small indeed, and you wished +to do no work at all and yet to have your home pleasant and your life +adventurous, certainly someone must suffer. Everything had always fallen +upon Lizzie. + +Mrs. Rand's husband had been a colonel and they had lived at Eastbourne; +on his death it was discovered that he had debts and obligations to a +lady in the chorus of a light opera then popular in London. The debts +and the lady Mrs. Rand had covered with romance, because she considered +that they were due to the Colonel's insatiable appetite for +Adventure--but, romance or no, there was now very little to live upon. + +They moved to London. Daisy was obviously so pretty that it would be +absurd to expect her to work, and "she would be married in a minute," so +Lizzie had, during the last five years, kept the family. It would be +impossible to give any clear idea of the effect on Mrs. Rand that +Lizzie's connection with the Beaminster family had. Mrs. Rand loved +anything that was great and solemn and ceremonious; she loved Royalties, +bands and soldiers gave her a choke in her throat, the "Society News" in +the _Daily Mail_ was like a fine picture or a splendid play. She was no +snob; it was simply that she saw life as a background to slow stately +figures gorgeously attired. + +In all England there was no one like the Duchess of Wrexe; in all +England there was no family like the Beaminster family. + +Even Royalty had not quite their glow and glitter; Royalty you might see +any day, driving, bowing, smiling. The Queen had a smile for everyone +and was at home in the merest cottage; but the Duchess, the Duchess--no +one, not even Lizzie, on whose shoulders the whole fortunes of the +Beaministers rested, ever saw. + +There was nothing about the Beaminsters that Mrs. Rand did not know, and +so of course she knew all about the unhappy past history of Francis +Breton. That any Beaminster should have behaved rather as her own dead +colonel had once behaved gave one a link at once. + +Mrs. Rand's mind was, at the best of times, a confused one, and, in the +dead of night, she could imagine a scene in which the wonderful Duchess +would send for her, give her tea, press her hands and say, "Ah! Dear +Mrs. Rand, our men-folk--your husband and my grandson--what trouble they +give us, but we love them nevertheless." + +So romantic was Mrs. Rand's mind that she saw nothing extraordinary in +the coincidence of Mr. Breton's arrival at their very doors. Of course +he would arrive there! Where else could he arrive? And of course he +would fall in love with Daisy, would reform for her sake; there would be +a splendid marriage; the Duchess would thank Mrs. Rand for having saved +her grandson. + +Yes, Mrs. Rand had an incurably romantic mind. + +Lizzie knew all about her mother's mind, and Daisy's mind. She dealt +with them very much as she dealt with Lady Adela's mind or Lord John's +mind. They were all muddled people together, and the clear-headed people +had the advantage over them. + +So with regard to her mother and sister Lizzie had developed a +protective feeling; she wished to save them from the inroads of the +clear-headed people who might so rob and devour them. + +She saw also that her connection with the Beaminster family was a very +bad thing for her mother and sister because it encouraged them to be +romantic and muddled and idle. But, at present, at any rate, there was +nothing to be done. + +As she turned into the grey silence of little Saxton Square she did hope +that her mother and sister would not behave too outrageously about Mr. +Breton. She was interested, she would like to see him; his whole +possible relation to the Duchess, to Lady Adela, to Miss Beaminster set +her own imagination working. She did hope that her mother and sister +would not behave so disgracefully that they would frighten Mr. Breton +away so that he would never come near them again. + +And then, as she reached the door of No. 24, she thought for a moment of +Rachel Beaminster. + +"I like her," she thought, "I'd like to know her. She's never spoken to +me like that before." + + +III + +No. 24 had three floors: the ground floor was occupied by the Rands, the +first floor by Breton and the second floor by an old decrepit invalid +called Cæsar and his son, who was a bank clerk. + +Down in the basement lived Mr. and Mrs. Tweed, owners of the whole +house; he had been a butler and she a housekeeper, and exceedingly +respectable they were. Every floor had its own kitchen and every lodger +found his own servants, but the hall was common for all the three +floors, and if young Mr. Cæsar came in at two in the morning and banged +the front door everybody knew about it. + +It must have been a fine old house in its day, No. 24, and there were +still fine carvings, good fireplaces and ceilings, high broad windows +and thick solid walls. Mrs. Rand liked to think that her drawing-room +had once seen fine eighteenth-century ladies reflected in its mirrors, +heard the tapping of high-heeled shoes on its polished floors. The +thought of those glorious days gave her own rather faded furniture a +colour and a touch of poetry. Sometimes, Lizzie thought with a sigh, if +her mother had inhabited a plain nineteenth-century house living within +a small income would have been easier for her. + +Lizzie, entering the drawing-room, knew at once that Mr. Breton was +still there. She saw that he was tall and spare, that he had no left +arm, that he had a rather small pointed brown beard and eyes that struck +her as fierce and protesting. She did not know whether it were the beard +or the eyes or the absence of the arm, but at her first vision of him +she said to herself: "He's too dramatic; it's not quite real," and her +second thought was: "He's just what mother will like him to be!" + +He was standing against the window, and he wore a black suit, a little +faded. The blinds had not been drawn, and the square beyond the window +was elephant grey, with the lamps at each corner a dim yellow; there was +a thin rather ragged garden in the middle of the square, and in the +garden was a statue of a nymph, old and deserted, and some trees now +faintly green. Over it all was a sky so pale that it was more nearly +white than blue. + +Although the curtains had not been drawn a lamp in the middle of the +room was lit and the fire burnt merrily. The furniture had once been +good and was now respectable. There were several photographs, a copy of +"The Fighting Téméraire," and a water-colour sketch of "Lodore Falls." +There was a book-case with the works of Tennyson, Longfellow, and Miss +Braddon, and on one of the tables two French novels, one by Gyp and one +by Zola. + +Mrs. Rand would have been handsome had her grey hair been less untidy +and her clothes more uniform in design and colour. Her blouse was cut +too low and she wore too many rings; her eyes always wore a +lying-in-wait expression, as though she might be called on to be excited +at any moment and didn't wish to miss the opportunity. + +Daisy Rand was pretty and pink with light fluffy hair. All her clothes +looked as though their chief purpose were to reveal other clothes. The +impression that she left on a casual observer was that she must be cold +in such thin things. + +Lizzie, looking at Frank Breton, could not tell what impression her +sister and mother had made upon him. "At any rate," she thought, "he's +stayed a long time. That looks as though he had been entertained." She +was introduced to him and liked the cool, firm grasp of his hand. She +saw that her mother and Daisy were quiet and subdued--that was a good +thing. She caught, before she sat down, his instinctive look of +surprise. She knew that he had not expected her to be like that. + +"We've been telling Mr. Breton, Lizzie," said Mrs. Rand, "all about the +theatres. He's been away so long that he's quite out of touch with +things." + +Lizzie always knew when her mother was finding conversation difficult by +the amount of enthusiasm and surprise that she put into her sentences. + +"So terrible it must be to have missed so many splendid things." + +"I assure you, Mrs. Rand," said Breton, "that I've been seeing other +splendid things in other countries. Now I'm ready for this one again." + +Mrs. Rand was silent and at a loss. Lizzie knew the explanation of this. +Her mother had been trying to venture on to the subject of Breton's +family and had found unexpected difficulty. Perhaps there had been +something in Breton's attitude that had warned her. + +They talked for a little while, but disjointedly. Then suddenly there +was a knock at the door, and young Mr. Cæsar, a bony youth with a high +collar and an unsuccessful moustache, came in. He had not very much to +say, but the result of his coming was that Lizzie found herself standing +at the window with Breton; they looked at the square now sinking into +dusk. + +He spoke; his voice was lowered: "I understand that you are secretary to +my aunt, Miss Rand?" + +"Yes," she said. + +"They haven't heard of my return with any great delight, I'm afraid?" + +She noticed that he was trying to steady his voice, but that it shook a +little in spite of his efforts. + +"I don't know," she said, looking up and smiling. "I'm far too busy to +think of things that are not my concern." + +"They are giving a ball to-morrow night for my cousin?" + +"Yes." + +"Do you see much of her?" + +"No--nothing at all. She's been abroad, you know." + +"Yes, so I heard. But I saw her driving yesterday. She looks different +from the rest of them." + +All this time, as he spoke to her, she was conscious of his eyes; if +only she could have been sure that the protest in them was genuine she +would have been moved by them. + +She did not help him in any way, and perhaps her silence made him feel +that he had done wrong to speak to her about his affairs. They looked at +the square for a little time in silence. At last, speaking without any +implied fierceness, he said: + +"You know, Miss Rand, I'm a wanderer by nature, and sometimes I find +cities very hard to bear. Do you know what I do?" + +"No," she said. + +"Turn them into other things. Now here in London, do you never think of +streets as waterways? Portland Place, for instance, is like ever so many +rivers I've seen, broad and shining. And some of those high thin streets +beside it are like canals; Oxford Circus is a whirlpool, and so on----" + +He laughed. "I get no end of relief from thinking of things like that." + +"You hate cities?" she asked him. + +"No--not really. But it depends how they receive you. If they're +hostile----" He shrugged his shoulders. + +"And this square?" she said. "What's this square?" + +"A pool. All the houses hang over it as though they were hiding it. It's +restful like a pool. There's no noise----" + +The statue of the nymph had disappeared. The trees were a black splash +against the lamp-lit walls. Lights were in the windows. + +He seemed suddenly conscious that it was late. When he had gone Lizzie +stood, for some time, looking into the square and thinking how right he +had been. + +All that evening Daisy was out of temper. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +SHE COMES OUT + + +I + +Downstairs the dinner-party was at its height. Mrs. Newton, the +housekeeper, went softly down the passages to give one last glimpse at +the ballroom. There it lay, like a great golden shell, empty, expectant. +The walls were white, the ceilings gold; on the white walls hung the +Lelys, the Van Dycks, and at the farther end of the room Sargent's +portrait of Her Grace, brought up, for this especial occasion, from the +Long Drawing-room. There was the gleaming, shining floor, there the +golden chairs with their backs against the wall, and there before each +picture a little globe of golden flame ministering to its beauties, +throwing the proud pale faces of the old Beaminsters into scornful +relief, and none of them so scornful as that Duchess in the far +distance, frowning from her golden frame. + +Mrs. Newton was plump and important. She worshipped the Beaminster +family, and it yielded her now intense satisfaction to see these rooms, +that were used so seldom, given to their proper glory and ceremony. For +a moment as she stood there and felt the fine reflection of all that +light upon the shining floor, absorbed the silence and the space and the +colour, she was uplifted with pride, and thanked her God that she was +not as other women were, but had been permitted by Him to assist in no +small measure in the glories and splendours of this great family. + +Then, with a little sigh of satisfied approval, she softly walked away +again. + + +II + +Two hours later Rachel Beaminster, standing a little behind her aunt, +saw the people pressing up the stairs. To those who watched her, she +seemed perfectly composed, her flushed cheeks, her white dress, her dark +hair and eyes gave her distinction against the colour and movement of +the room. + +Her eyes were a little stern, and her body was held proudly, but her +hands moved with sharp spasmodic movements against her dress. + +As she stood there men were brought up to her in constant succession and +introduced. They wrote their names on her programme, bowed and went +away. She smiled at each one of them. Before dinner she had been +introduced to the Prince--German, fat and cheerful--and the second dance +of the evening was to be with him. Some of the men who had been dining +in the house she already knew--Lord Crewner, Roddy Seddon, Lord +Massiter, and others--and once or twice now the faces that were led up +to her were familiar to her. + +The great ballroom seemed to be already filled with people, and still +they came pressing up the stairs. + +Rachel was miserably unhappy. For one moment before she had left her +room, where her maid had stood admiringly beside her, when she herself +had seen the reflection of the white dress and the dark hair and the +flushed cheeks in the long mirror, for one great moment she had been +filled with exaltation. This ball, this agitation, this excitement was +all for her. The world was at her feet. The locked doors were at last +rolling open before her and all life was to be revealed. + +Pearls that Uncle John had given her were her only ornament. They +laughed at her from the mirror, laughed and promised her success, +conquest, glory. Life at that instant was very precious. + +But, alas! the dinner had been a terrible failure. She had sat between +Lord Crewner and Lord Massiter, and had no word to say to either of +them. Lord Massiter was middle-aged and hearty and kind, and he had done +his best for her, but she had been paralysed. They had talked to her +about the opera, the theatres, hunting, books, Munich; she had had a +great deal to say about all these things, and she had said nothing. +Always within her there seemed to be rivalry between the Beaminster +way of saying things and the other way. When Lord Crewner said to her, +"What I like in music is a real cheerful little piece that one can go to +after dinner, you know," there were a whole number of Beaminster +observations to make. But as soon as they rose to her mouth something +within her whispered, "You know that you don't mean that. That's at +second hand. Give him your opinion." And then that seemed presumption, +so she said nothing. + +It was all wretched and quite endless. Uncle John sent her encouraging +smiles every now and again, but she felt that he must be disappointed at +her failure. The food choked her. The tears filled her eyes and it was +her pride only that saved her. Through it all she felt that her +grandmother upstairs in her bedroom was planning this. + +Afterwards the Princess, seeing perhaps that she was unhappy, was kind +and motherly to her, and told her funny stories about her childhood in +Berlin. But all the time Rachel was saying to herself, "You're a fool. +You're a fool. You've got no self-control at all." + +She had been dreading the introductions to so many young men, but she +found that that was easy enough. They were not young men; they were +simply numbers on her programme and they vanished as soon as they came. + +Then the band in the distance began to play an extra, whilst the young +men wandered about and discovered their friends, and the sound of the +music cheered her. It amused her now to watch the people as they mounted +the stairs. She noticed that all the faces were grave and preoccupied +until a moment before the arrival at Aunt Adela, and then a smile was +tightly fastened on, held for a moment, and then dropped to give way to +the preoccupation again. + +The room was so full now that it seemed that it would be quite +impossible for any dancing to take place. Uncle John was working very +hard at introducing people to one another, and as she saw his +good-natured face and his white hair her heart went out to him. If +everyone were as kind as Uncle John how nice the world would be! +Meanwhile her eyes anxiously watched the stairs, and as every woman +turned the corner at the bottom the question was--"Was this May +Eversley?" + +There had been a battle about May. Aunt Adela did not like her, +disapproved of her, would not hear of inviting her. Very well, then, +Rachel would not come to the ball at all. They could give the ball for +somebody else. If May were not asked Rachel would not come. + +So Lady Eversley and May had both been asked, and of course they had +accepted. + +Rachel waited and gazed and was continually disappointed. The extra was +over and soon the first dance would begin; with the second dance would +arrive the Prince and Rachel would have no talk with May at all. It was +too bad of May to be late. She had promised so faithfully--Ah! there she +was with her air of one confidently conducting a most difficult +campaign. She mounted the stairs like a general, gave Lady Adela the +tiniest of smiles, and was at Rachel's side. + +That clasp of May's hand filled Rachel's body with confident happiness. +May's hardy self-control, her discipline derived from some stern old +Puritans, dim centuries away, was all waiting there at Rachel's service. + +"How late you are!" + +"Mother was such a time. And then we couldn't get a cab. How are you, +Rachel?" + +"Dinner was terrible--all wrong. I hadn't a word to say to anyone. I'm +better now that you've come." + +"Is the Prince here?" + +"Yes. I'm dancing the next dance with him. The Princess was very kind +after dinner. Oh! May, dinner was a disaster, an absolute disaster!" + +"Not nearly so bad as you thought, you may be sure. Things always seem +so much worse." + +And now May had been discovered. Gentlemen young and old dangled their +programmes in front of her, were received, were dismissed. May had the +air of a general, sitting fiercely in his tent and receiving reports +from his officers as to the progress in the field. Confident young men +were instantly timid before her. + +The first dance was over. Against the white splendour vivid colours were +flung and withdrawn. Threads and patterns crossed and recrossed, and +then presently the glittering floor was waste and deserted; on its +surface was reflected dark gold from the shining walls. + +The second dance came, and with it the Prince. Rachel had now lost all +sense of the ball having been given in any way for herself. The dancing, +it comforted her to see, was not of the very best, and at once she found +that she had herself nothing to fear. The Prince danced well, and soon +she was lost to all sense of everything save the immediate joy of rhythm +and balance, and the perfect spontaneity of the music and her body's +acknowledgment of it. + +When it came to an end, and they were sitting in a corner, somewhere, he +was a fat middle-aged man again, and she Rachel Beaminster, but she knew +now for what life was intended. + +After that, for a long period, her dancers did not concern her. They +were there simply to supply her with that ecstasy of rhythm and +movement. Sometimes they could not supply her because they were bad +dancers, and one of her partners was indeed so bad that she ruthlessly +suggested, after one turn round the room, that they should sit out. Then +she sat in a room near at hand, irritated by the sound of that glorious +music, and paying very scant attention to the young man's stammered +apologies, his information about his experiences of Paris and the way +that he shot birds in Scotland. + +She was to go down to supper with Roddy Seddon, and she was waiting that +experience with some curiosity. If her grandmother were so fond of him, +then he must be a disagreeable young man, and yet his appearance was not +disagreeable. + +He looked as though, like Uncle John and Dr. Chris, he were one of the +comfortable people. Dr. Chris, by the way, had not arrived. He had told +her that he might not be able to escape until late hours. + +And so, as the evening advanced, her happiness grew; impossible now to +understand that speechlessness at dinner, impossible to find reasons for +that earlier misery. She danced now both with Lord Massiter and with +Lord Crewner, and said exactly what she thought to both of them; +impossible now to imagine anything but that the world was an enchanting, +thrilling place especially invented for the happiness of Miss Rachel +Beaminster. + + +III + +Uncle John had been promised a dance; his moment arrived. He had watched +her during the early part of the evening, and had been afraid that she +was not at all happy. + +She was so unlike other girls, and that first miserable hour seemed to +him the most tragic omen of her future career. + +"How is she _ever_ to get on if she takes things as badly as this? I +wish I could help her. I know so exactly how she must be feeling." + +But imagine him now confronted with a figure that shone with happiness, +with success, with splendour! + +She caught his arm--"Come, Uncle John, we won't dance. We'll talk. Up +here--There's no one in this room." + +She ran ahead of him, found a corner for them both, and then, pushing +him on to a sofa, twisted round in front of him, turning on her toes, +flashing laughter at him, sitting down at last beside him, and then +kissing him. + +"Oh, my dear! I'm so glad," he said. "I thought you were miserable." + +"So I was--at first--perfectly wretched. Now it's all +splendid--glorious!" + +This was to him an entirely new Rachel. In her movement, her excitement, +her immediate glad acceptance of the life that an hour ago she had +feared with such alarm, he perceived an element that was indeed foreign +to all things Beaminster. And this new attitude reminded him with +renewed sharpness that he could not now hope to hold the old Rachel with +the intimate affection that had been his before. She was slipping from +him--slipping ... even as he watched her, she was going. + +She laid her hand upon his arm: "Uncle John, I'm a success! I am really. +I can dance, dance beautifully! I can put these young men in their +places. They're frightened!... really frightened." + +"Of course--you're lovely--the biggest success there's ever been. But +what was the matter with you at dinner?" + +"Yes. Wasn't that dreadful? Everything went wrong, and the only thing I +could think of was how glad grandmamma would be. I had a kind of +paralysis." + +Uncle John nodded his head. "I know exactly what it's like." + +"Well, I shall never let myself be so stupid again--never! I swear it!" +They sat in silence for some time, she, restless, straining towards the +music, he a little overcome by her happiness. + +There was a pause between the dances and then the band began once more. + +"Have you danced with Roddy Seddon yet?" + +"No. What's he like?" + +"Oh! he's nice--you'll like him." + +"I don't expect to. He's a friend of grandmamma's. Hark! There's the +band again!... Come along, back we go!" + +Smiling, radiant, she hung upon his arm. Afterwards, standing in a +doorway, he watched her. + +He sighed. "What a selfish old pig I am!... But she'll never be mine +again." + + +IV + +Uncle John held only for a moment Rachel's attention. No single person +now, but rather a gorgeous pattern that the whole evening was weaving +about her. She saw the lights, she heard the music, she felt the +movement of her body, she gathered through a haze of happiness the faces +of her uncles and Aunt Adela and others whom she knew, but now for the +first time in her life she knew what happiness, happiness without +thought, or doubt, or foreboding could be. + +Thus it was that she came to Roddy Seddon, who was certainly enjoying +himself: this, however, was not the first ball of his life nor even, if +all the truth were known, his best. He had expected it to be solemn and +sedate--you could not hope to find here the jolly kind of dance that +they had had at the Menets', for instance, last week; that would not be +possible in a Beaminster household. + +It was all, to be honest, a little old-fashioned. Things were moving a +bit faster nowadays. Waltzes and Lancers were all very well, but one +might have had a cotillon, something unexpected! However, May Eversley +and one or two other girls had had the right kind of go about them. He +smiled a little and tugged at his short bristling yellow moustache, and +then discovered that it was time to take Rachel Beaminster down to +supper. + +This event was of more than ordinary interest to him. He was perfectly +aware that most of his friends and relatives thought that it would be a +very good thing for him to marry Rachel Beaminster. He was, himself, not +scornful of this idea. + +He was thirty-two, and it was time that Seddon Court in Sussex had a +mistress; his life had been varied and exciting and it was right now +that he should make some ties. There were a number of other reasons in +favour of his marrying. + +As to Rachel Beaminster, she was not pretty, but she was interesting. +She was unusual; moreover she was a Beaminster, and an alliance with +that ancient family would be, past dispute, a magnificent alliance. But +the element in it all that intrigued him most was the fact that nobody +could tell him anything about Rachel, even May Eversley who knew her so +well was not sure about her. "You'll go on being surprised," she had +said. + +Surprise, indeed, was waiting for him this evening. On the few occasions +that he had seen Rachel he had seen her grave, shy, a little awkward, +most reserved. Now she met him as though she had known him for years, +glowing, almost pretty, so burning were her eyes. At supper she laughed, +called across the room to May, agreed with everything that everybody +said, and with it all was younger than any girl that he had ever known. +The girls who were Roddy's friends talked about life at times more +boldly than he would have talked with his men friends, and were, at all +events, for ever hinting at the things that they knew. + +Rachel hinted at nothing; she kept nothing back, she allowed him no +disguises. + +"Oh! don't I wish," she cried, "that this night could go on for ever +just like this"--and he, taking the compliment to himself, agreed with +her. He had expected to find someone haughty and cold, a young Aunt +Adela with a dash of foreign temper. + +He found someone entirely delightful. Afterwards, when they sat out on a +balcony overlooking Portland Place, he was encouraged to talk about +himself. + +"I like all this, you know," he said, waving his hand at the grey +mysterious street that the pale lamps so mournfully guarded. "I like +this air comin' along from the park. I'm all for the open, Miss +Beaminster--horses and dogs and rushin' along with the wind at your +back. It's a rippin' little place I've got down in Sussex. I hope you'll +see it one day--old as anything, with jolly Roman roads and such hangin' +around, and the most spiffin' lot of gees. Look, the sun will be gettin' +above the houses soon. I've seen some sunrises in my day. You ought to +be on the Downs at night, Miss Beaminster." + +Roddy was surprised at himself at the way that he was talking, but she +really looked quite beautiful there in the window with her dark hair and +her eyes and white dress. + +"I can't tell you," she said, when it was time for them to part, "how +much all you say interests me. I love horses too, and I adore dogs----" + +"I've got a dog I'd like you to have," he began. "It's a----" + +"Oh no," she answered. "Aunt Adela would never let me keep one here. +Thank you all the same. But you'll let me come down to Seddon Court one +day, won't you?" + +"Let you!" Roddy could find no words. + +She flung one glance at the square, where the dawn was beginning, and +then was back in the ballroom again, dancing, dancing, dancing.... + +The sky was all pink above the roofs, and the birds were making a whirl +of chattering, when her bedroom received her again. + +Her maid was sleepy but proud. + +"They all say it's been a great success, Miss Rachel." + +"Success!" She stood for a moment in the middle of the room with her +arms extended. "Oh! It's been glorious, glorious. I've never----" + +She paused. Her arms fell to her sides--"Oh! Dr. Chris! Dr. Chris! He +never came--he said that he mightn't be able. It was the only thing that +was wrong"--Then more slowly, as she moved to her dressing-table--"And +all the last part I never missed him." + +"Well, I dare say," said Lucy, standing behind Rachel's chair and +staring at the white face in the mirror, "that with his patients and the +rest he couldn't get away----" + +"Oh! But I ought to have missed him," said Rachel, and afterwards, lying +in bed, sleepless with excitement, it was Dr. Christopher's face that +she saw. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +FANS + + "Il est doux de sommeiller a l'ombre chaude, sur le tiède + oreiller d'un mal épicurisme et d'une intelligence ironique, + très simple, assez curieuse, et prodigieusement indifferente, + au fond." + + Romain Rolland. + + +I + +On the afternoon that followed the ball Lady Adela took Rachel to tea +with Lord Richard. + +It was a superb May afternoon; white clouds, bolster-shaped, were piled +in the heavens and made, so rounded were they, the blue sky seem an +infinite distance away. It was a day of sparkling dazzling gaiety--the +air seemed electric with the happiness of the world, and, as they drove +down to Grosvenor Street, Rachel felt that the little breeze that just +touched the hats and coats of the people on the omnibuses was created +simply by the joy of the beautiful weather. + +As they moved slowly down Bond Street Rachel looked at the world and +thought of last night. She looked at the men with their shining hats and +shining boots; at the messenger boys and the young women with parcels +and the young women without; at the old men who thought themselves young +and the young men who thought themselves old; at the fish shops and the +picture galleries, at the jewellers' and the book shops, at the place +where they taught you Swedish exercises and the place where there was a +palmist with a Japanese name, and it was all splendid and magnificent +and simply carried on the glories of the night before. Before the +turning into Grosvenor Street there was a great crush of carriages and a +long pause. In the carriage next to Rachel there was a very stout, very +richly coloured lady with a strong scent and a pug dog. A little farther +away there were two young gentlemen in a smart little carriage, and +their hats were so large and their expression so haughty and the top of +their canes so golden that it seemed absurd that they should have to +wait for anybody, and near them was a small boy on a little butcher's +cart and near him an omnibus with a red-faced driver and any number of +interested ladies, and all these incongruities seemed only to add to the +haphazard happiness of this shining afternoon. + +Rachel had many things to consider as she sat there. Aunt Adela did not +interfere with her thoughts, because she never talked when she was in a +carriage, but always sat up and looked wearily at the people about her. +She had never very much to say, but the open air made her feel stupid. + +Rachel was aware that last night had altered her point of view for all +time. She was aware, as she sat there in sunshine, of a new world. By +one glance at Aunt Adela was this new world made apparent. Aunt Adela +had hitherto been important--Aunt Adela was now unimportant. + +Had this afternoon been wet and gloomy, then Rachel might have doubted +that passionate discovery of the world that she now felt was hers, but +here with this blazing sun and sky the note was sustained. Surely never +again would Rachel be afraid of her grandmother, surely never again +would she be afraid of anyone. Holding herself very proudly in a dress +that was a soft primrose colour and in a hat that was dark and shady, +Rachel looked round about her on the world. + +"There's Lady Massiter!" Lady Adela smiled lightly and bowed a very +little--"Monty Carfax is with her." + +Rachel thought of Lord Massiter, and wondered again at last night's +dinner--"How could I have been like that? How _could_ I?" + +There passed them a very handsome carriage with a little dark handsome +lady who looked happily round about her, all alone in her magnificence. +Rachel did not know whether her aunt had seen or no: here was the +Beaminster arch-enemy, Mrs. Bronson, a young American widow, incredibly +rich, incredibly fascinating, incredibly bold. Mrs. Bronson had been in +London only a year, had snapped her jewelled fingers at the Beaminsters +and everything that they stood for, had laughed at snubs and threats, +was intending, so it was said, to have London at her feet in a season or +two. + +Rachel considered her. She was like some jewelled bird of paradise. She +was--one must admit it--better suited to this glorious day than was Aunt +Adela. + +Why need Aunt Adela refuse to be glad because the sun was shining? Why +could not Aunt Adela have said something pleasant about last night's +dance? Why must this absurd outward dignity be so carefully maintained? +Why when one was looking attractive in a primrose dress could one's aunt +not say so? + +That reminded her of Roddy Seddon. + +She liked him. He might be a real friend like Dr. Christopher. The +thought of him made her, as she sat there in the sun, feel doubly +certain that the world was a comfortable, reassuring place and that that +vision of cold spaces and dark forests that had been so often with her +was now to be banished like an evil dream never to return. + +At the end of Grosvenor Street the trees were so green that they might +have been painted, and here they were at Uncle Richard's house. + + +II + +But, with the closing of Uncle Richard's doors the sun was taken from +the world. Uncle Richard's house was always soft and dim, like one of +those little jewel cases, all wadding and dark wood. Uncle Richard's +carpets were so thick and soft that everyone seemed to walk on tip-toe, +and the wonderful old prints in the hall and the beautiful dark carving +on the staircase and the sudden swiftness of the doors as they closed +behind you only helped to increase the impression that everything here, +yourself included, was in for a beautiful exhibition, and that light +might hurt the exhibits. + +Uncle Richard's study, where they always had tea, was lined from roof to +ceiling with book-cases, and behind the shining glass there gleamed the +backs of the haughtiest and proudest books in the world. For, were they +old and dingy, then they were first editions of transcendent value, and +were they new and shining, then were they "Editions de luxe," or some of +Uncle Richard's favourites bound in the most intricate and precious of +bindings. + +Some china on the mantelpiece was so valuable that housemaids must +surely have a sleepless time because of it, and all the furniture was so +conscious of its rich and ancient glories that to sit down on the chairs +or to lean on the tables was to offer them terrible insults. + +Two Conders and a Corot shone from the grey walls. + +In the midst of this was Uncle Richard, elaborately, ironically +indifferent to all emotions. "I have governed the country, yes--but +really, my friends, scarcely a job for a fine spirit nowadays. I have +collected these few things--yes, but after all what does it come to? +Don't many pawn-brokers do the same?" + +Rachel, as she stood in the room, felt that her newly found independence +was slipping away from her. With the departure of the sun had fled also +that consciousness of last night's splendours. About her again was +creeping that atmosphere that was always with her in this room, +something that made her feel that she was a wretched, ignorant +Beaminster, and that even if she did learn the value of all these +precious things, why then that knowledge was of little enough use to +her. + +Uncle Richard with his high white forehead, his long dark trousers, his +grey spats and his great collar that bent back, in humble deference, +before the nobility of his neck and chin, Uncle Richard required a great +deal of courage. + +"Well, dear, I hope you enjoyed your dance." + +"Yes, Uncle Richard, thank you." + +"I left early, but everything seemed to be going very well." + +"Yes, I think it was all right." + +How different this from the fashion in which she had intended to fling +her enthusiasm upon him. What, she wondered, would have been the effect +had she done so? How would he have taken it? Could she have pierced that +melancholy ironical armour that always kept the real man from her? + +Meanwhile she was now back again in the old, old world; tea was brought, +the footman and butler moved softly about the room. Aunt Adela said a +little, Uncle Richard said a little ... the lid was down upon the world. + +Meanwhile, impossible to imagine that only a quarter of an hour ago +there had been that gay confusion in Bond Street, impossible to believe +Mrs. Bronson in her carriage anything but common and vulgar, impossible +to prefer that dazzling sun to this cloistered quiet. + +A wonderful lacquered clock ticked the minutes away. "I'm in a cage--I'm +in a cage--and I want to get out," someone in Rachel Beaminster was +crying, and someone else replied, "Thank God that you are allowed to be +in such a cage at all. There's no other cage so splendid." + +Her primrose gown was forgotten; when Uncle Richard asked her questions +she answered "Yes," or "No." Her old terrors had returned. + +Upon the three of them, sitting thus, Roddy Seddon was announced. Roddy +had assaulted and conquered Lord Richard in as masterly a fashion as he +had subdued the Duchess and Lady Adela. He had done it simply by +presenting so boisterous and honest an allegiance to the Beaminster +standard. Lord Richard's irony had been useless against Roddy's +ingenuous appeal. Moreover, there was the Duchess's advocacy--young +Seddon was the hope of the party. + +Roddy brought to view no evidence of last night's energies; he was as +fresh, as highly coloured, as browned and bronzed and clear as any +pastoral shepherd, his skin was so finely coloured that clothes always +seemed, with him, a pity. Lord Richard's melancholy cynicism had poor +chance against such vigour. + +His eyes, as they fastened upon Rachel, brightened. She gave that dim +room such fresh pleasure, sitting there in her primrose frock with her +serious eyes and long hands. No, she was not beautiful; he knew that his +last night's impression had been the true one; but she was unusual, she +would make, he was sure, a most unusual companion. "You wouldn't think +it," May Eversley had said, "but there's any amount of fun in +Rachel--you'll find it when you know her." + +He was not sure but that he saw it now, lurking in her eyes, her mouth, +as she sat there, so gravely, opposite to her uncle and aunt. + +"How d'ye do, Lady Adela? How d'ye do, Miss Beaminster? How are you, +sir? Thanks--I will have some tea. Pretty gorgeous day, ain't it? +Rippin' dance of yours last night, Lady Adela." + +Meanwhile, Rachel knew that she had nothing to say to him. Out there in +the sunlight she might, perhaps, have maintained that relationship that +had been begun between them the night before, but in here, with Aunt +Adela and Uncle Richard so consciously an audience, with the air so dim +and the walls so grey, Roddy Seddon seemed the most strident of +strangers. + +She sat, silently, whilst he talked to Aunt Adela. "I've never had so +toppin' a dance as last night--'pon my soul, no. Young Milhaven, whom I +tumbled on at Brook's at luncheon, said the same. Band first-rate, and +floor spiffin'." + +"I'm glad you liked it, Roddy," said Lady Adela, with a dry little +smile. "I must confess to being glad that it's over." + +Roddy glanced a little shyly at Rachel. "I suppose you're goin' hard at +it now, Miss Beaminster?" + +She looked across the tea-table at him. "There's Lady Grode's and Lady +Massiter's, and Lady Carloes is giving one for her niece----" + +"The Massiter thing ought to be a good one. Always do it well," said +Roddy. "'Pon my word, on a day like this makes one hot to think of +dancing." + +He was perplexed. He had instantly perceived that he had here a Rachel +Beaminster very different from last night's heroine. She was now beyond +all contemplated intimacy. He had heard others speak of that aloofness +that came like a cloud about her. He now saw it for himself. + +After a time he came across to her whilst Lady Adela and her brother +talked as though the world consisted of one Beaminster railed round by +high palings over which a host of foolish people were trying to climb. + +He stood beside her smiling in that slightly embarrassed manner of his, +a manner that caused those who did not know him to say that they liked +Roddy Seddon because he was so modest. + +"Such a day it seems a shame to be in town." + +"Yes--isn't it lovely?" + +"The opera's pretty hot in the evenin' just now. Have you been yet?" + +"I've been in Munich often. I've never been here." + +"My word! Haven't you really? Wish I could say the same. I'm always +bein' dragged----" + +"Why do you go if you don't care about it?" + +"Can't think--always askin' myself. Why do half the Johnnies go? And yet +in a way I like some sorts o' music." + +"_What_ kind of music?" + +"Sittin' in the dark, in a room, with someone just strokin' the piano up +and down--just strokin' it--not hammerin' it. I don't care what the old +tune is----" + +Rachel laughed a little, but said nothing. Of course, she thought him +the most thundering kind of fool, and this made him eager to display to +her his wisdom and common sense. + +But he could say nothing. There followed the most awkward silence. She +did not try to help him, but sat there quietly looking in front of her. + +Suddenly she said: "Uncle Richard, I want to see your fans again. I +haven't seen them for a long time. I know you've added some lately. Sir +Roderick, have you ever seen my uncle's fans?" + +"No," he said. "I'd be delighted----" + +Lord Richard's eyes lifted. The lines of his mouth grew softer. + +Rachel watched him. "Now he'll pretend," she said, "that he doesn't +care. He'll pretend that they're nothing to him at all." + +He went, in his solemn guarded manner, to a place in the room where a +large cabinet was let into the wall. He drew this cabinet forward, and +then, out of it, moving his hands almost pontifically, he pulled trays, +and on these trays lay the fans. + +The others had gathered around him. There were nearly five hundred +fans--fans Dutch and Italian and French and Chinese and Japanese; fans +of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, of the eighteenth and of the +Empire--modern Japanese heavy with iron spokes, others light as +gossamer, with spokes of ivory or tortoise shell. There were French +fans, painted only on one side, with pictures of fantastic shepherds and +shepherdesses; there were Chinese fans with bridges and mandarins and +towers; Empire fans perforated with tinsel and such lovely shades of +colour that they seemed to change as one gazed. + +There they all lay in that rich solemn room, quietly, proudly conscious +of their beauty, needing no word of praise, catching all the colour and +the daintiness and fragrance that had ever been in the world. + +Rachel drank in their splendour and then looked about her. + +Uncle Richard's eyes were flaming and his hands trembling against the +case. + +Then she looked at Roddy Seddon. His head was flung back; with eyes and +mouth, with every vein, and fibre of his body he was drinking in their +glory. + +His eyes were suddenly caught away. He was staring at her before she +looked away--Her eyes said to him, "Why! Do you care like _that_? Do +those things mean _that_ to you?" + +She smiled across at him. They were in communion again as they had been +last night. + +He was surprised that he should be so glad. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +IN THE HEART OF THE HOUSE + + "Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things + The honest thief, the tender murderer, + The superstitious atheist, demirep, + That loves and saves her soul in new French books-- + We watch while these in equilibrium keep + The giddy line midway: one step aside, + They're classed and done with. I, then, keep the line--" + + BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S Apology. + + +I + +The Duchess could but dimly guess at the splendour of that fine May +afternoon. + +It had been her complaint lately that she was always cold and now the +blinds and curtains were closely drawn and a huge fire was blazing. Her +chair was close to the flame: she sat there looking, in the fierce +light, small and shrivelled; she was reading intently and made no +movement except now and again when she turned a page. Dorchester was the +only other person there and she sat a little in the shadow, busily +sewing. + +From where she sat she could see her mistress's face, and behind her +carved chair there were the blue china dragons and the deep heavy red +curtains and a black oak table covered with little golden trays and +glass jars and silver boxes. + +Neither heat nor cold nor youth nor age had any effect upon Dorchester. +No one knew how old she was, nor how long she had been with her +mistress, nor her opinions or sentiments concerning anything in the +world. + +She was tall and gaunt and snapped her words as she might snap a piece +of thread. + +From Mrs. Newton and Norris downwards the servants were afraid of her. +She made a confidant of no one, was supposed to have no emotions of any +kind, absurd and fantastic stories were told of her; she was certainly +not popular in the servants' hall and yet at a word from her anything +that she requested was done. + +With Miss Rand only was it understood that she had a certain friendly +relationship; it was said that she liked Miss Rand. + +Dorchester had witnessed the whole of the Duchess's career. + +As she sat now in the shadow every now and again she looked up and +glanced at that sharp white face and those thin hands. What a little +body it was to have done so much, to have battled its way through such a +career, to have fought and to have won so many conflicts! It seemed to +Dorchester only yesterday that splendid time, when the Duchess had been +queen of London. Dorchester also had been young then and had had an +energy as enduring, a will as finely tempered as had her mistress. + +What a character it had been then with its furies and its disciplines, +its indulgences and its amazing restrictions, its sympathies and cold +clodded cruelties, its tremendous sense of the dramatic moment so that +again and again a position that had been nearly surrendered was held and +saved. She had never been beautiful, always little and sharp and +sometimes even wizened. But she gained her effects one way or another +and beat beautiful and wise and wonderful women off the field. + +And then sweeping down upon her had come disease. At first it had been +fought and magnificently fought. But it was the horror of its unexpected +ravages that had been so difficult to combat. She had never known when +the pain would be upon her--it might seize her at any public moment and +her retreat be compelled before the whole world. There had been doctors +and doctors and doctors, and then operation after operation, but no one +had done any good until Dr. Christopher had come to her, and now, for +years, he had been keeping her alive. + +Out of that very necessity of disease, however, had she dragged her +drama. She had retired from the world, not as an old woman beaten by +pain, but as a priestess might withdraw within her sanctuary or some +great queen demand her privacy. + +And it had its effect. Very, very carefully were chosen to see her only +those who might convey to the world the right impression. The world was +given to understand that the Duchess was now more wonderful than she had +ever been, and it was so long since the world at large had seen her that +every sort of story was abroad. + +Certain old ladies like Lady Carloes who played bridge with her gained +most of their public importance from their intimacy with her. It was +rumoured that at any moment she might return and take her place again in +the world, old though she was. + +All this was known to Dorchester and she smiled grimly as she thought of +it. The real Duchess! Perhaps she and Dr. Christopher alone in all the +world knew the intricacies, the inconsistencies of that amazing figure. +From the moment that illness had come every peculiarity had grown. Her +self-indulgences, her temper, her pride, her egotism--now knew, in +private, no restraint. And yet when her friends were there or anyone at +all from the outside world she displayed the old dignity, the old grand +air, the old imperious quiet that belonged to no one else alive. + +But what, during these last years, Lady Adela had suffered! Dorchester +herself had had many moments when it had seemed that she had more to +control than her strength could maintain, but long custom, an entire +absence of the nervous system, and a comforting sense that she was, +after all, paid well for her trouble, sustained her endurance. + +But Lady Adela had nothing. + +The Duchess had always hated her children, but had used them, +magnificently, for her purposes. They had all been fools, but they were +just the kind of fools that the Beaminster tradition demanded. + +Lady Adela had from the first been more of a fool than the others. She +had never had the gift of words and before her mother was, as a rule, +speechless, and it had been only by her changing colour that an onlooker +could have told that her mother's furies moved her. + +Often Dorchester had attempted interference, but had found at last that +it was better to allow the fury to spend its force. Then also Dorchester +had noticed a curious thing. The Duke, Lord Richard, Lord John, Lady +Adela were proud of these prides and tempers. They were proud of +everything that their mother did; they might suffer, their backs might +wince under the blows, but it was part of the tradition that their +mother should thus behave. + +Dorchester fancied that sometimes there was flashed upon them a sudden +suspicion that their mother was in these days only an old, ailing, +broken woman--no great figure now, no magnificent tyrant, no mysterious +queen of society. And then Dorchester fancied that she had noticed that +when such a suspicion had come upon them they had put it hastily aside +and locked it up and abused themselves for such baseness. + +Curious people, these Beaminsters! + +Well, it was no business of hers. And, perhaps, after all she had +herself some touch of that feeling, some fierce impatient pride in those +very tempests and rebellion. After all, was there anyone in the world +like this mistress of hers? Was there another woman who would bear so +bravely the pain that she bore? And was not that fierce clutch on life, +that energy with which she tried still to play her part in the great +game, grand in its own fashion? + +Would not Dorchester also fight when her time came? + +She looked across the firelight at her mistress. When would arrive the +inevitable moment of surrender? How imminent that moment when in the +eyes of all those about her the old woman would see that all that was +now hers was a quiet abandonment to death! + +Well, there would be some fine, savage struggling when that crisis +struck into their midst. Dorchester smiled grimly, and then, in spite of +herself, sighed a little. + +They were all growing old together. + + +II + +At five o'clock came Dr. Christopher, and Dorchester moved into the +other room and left the two together. With his large limbs and cheerful +smile he made the Duchess seem slighter and more fragile than ever, and +she herself felt always with his coming some addition of warmth and +strength; each visit, so she might have expressed it, gave her life for +at least another tiny span. + +That he, knowing so much of the follies and catastrophes of life, should +yet be an optimist, would have proved him in her opinion a fool had she +not known, by constant proof, that he was anything but that. "Well, one +day he will discover his mistake," she would say, and yet, perversely, +would cling to him for the sake of this very illusion. He helped her +courage, he helped her battle with her pain, he gave her, sometimes, +some shadowy sense of shame for her passions and rebellions, but, more +than all this, he yielded her a reassurance that life, precious, +adorable, wonderful life, was yet for a little time to be hers. + +He knew well enough the influence that he possessed, and when, as on +this afternoon, he felt it his duty to avail himself of it, he could not +pretend that he faced his task with any exultation. + +That he should rouse her fury, as he had one or twice already roused it, +meant humiliation for him as well as for herself, and afterwards +embarrassment for them both as they saw those scenes in retrospect. + +She glanced up at him carefully as he came in and knew him well enough +to realize that there was something that he must say to her. There had +been other such occasions, she remembered them all. Sometimes she +herself had been the subject of them, something that was injuring her +health, some indulgence that he could not allow her. Sometimes the +battle had been about others; she had fought him and on occasions it had +seemed that their relationship was broken once and for all, that nothing +could cover the words that had been spoken--but always through +everything she had admired his courage. + +The way had always been to stand up to her. + +For a little time they talked about her health, and then there fell a +pause. She, leaning back in her chair with her thin, sharp hands on her +lap, watched him grimly as he sat on the other side of the fireplace, +leaning forward a little, looking into the fire. + +"Well," she said at last. "What is it?" Her voice was deep, but every +word was clear-cut, resonant. + +"There _is_ something--two things," he answered her slowly. "You can +dismiss me for an interfering old fool, you know. You often have been +tempted to do it before, I dare say." + +"I have," she said. "Go on." + +But as she spoke she drew her hands a little more closely together. She +was not quite so ready for these battles as she had once been. She was +afraid a little now. A new sensation for her; she hated that restricting +awkwardness that would remain between them for days afterwards. + +She looked at his red, cheerful face and wondered impatiently why he +must always be meddling in other people's affairs. She hated Quixotes. + +"Your Grace," he began again, "has only got to stop me and I'll say no +more." + +"Oh yes, you will," she said impatiently. "I know you. Say what you +please." + +"I want to speak about Francis Breton----" He paused, but she said +nothing, only for an instant her whole face flashed into stone. The +firelight seemed for an instant to hold it there, then, as the flame +fell, she was once again indifferent. + +Christopher had grasped his courage now. He went on gravely: + +"I must speak about him. I know how unpleasant the whole subject is to +you. We've had our discussions before and I've fought his battles with +all the world more times than I can count. You must remember that I've +known Frank all his life--I knew his unhappy father. I've known them +both long enough to realize that the boy's been heavily handicapped from +the beginning----" + +"Must you," she said, looking him now full in the face, "must it be +this? Have we not thrashed it out thoroughly enough already? I don't +change, you know." + +He understood that she was appealing to his regard for their own +especial relationship. But there was a note of control in her voice; he +knew that now she would listen: + +"I've cared for Frank during a number of years. I know he's weak, +impulsive, incredibly foolish. He's always been his own worst enemy. I +know that the other day he wrote a most foolish letter----" + +"It was a letter beyond forgiveness," she said, her voice trembling. + +"Yes, I would give anything to have prevented it. I know that when he +was in England before I pleaded for him, as I am doing now, and that by +a thousand foolhardy actions he negatived anything that I could say for +him. + +"I'm urging no defence for the things that he did, the shady, +disreputable things. But he has come back now, I do verily believe, +ready, even eager, to turn over a new leaf. I----" + +She interrupted him, smiling. + +"Yes. That letter----" + +"Oh, I know. But isn't it a very proof of what I say--would anyone but a +foolhardy boy have done such a thing? Sheer bravado, hoping behind it +all to be taken back to the fold--eager, at any rate, not to show a poor +spirit, cowardice." + +"Over thirty now--old for a boy----" + +"In years, yes. But younger, oh! ages younger than that in spirit, in +knowledge of the world, in everything that matters--I know," he went on +more slowly, smiling a little, "that you've called me sentimentalist +times without number--but really here I'm not urging you to anything +from sentimental reasons. I'm not asking you to take him back and kill +the fatted calf for him. + +"I'm asking nothing absurd--only that you, his relations, all that he +has of kith and kin, should not be his enemies, should not drive him to +desperation--and worse." + +"If you imagine," she said steadily, "that his fate is of the smallest +concern to me you know me very little. I care nothing of what becomes of +him. He and I have been enemies for many years now and a few words from +you cannot change that." + +"I'm only asking you," he replied, "to give him a chance. See what you +can make of him, instead of sending him into the other camp--use him +even if you cannot care for him. There's fine stuff there in spite of +his follies. The day might come, even now, when you will own yourself +proud of him----" + +But she had caught him up, leaning forward a little, her voice now of a +sharper turn. "The other camp? What other camp?" + +He caught the note of danger. "I only mean," he said, choosing now his +words with the greatest care, "that if you turn Frank definitely, once +and for all, from your doors, there may be others ready to receive +him----" + +"His men and his women," she broke in scornfully; "don't I know them? +I've not lived these years without knowing the raffish tenth-rate lot +that failures like Frank Breton affect----" + +"No--there are others," Christopher said firmly, "Mrs. Bronson, for +instance----" + +At that name she broke in. + +"Yes--exactly. Mrs. Bronson. Oh! I know the kind of crowd that Mrs. +Bronson and her like can gather. They are welcome to Francis and he to +them."--She paused. He saw that she was controlling herself with a great +effort. For a little while there was silence and then she went on, more +quietly: + +"There, now you have it. That is why there can never be any truce +between Francis and myself. It is more than Francis--it is all the +things that he stands for, all the things that will soon make England a +rubbish heap for every dirty foreigner to dump his filth on to. Hate +him? Why, I'll fight him and all that he stands for so long as there's +breath in my body----" + +"But Frank is with you," Christopher urged eagerly, "if you'll let him +be. He's only in need of your hand and back he'll come. He's waiting +there now--longing, in spite of his defiance, for a word. Give him it +and in the end I know as surely as I sit here that he'll be worth your +while----" + +"What can he do for me?" + +"Ah! He'll show you. After all, he is one of the family; he's miserable +there in his exile. He's got your own spirit--he'd die rather than own +to defeat--but he'll repay you if you have him." + +He saw then, as she turned towards him, that he had done no good. + +"Listen," she said, "I've heard you fairly. Let us leave this now, once +and for all. I tell you finally no word that God Almighty could speak on +this business could change me one atom. Francis Breton and I are foes +for all time. I hate not only himself and the miserable mess that he's +made of his life, I hate all this new generation that he stands for. + +"I hate these new opinions, I hate this indulgence now towards +everything that any fool in the country may choose to think or say. In +my day we knew how to use the fools. Took advantage of their muddle, ran +the world on it. I loathe this tendency to make everyone as intelligent +as they can be! Why! in God's name! Give me two intelligent men and a +dozen fools and you'll get something done. Take a wastrel like Frank and +turn him out. Take muddlers like my family and keep 'em muddled. Richard +ran the country well enough for a time or two, and he's been a muddler +from his childhood. + +"All this cry to educate the people, to be kind to thieves and +murderers! to help the fools--my God! If I still had my say--Whilst +there's breath in me I'll fight the lot of them." + +She leant back in her chair, waited for breath, and then went on more +mildly: + +"You may like all this noise and clamour, Doctor. You may like your Mrs. +Bronson and the rest--common, vulgar, brainless--ruling the world. Every +decent law that held society together is being broken and nobody cares. + +"Frank Breton may find his place in this new world. He has no place in +mine." + +Then she added: "So much for that--what's the other thing?" + +But he hesitated. Her voice was tired, even tremulous, and he was aware +as he looked across at her that her emotions now treated her more +severely than they had once done. At the same time he was aware that +giving free play to her temper always did her good. + +"Well--perhaps--another day----" + +"No--now. I may as well take my scoldings together--it saves time!" + +He stood up and, leaning on the mantelpiece with one arm, looked down +upon her. + +"Here," he said, "I'm afraid I may seem doubly impertinent, but it's a +matter that is closer to me than anything in the world. You know that +I'm a lonely old bachelor and that all those sentiments that you accuse +me of must find some vent somewhere. I'm fonder of Rachel, I think, than +I am of anyone in the world, and it's only that affection and the +feeling that, in some ways, I know her better than any of you do that +give me courage to speak." + +He could see that now she was reaching the limits of her patience. + +"Well--what of Rachel?" + +"I understand--I know--that you--that all of you intend that she shall +marry young Seddon----" + +"Well?" + +"I know that it is impertinent of me, but, as I have said, I think I +know Rachel differently from anyone else in the world. She is +strange--curiously ignorant of life in many ways, curiously wise in +others. Her simplicity--the things that she takes on trust--there is no +end to it. The things, too, that she cannot forgive--she doesn't know +how often, later on, she will have to forgive them-- + +"But the first man who breaks her trust----" + +"Thank you for this interesting light on Rachel's character. What does +it mean?" + +"It means," he said abruptly, "that she mustn't be hurt. Your Grace may +turn me out of the house here and now if you will, but Seddon is the +wrong man for her to marry----" + +"What are his crimes?" Her voice was rising, and her hand tapped +impatiently on her dress. + +"I know him only slightly, but common repute--anyone who is in the +London world at all will tell you--his reputation is bad. I've nothing +against him myself, but his affairs with women have been many. He is no +worse, I dare say, than a thousand others. At least he's young--and I +myself, God knows, am no moralist. But to marry him to Rachel will be a +crime." + +He knew as he heard his own voice drop that the scene that he dreaded +was upon him. The air was charged with it. In the strangest way +everything in the room seemed to be changed because of it. The +furniture, the dragons, the tables, the very trifles of gold and silver, +seemed to withdraw, leaving the air weighted with passion. + +She was trembling from head to foot. Her voice was very low. + +"You've gone too far. What business is this of yours? How dare you come +to me with these tales? How dare you? You've taken too much on your +shoulders. See to your own house, Doctor----" + +He stepped back from the fireplace. + +"Please--to-morrow----" + +"No. Here and now." Her words flashed at him. "You've begun to think +yourself indispensable. Because I've shown you that I rely upon +you--Because, at times, I've seemed to need your aid--therefore you've +interfered in matters that are no concern of yours." + +"They are concerns of mine," he answered firmly, "in so far as this +affair is connected with my friend." + +"Your friend and my granddaughter," she retorted. "But it is not only +that. I will return you your own words. You say that your friend is in +danger--what of mine? You have dared to attack someone who is more to me +than you and all the rest of the world put together. Someone whom I care +for as I have never cared for my own sons. It was bold of you, Dr. +Christopher, and I shall not forget it." + +He took it without flinching. "Very well," he said. "But my word to the +end is the same. If you marry Seddon to your granddaughter you do your +own sense of justice wrong." + +At that the last vestige of restraint left her. Leaning forward in her +chair she poured her words upon him in a torrent of anger. Her voice was +not raised, but her words cut the air, and now and again she raised her +hands in a movement of furious protest. + +She spared him nothing, dragged forward old incidents, old passages +between them that he had thought long ago forgotten, reminded him of +occasions when he had been mistaken or over-certain, accused him of +crimes that would have caused him to leave the country had there been a +vestige of truth in her words; at last, beaten for breath, gasped out: +"Sir Roderick Seddon shall know of what you accuse him. He shall deal +with you----" + +"I have nothing," Christopher answered gravely, "against Seddon--nothing +except that he should not marry Rachel!" + +"You have attacked him!" she gasped out. "He--shall--answer." + +But her rage had exhausted her. She lay back against her chair, heaving, +clutching at the arms for support. + +He summoned Dorchester, but when he approached the Duchess feebly +motioned him away. + +"I've--done--with you--never again," she murmured. + +She seemed then most desperately old. Her dress was in disorder, her +face wizened with deep lines beneath her eyes and hollows in her cheeks. + +Christopher waited while Dorchester helped her mistress into the farther +room. For some time there was silence. The room was stifling, and, +impatiently, he pulled back the heavy red curtains. + +He sat, waiting, eyeing the stupid dragons, every now and again glancing +at his watch. + +Even now the room seemed to vibrate with her voice, and he could imagine +that the French novel, fallen from her lap on to the carpet, winked at +him as much as to say: + +"Oh, we're up to her tempers, aren't we? We know what they're worth. +_We_ don't care!" + +At last Dorchester appeared. + +"Her Grace is in bed and will see you, sir," she said. + +Her face was grave and without expression. + +After another glance at his watch he passed into the bedroom. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE TIGER + + "For every Manne there lurketh + hys Wilde Beast." + + SARDUS AQUINAS (1512). + + +I + +Brun, meeting Christopher one day, had asked him to tea in his flat, and +then, remembering his interest in the Beaminster history, invited him to +bring Breton with him. + +"I haven't seen him for years. I'd like to see him again." + +Christopher had accepted this invitation, and now on a sultry afternoon +in June found himself sitting in Brun's rooms. Brun's sitting-room had a +glazed and mathematical appearance as though, from cushions to ceiling, +it had been purchased at a handsome price from a handsome warehouse. It +was not comfortable, it was very hot.... The narrow street squeezed +between Portland Square and Great Portland Street lay on its back, the +little windows of its mean houses gasping like mouths for air, the hard +sun pouring pitilessly down. + +No weather nor atmosphere ever affected Brun. His clothes as well as his +body had that definite appearance of something outside change or +disorder. He might have been, one would allow, something else at earlier +stages before this final result had been achieved (as a painting is +presented to the observer before its completion), but surely now nothing +would ever be done to him again. Surveying him, he appeared less a man +with a history, origins, destinies about him than an opinion or a +criticism. He was designed exactly by Nature for cynical observation, +and was intended to play no other part in life. + +"Well, Christopher?" said Brun. "Hot, isn't it?" + +"My word--yes. Breton's coming along presently." + +"Good. I've asked Arkwright the explorer. Nice fellow." They sat in +silence for a little. Then Brun said: + +"Interested in writers, Christopher?" + +"Not very much. Why?" + +"Just been lunching with a young novelist, Westcott. What he said +interested me. Of course, he's very young, got no humour, takes himself +dreadfully seriously, but he asked my advice--and it is as a sign of the +times over here that I mention it." + +"Go ahead." + +"He tells me that a number of young novelists are going to band +themselves into a kind of Artists' Young Liberty movement--artists, +poets, novelists, some thirty altogether--going to have a magazine, do +all kinds of things. Some of the older men will scoff. At the same +time----" + +"Well?" said Christopher. + +"They'd asked him to join. He wanted my opinion." + +"What did you say?" + +"He interested me--he was a kind of test case. It would mean that, +commercially, from the popular point of view, it would put him back for +years. Those young men will all be put down as conceited cranks. They +will tilt at the successful popular men like Lawson and the others, will +worship at the feet of the unsuccessful 'Great' men like Lester and +Cotton. The papers will hate 'em, the public will be indifferent. The +result will be that, in the end, they may do a big thing--at any rate +they'll have done a fine thing, but they'll all die on the way, I +expect." + +Brun spoke with enthusiasm unusual for him. + +"How was this a test of Westcott?" asked Christopher. + +"Well--would he go or no? He's at the kind of parting of the ways. I +believe success is coming to him, if he wants it; but he'll have to +build another wall in front of his Tiger either before the success or +after. If he joins this crowd of men, there'll be no walls for him ever +again." + +Christopher knew that when Brun had some idea that he was pleasantly +pursuing and had secured an audience nothing would stay or hinder him. + +He pushed a chair towards him. + +"What do you mean by your Tiger?" he asked. + +"My Tiger is what every man has within him--I don't mean, you know, a +nasty habit or a degrading passion or anything of necessity +vicious--only my theory is that every man is given at the outset of life +a Beast in the finest, noblest sense with whom through life he has got +to settle. It may be an Ambition, or a Passion, or a Temptation, or a +Virtue, what you will, but with that Beast he's got to live. Now it's +according to his dealings with the Beast that the man's great or no. If +he faces the Beast--and the Beast is generally something that a man +knows about himself that nobody else knows--the Beast can be used, +magnificently used. If he's afraid, pretends the Tiger isn't there, +builds up walls, hides in cities, does what you will, then he must be +prepared for a life of incessant alarm, and he may be sure that at some +moment or another the Tiger will make his spring--then there'll be a +crisis! + +"Over here in England you're hiding your Tigers all the time. That's why +you're muddled--about Art, Literature, Government, everything that +matters--and an old woman like the Duchess of Wrexe--sharp enough +herself, mind you--uses all of you. + +"No Beaminster has ever faced his or her Tiger yet, and they're down, +like knives, on everyone who does and everything that shows the Tiger's +bright eyes---- + +"But I see--oh, Lord! I see--a time coming, yes, here in England, when +the Individual, the great man, is coming through, when the Duchess will +be dead and the Beaminster driven from power and every man with his +Tiger there in front of him, faced and trained, will have his chance-- + +"More brain, more courage, no muddle--God help the day!" + +"You see things moving--everywhere?" + +"Everywhere. These fellows, Randall and the rest, are bringing their +Tigers with 'em. They're going to put them there for all the world to +see. It's only another party out against the Duchess, _she_ wants all +the Tigers hidden--only herself to know about them--then she can do her +work. She'll hate these fellows until they've made their stand and then +she'll try to adopt them in order to muzzle them the better in the end. + +"If Westcott hides his Tiger, forgets he's there, his way's plain +enough. He'll make money, the Duchess will ask him to tea. Let him join +these fellows and his Tiger may tear all his present self to pieces." + +"What about yourself, Brun?" + +"Oh, I'm nothing! I'm the one great exception. No Tiger thinks me worth +while. I merely observe, I don't feel--and you have to feel to keep your +Tiger alive." + +Brun's little lecture was over. He suddenly drew his body together, +clapped his mental hands to dismiss the whole thing and was drawing +Westcott to the door. + +"But I talk--how I talk! You bear with me, Christopher, because I must +go on, you know. It means nothing--absolutely nothing. But they will +have arrived now, so down we go. I go on in my sleep, exactly the same. +And now tea--and I will talk less because Breton talks a great deal and +so does Arkwright, and so do you...." + + +II + +Arkwright came, and after a little, Breton. But the meeting was not a +success. Arkwright had heard a good deal about Breton's reputation, and +although, on the whole, he was tolerant of any backsliding in women, he +made what he called his liking for "clean men" an excuse for much +narrow-mindedness. + +It is quite a mistake to suppose that living in solitude and danger +makes a human being tolerant. It has the precisely opposite effect. +Arkwright was more frightened of a man who was not "quite right with +society" than of any number of enraged natives. With natives one knew +where one was. Whereas with a man like this ... + +Breton, anxious to please, made the mistake of showing his anxiety. +Seeing an enemy round every corner he was a little theatrical, too +demonstrative, too foreign. Arkwright disliked his beard and the +movement of his hands. "He wouldn't have come, had he known...." + +Breton had, of course, at once perceived this man's hostility. Returning +to England had involved, as he had known that it must, a life of +battles, skirmishes, retreats, wounds, and every kind of hostility. +People did not forget and even had they desired to do so, his +relationship family history prevented Breton's oblivion. + +He was ready for discourtesy, however eager he may have been for +friendship. But what the Devil, he thought, is this fellow doing here at +all? If Brun brought him in he must have told him just whom he was to +meet, and if he came with that knowledge about him, why then should he +not behave like a gentleman? Breton's half timid advance towards +friendliness now yielded to curt hostility. + +Brun maintained his silence and only watched the two men with an +amusement just concealed. Conversation at last ceased and the heat beat, +in waves, through the open windows and the air seemed now to be +stiffened into bronze. Beyond the room all the city lay waiting for the +cool of the evening. + +Christopher liked Arkwright and Arkwright liked Christopher. + +Christopher had read one of Arkwright's books and spoke of it with +praise and also intelligence, and nothing goes to an author's heart like +intelligent appreciation from an unbiassed critic. But Breton was not to +be won over. He sat deep in his chair and replied in sulky monosyllables +whenever he was addressed. + +Christopher soon gave him up and the three men talked amongst +themselves. + +The heat of the afternoon passed and a little breeze danced into the +room, and the hard brightness of the sky changed to a pale primrose that +had still some echo of the blue in its faint colour. + +The city had uttered no sound through the heat of the day, but now +voices came up to the windows: the distant crying of papers, the call of +some man with flowers, then the bells of the Round Church began to ring +for evensong. + +Breton sat there, wrapped in sulky discontent. In his heart he was +wretched. Christopher had deserted him; these men would have nothing to +do with him. As was his nature everything about him was exaggerated. He +had come to Brun's rooms that afternoon, feeling that men had taken him +back to their citizenship again. Now he was more urgently assured of his +ostracism than before. Who were these men to give themselves these airs? +Because he had made one slip were they to constitute themselves his +judges? These Beaminster virtues again--the trail of his family at every +step, that same damnable hypocrisy, that same priggish assumption of the +right to judge. Better to die in the society of those friends of his who +had suffered as he had done, from the judgment of the world--no scorn of +sinners there, no failure in all sense of true proportion. + +Christopher got up to go. He gave Arkwright his card. "Come in and dine +one night and tell me all you're doing----" + +"Of course I'll come," Arkwright said. "Only you're much too busy----" + +"Indeed no," said Christopher. "One day next week you'll hear from +me----" + +Breton got up. "I'll come with you," he said to Christopher. + +The two men went away together. + +When they were gone Arkwright said to Brun, "Now that's the kind of man +I like----" + +"Yes," said Brun, laughing. "Better than the other fellow, eh?" + +Arkwright smiled. "More my sort, I must confess." + + +III + +Christopher and Breton did not speak until they reached Oxford Circus. +Here everything, flower-women, omnibuses, grey buildings, grimy men and +women--was drowned in purple shadow. It might be only a moment's beauty, +but now beneath the evening star, frosted silver and alone in a blue +heaven, sound advanced and receded with the quiet rhythm of water over +sand. For an instant a black figure of an omnibus stood against the blue +and held all the swell, the glow, the stir at a fixed point--then life +was once more distributed. + +Here, as they turned down Oxford Street Christopher broke silence. He +put his arm through Breton's: + +"Well, Frank? Sulks not over yet?" + +Breton broke away. "It's all very well, but I suppose I'm to pretend +that I like being insulted by any kind of fool who happens to turn up. +Good God, Chris, you'd think I was a child by the way you talk to me." + +"And so you are a child," said Christopher impatiently, "and a thankless +child too. Sometimes I wonder why I keep on bothering with you." + +Christopher was, like other Scotchmen, a curious mixture of amiability +and irascibility; his temper came from his pride and Breton had learnt, +many years ago, to fear it. In fact, of all the things in life that he +disliked doing, quarrelling with Christopher was the most agreeable. +Then there were stubbornness and tenacity that were hard indeed to deal +with. But to-day he was reckless; the heat of the afternoon and now the +beauty of the evening had both, in their different ways, contributed to +his ill-temper. He knew, even now, that afterwards he would regret every +word that he uttered, but he let his temper go. + +"I wonder that you do bother," he said. "Let me alone and let me find my +own way." + +"Don't be a fool," Christopher answered. "There's nothing in the world +for us to quarrel about, only I can't bear to see you giving such a +wrong impression of yourself to strangers--sulking there as though you +were five years old----" + +"All very well," retorted Breton; "you didn't hear the way that fellow +insulted me. I'll wring his neck if I meet him again. I'll----" + +"Now, enough of that!" Christopher's voice was stern. "You know quite +well, Frank, that you're hardly in a position to wring anyone's neck. +You remember the account I gave you of my little dispute with your +grandmother----" + +"Thank you," said Breton fiercely. "You remind me rather frequently of +the kind things you do for me." + +And all the time something in him was whispering to him, "_What_ a fool +you are to talk like this!" + +Christopher's voice now was cold: "That's hardly fair of you. I'm +turning up here----" They paused. Breton looked away from him up into +the quiet blue recesses of the side street. Christopher went on: "I only +mean that if I were you I should drop hanging on to the skirts of a +family who don't want you. I should set about and get some work to do, +cut all those rotten people you go about with, and behave decently to +strangers when you meet them. That's all. Good night." + +And Christopher was gone. + +Breton stood there, for a moment, with the tide of his misery full upon +him. Then he turned down Oxford Street and drove his way through the +crowds of people who were coming up towards the Circus. He was alone, +utterly alone in all the world. Everyone else had a home to go to, he +alone had nowhere. + +Only a few weeks ago he had come back to England, with money enough to +keep him alive and a fine burning passion of revenge. That family of his +should lament the day of his birth, that old woman should be down on her +knees, begging his mercy. Now how cold and wasted was that revenge! What +a fool was he wincing at the ill-manners of a stranger, quarrelling with +the best friend man ever had. + +How evilly could Life desert a man and kill him with loneliness. + +And then his mood changed; if Christopher and the rest intended to cast +him off, let them. There were his old friends--men and women who had +been ostracized by the world as he had been--they would know how to +treat him. + +He turned into the silence and peace of Saxton Square and there met Miss +Rand, who was also walking home. The statue was wrapped in blue mist, +the trees were fading into grey and the evening star seemed to have +taken Saxton Square under its special protection. + +"Good evening, Miss Rand." + +"Good evening, Mr. Breton." + +"Isn't it a lovely evening?" + +"Yes. But _hasn't_ it been hot?" + +Miss Rand did not look as though she could ever, under any possible +circumstances, be hot, so neat and cool was she, but she said yes it had +been. + +"Isn't it odd the way that as soon as it's fine people begin to complain +just as they do when it's wet?" + +"It gives them something to talk about--just as it's giving us something +now," said Miss Rand, laughing. + +Breton looked at her and liked her. She seemed so strong and wise and +safe. She would surely always give one the kind of sensible +encouragement that one needed. She would be a good person in whom to +confide. + +They were on the top doorstep now. + +"No. I've got a key." He let her pass him. + +They stood for a moment in the hall together. + +He spoke, as he always did, on the instant's inspiration: + +"Miss Rand?" + +"Yes." + +"I'm alone such a lot--in my evenings I mean. I wonder--might I come +down sometimes and just talk a little? You don't know how bad thinking +too much is for me, and if I might----" + +"Why, of course, Mr. Breton--whenever you like." + +Seeing her now, he thought, just now, with her sudden colour she looked +quite pretty. + +"I expect you could advise me--help me in lots of ways----" + +"If there's anything mother or I can do, Mr. Breton, you've only got to +ask--Good night----" + +The door closed behind her. + +He went up to his room, a less miserable man. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE GOLDEN CAGE + + "She gives away because she overflows. She has her own feelings, + her own standards; she doesn't keep remembering that she must be + proud."--_The Lesson of the Master._ + + +I + +Those weeks were, to Rachel, a golden time. She did not pretend to deny +or examine their golden quality--they were far, far better than she had +imagined anything could ever be, and that was enough. She had never, +very definitely, imagined to herself this "coming out," but it had been, +at any rate, behind its possible glories, a period of terror. "All those +people" was the way that, with frightened eyes, she had contemplated it. + +And now the kindness that there had been! All the London world had +surely nothing to do but to pay her compliments, to surround her with +courtesies, to flatter her every wish. Even Aunt Adela had under the +general enthusiasm, blossomed a little into good-will, even Uncle +Richard had remembered to wish her well, even the Duke had cracked +applause, and as for Uncle John! ... he was like an amiable conjurer +whose best (and also most difficult) trick had achieved an absolute +triumph. + +And behind all this there was more. May, June and the early part of July +showered such weather upon London as had surely never been showered +before, and these brilliant days dressed, for Rachel, her brilliant +success in cloth of gold and emblazoned robes. She felt the presence of +London for the first time, as the hot weather came beating up the +streets and the brilliant whites and blues and greens and reds flung +back to the burning blue their contrast and splendour. + +She felt, for the first time, her own especial London, and now the grey +cool cluster of buildings at one end of blazing Portland Place and the +dark green of the hovering park at the other end had a new meaning for +her, as though she had only just come to live here and was seeing it all +for the first time. In the streets that hung about Portland Place she +noticed little shops--little bakers and little shoemakers and little +tailors and little sweetshops--and they were all furtive and dark and +shabby. + +And these little shops led to the growth in her mind of an especial +picture of her square of London life, Portland Place white and shining +in the middle, with the Circus like a fair at one end of it, the park +like a mystery at the other end of it, and, on either side, little +secret shops and little dim squares hanging about it, and Harley Street +sinister and ominous by its side. + +Every element of Life and Death was there, the whole History of Man's +Journey Through This World to the Next. + +Behind all the joy and overflowing happiness of these weeks this sudden +setting of London about her was consciously present. + + +II + +Since that meeting with Miss Rand on the day before the ball Rachel had +often spoken to her. They met at first by accident and then Rachel had +gone to Lizzie's neat little sitting-room to ask for something and, +after that, had looked in for five minutes or so, and they had talked +very pleasantly about the hot weather and the theatres and the ways of +the world. + +Behind all the splendour there was, for Rachel, the dark shadow of +suspense. Was it going to last? What was to follow it? When would those +awkward uncertainties that had once kept her company return to her? Now +whatever else might be doubtful about Miss Rand, one thing was certain, +that she _would_ last, would remain to the end the same clean, reliable, +honest person that she was now. + +Imagine Lizzie Rand unreliable and she vanishes altogether! Rachel +welcomed this and she also admired the wonderful manner in which Miss +Rand accomplished her gigantic task. To run a house like this one and at +the end of it all to remain as composed and safe as though nothing had +been done! + +Rachel herself might carry off a difficult situation by riding +desperately at it, stringing her resources to their highest pitch, but +afterwards reaction would claim its penalty. + +The penalties were never claimed from Miss Rand. + +So, gradually, without any definite words or events, almost without +active consciousness, they became friends. + +Rachel, suddenly, on one afternoon early in July, determined to go and +pay Lizzie Rand a visit in her house. + +That house in Saxton Square had acquired a new romantic interest since +Rachel had learnt that the abandoned, abominable cousin, who defied +Grandmamma and whose name one was never to mention, lived there. Rachel +had considered this cousin more than once during these last months. She +had resented, from the first, the fact that he was to be given, by the +family, no chance of redemption. However bad he had been (and he had +apparently been very bad indeed) his opportunity should have been +offered to him. His life, she knew, had been hard, he was, like herself, +an orphan, and he hated, as she did, her grandmother. Of course, then, +he interested her. + +She did not now say to herself that if this romantic cousin had not been +staying in that house she would not have contemplated a visit to Lizzie. +The Beaminster in her had just now the upper hand, and the Beaminster +simply said that Saxton Square would be a nice place in which Uncle +John, who was, this afternoon, taking her out for a drive, might leave +her whilst he went to the club; later he could pick her up and take her +home. + +The Beaminster part of her did not acknowledge the cousin. + +Quite casually she said to Uncle John, "I want you to leave me at Miss +Rand's for half an hour this afternoon--she is helping me about some +clothes." + +Now Uncle John had during these last weeks continually congratulated +himself on the disappearance of Rachel's irritable, unsettled self. +Always lately one had been presented with her delightful young eager +self and always she had been anxious to agree with Uncle John's +proposals. The world had been going smoothly for him in other ways of +late, and no one had been disagreeable. How pleasant to keep the world +in this amiable condition and how dangerous to risk anyone's +displeasure! + +He had moreover almost (not quite) forgotten that his rascal of a nephew +was living in the same house as Miss Rand, and, even if he did remember +it, well, it was quite another part of the house, and in all probability +Miss Rand had never spoken to Frank Breton, nor so much as said good day +to him. + +Finally it was so sumptuous a day, and Rachel was clothed in so radiant +a happiness and so fluttering and billowing and chuckling a dress of +white and blue, and he himself was looking so handsome in the most +shining of top-hats, the broadest of black bow ties, the most elegant of +pepper-and-salt trousers and the whitest of white spats, that +complaining or arguing or disputing was utterly out of the question. + +"Miss Rand's, my dear? What's the address?... Right you are--" so off +they went. + +She arrived to find Miss Rand, a round chubby lady in bright pink, and a +stranger having tea together. The chubby lady was Mrs. Rand and the +stranger was Francis Breton. She had not expected that her arrival would +cause such a disturbance, nor that she herself would discover the right +and easy words so difficult to say. The little room seemed to be crowded +with furniture and tea-things, and she, quite deliberately, put off any +consideration of her cousin until the atmosphere had been allowed, a +little, to settle around them. + +Miss Rand looked at her almost sternly and was, plainly, at a loss. Mrs. +Rand was excited, and so nervous that her tea-cup rattled in her saucer +and she stayed for quite a long time with her finger in the tea under +the delusion that she was using a teaspoon. + +Mrs. Rand's absence of mind was generally due to the fact that she read +one novel a day all the year round and that her thoughts, her hopes, her +despairs were always centred in the book of the day, although when +to-morrow came she could not tell you the author nor the title nor any +of the incidents. Had she been to a play, then, for twenty-four hours +following, it was the drama that held the field. + +She spent her life in an amiable desire to remember, for the sake of her +friends, the plays and books of the past. But she was never successful. +As she said, "The attempt to keep up with the literature and drama of +the day, although praise-worthy, demands all one's time and energy." + +The Beaminster family alone of all other interests in the wide world +might be calculated to draw her out of the realms of the imagination, +and Rachel's entrance scattered all plots to the four winds. + +Rachel sat down and, for a little while, Mrs. Rand held the field. She +told them all that this visit of Miss Beaminster was the most wonderful +and unexpected thing, that it was like a novel, and that she would never +forget it. "But I always do say, Miss Beaminster, that it's the +unexpected that happens. Life's stranger than fiction is my opinion, and +I don't care who contradicts me I shall still hold it." + +At length Rachel had leisure to consider her cousin and then was, +instantly, convinced that she had met him before. She also knew that she +could not have met him before. + +In the strangest way he was connected with those early dream years +which, now, she struggled so sternly to forget. The snow, the bleak sky, +the silence, the sleigh-bells, some strange voice speaking high in air +as though from a distant summit, and all this coming to her with a +poignancy that, even now, brought the tears to her heart and filled it +to overflowing. + +As she saw his thin body, his eyes, his head and the attitude of the boy +in all his movements and gestures she knew that, for her, he belonged to +that earlier world. She knew it so certainly that, although he had not +yet spoken, she could be sure of the exact quality that his voice would +have. + +And confused with this recognition of him was the alarm that she always +felt when her early life returned to her. + +Also she was young enough to be pleased at the agitation into which her +coming had thrown him. It meant, plainly, so much to him; although he +was silent he leant forward in his chair, with his eyes fixed upon her, +waiting for his opportunity. + +Miss Rand, watching him, saw how tremendously this meeting with one of +the family excited him, and, seeing him, her heart filled with pity. +"He's so young. It is hard. He does want someone to look after him." + +Rachel's happiness had, now, returned to her. She liked them all so +much, it was all so cosy, it was so good of them to wish to see her. She +talked with Mrs. Rand about the theatre and the opera. + +"We're going to the opera to-night--the _Meistersinger_. I've heard it +in Munich twice, but never with Van Rooy, who's singing to-night. I +believe that's an experience one never forgets----" + +Mrs. Rand did not really care about opera; everything in opera happened +so slowly, except in _Carmen_, and even that was better simply as a +play. She liked musical comedy because there you could laugh, or plays +like _The Mikado_, for instance. + +She was vague as to the _Meistersinger_ and she had never heard of Van +Rooy, but she said, "I agree with you, Miss Beaminster. There's nobody +like him." + +At that Breton struck in with something about music that he had heard in +strange places abroad, and then Rachel, looking in his face for the +first time, asked him about his travels. + +As their eyes and voices met she was again overwhelmed with the vivid +consciousness of their earlier meeting. She thought, "If I were to ask +him whether he remembered that same snow and silence he would say yes--I +know he would say yes." + +Miss Rand, with eyes that were kind but very, very sharp, watched them. +She noticed the eagerness of Breton and wished that he did not seem +quite so anxious to please. "But that's because he's young," she thought +again. + +And, now that he had begun, the words poured from him. With +gesticulation that was faintly foreign, ever so little dramatic, he +unpacked his adventures. He spoke as though this were, beyond all time, +_the_ moment when he must make his effect. + +He did it well, a born teller of tales. And yet Miss Rand wished that he +had not had to do it at all, that there had been more reserve, less +drama, less volubility. + +Mrs. Rand, an older Desdemona, listened spellbound. This was as good as +getting a circulating library without paying a subscription. As she said +to her daughter afterwards: "He really was as good as those novels by +what's his name--you know who I mean--those delightful stories about +those foreign places--and the sea." + +He spoke of the first time that he had actually been conscious of the +jungle. "Of course I'd been into it dozens of times--often and often. +But there was a day--I remember as though it were yesterday--when we +went up in a boat--some river or another--That river was the most secret +and sleepy green, and the place all closed about it as though we'd gone +into a box, and they'd closed the lid. Nothing but the green river and +all the forest getting closer and closer and darker and darker, all +blacker than you can imagine, and worse still when it was lighter--a +kind of twilight--and you could see enough to make you shiver--no sound +but the animals, and the branches and the great plants and brilliant +flowers all creeping and crawling--Suddenly--all in a flash--I wanted a +lamp-post and a public house, a wet night shining on streets, the +rattle of a hansom--I was suddenly ghastly frightened, and we got deeper +and deeper into it, and human beings further and further behind, and +only the beastly monkeys and the alligators and the hideous flowers. I +can feel it still----" + +Rachel was enthralled. He called up, on every side about her, that stern +life of hers. He knew and she knew--they alone out of all the world. All +her gaiety, her happiness, her interest of the last weeks went now for +nothing beside this experience. He was not now related to the +Beaminsters--to Grandmother, to Aunt Adela, to Uncle John--but to _her_ +and to that part of her that had nothing to do with the Beaminsters at +all. The room, the commonplace furniture, the pictures of "Lodore Falls" +and "The Fighting Téméraire," the little glimpses of the square beyond +the window, these things shared in the mystery. + +Miss Rand had seen her caught and held. "_She's_ very young too," she +said to herself a little grimly and a little tenderly also--"All too +sensational to be true," she thought. "There's a little bit of unreality +in him all the way through." + +Mrs. Rand said: "What do you think of alligators, Miss Beaminster? Don't +you agree with me that they must be most unpleasant to meet? I always +dislike their sluggish ways when I see them in the Zoological Gardens." + +Then upon them all broke the little maid with a husky "Miss Beaminster's +carriage, please, mem." + +Rachel, as she said good-bye, was aware of him again as "her scandalous +cousin." He too was now awkward and embarrassed. They said good-bye +hurriedly and there was between them both a consciousness that no word +of the family or their relationship had been mentioned. + +"Well," said Mrs. Rand, when the door was closed, "no one in the world +could have been pleasanter...." + + +III + +They did not arrive at the opera that night until the beginning of the +second act. It was Lady Carloes' box and she and Uncle John and Roddy +Seddon were Rachel's companions. + +All the way home in the carriage Rachel had been silent and Lord John, +perceiving uneasily that some of the old Rachel was back again, had said +very little. + +Her mind was confused. At one moment she felt that she did not want to +see him again, that he disturbed her peace and worried her with memories +that were better forgotten. At another moment she could have returned, +then and there, to ask him questions, to know whether he felt this or +that: had he ever pictured such a place? Had he...? + +And then sharply she dismissed such thoughts. She would think of him no +more--and yet he did not look a villain. How delightful to persuade the +family to take him back. Why should she not help towards a +reconciliation? She was herself so happy now that she could not bear +that anyone should feel outcast or lonely--they were all very hard upon +him. + +It was not until she heard the voices of the apprentices that thought of +her cousin left her. As she groped her way in the dark box and heard +Lady Carloes' stuffy whisper (she had the voice of a cracknel biscuit), +"You sit there, my dear--Lord John here. That's right--I knew you'd be +late because ..." she was gloriously aware that quite close to her the +music that she loved best in all the world was transforming existence. +She touched Roddy's hand and then surrendered herself. + +She had been to Covent Garden now on four or five occasions and from the +first the shabby building with its old red and gold, its air of +belonging to any period earlier than the one it was just then amusing, +its attitude, above all, of indifference to its aspect--all this had +attracted her and won her affection. London, she discovered, was always +best when it was shabbiest and one could not praise it more highly than +by declaring, with perfect truth, that it was the shabbiest city in the +world. Now, feeling instinctively that English apprentices (she had had +already some taste of the Covent Garden chorus) would act too much or +too little, she closed her eyes. + +Now, as the music reached her, the old red and gold seemed a cage, +swinging, swinging higher and ever higher with old Lady Carloes and +Roddy Seddon and all the brilliant people in the stalls, and all the +enthusiastic people in the gallery, swinging, swinging inside it. She +could feel the lift of it, the rise and fall, and almost the clearer air +about her as it rose into the stars. + +Then there came to her the voice for which she had surely all her days +been waiting. It enwrapped her round and comforted her, consoled her for +all her sorrows, reassured her for all her fears. It filled the cage and +the air beyond the cage, it was of earth and of heaven, and of all +things good and beautiful in this world and the next. + +For the second time to-day her early years came back to her; the voice +had in it all those hours when someone's tenderness had made Life worth +living. "Life is immortal," it cried. "And I am immortal, for I am Love +and Charity, and, whatever the wise ones may tell you, I cannot die." +She felt again the space and the silence and the snow, but now with no +alarm, only utter reassurance. And the cage swung up and up and there +were now only the stars and the wind around and about them. + +Then, in an instant of time, the cage, with a crash, was upon the +ground. Across her world had cut Lady Carloes' voice--"Oh yes, and +there's Lord Crewner--no, not in that row--the one behind--next that +woman with the silver thing in her hair--four from the end----" + +And Roddy Seddon's voice--"Yes, I see him. Who's he got with him?" + +Lady Carloes again: "I can't quite see--Miss Mendle as likely as +not.... You know, old Aggie Mendle's daughter...." + +Rachel felt in that moment that murder was assuredly no crime. Her hands +shook on her lap and one of those passions, that she had not known for +many months, caught her so that she could have torn Lardy Carloes' hair +from her head had the chairs been happily arranged. + +Fortunately the interruption had been accompanied by Beckmesser's +entrance: that other voice was, for the moment, still. Then, as Sachs +caught up Beckmesser's serenade, there came again: + +"Well, of course if you can't go that week-end I dare say she'll give +you another. Only I know she's settling her dates now." + +"Yes, but it's a bore havin' to fix up such a long way ahead and you +don't know what old stumers you mayn't be boxed up with----" + +Oh! It was abominable! She had been seeing a great deal of Roddy during +these last weeks, and ever since that visit to Uncle Richard she had +been conscious of an intimacy that she had certainly not resented. + +But any favour that he may have had with her was certainly now +forfeited. His voice was again superior to Beckmesser: + +"And so of course I said that if they _would_ go to such shockin' rot I +wasn't goin' to waste my evenin's----" + +She pushed her chair back against his knees: "Beg pardon, Miss +Beaminster, afraid I jolted you----" + +"Oh! Keep quiet! Keep quiet!" + +Her whisper was so urgent, so packed with irritation that instantly +there was, in the box, the deepest of silences. + +She sat forward again, anger choking her: she could not recover any +illusion. She hated him, _hated_ him! The crowd came on with a whirl. +Then there was that last moment when the old watchman cries to the +genial moon and the silvered roofs. + +Then the curtain fell. + +Without a word, her face white, her hands still trembling, she rose to +leave the box. She passed out into the passage and found that Roddy was +by her side. + +"I say, Miss Beaminster, I am most awfully sorry, most awfully. I hadn't +any idea, really, that I was kickin' up that row. I could have hit +myself." + +She walked down the passage and he followed her. She was superb, she was +indeed, with her head up, that neck, those hands, those flashing eyes. +He had never seen anyone so fine. She ought always to be enraged. That +instant decided him. She was the woman for a man to have for his own, +someone who could look like someone at the head of your table, someone +with the right blood in her veins, someone.... + +"I could _beat_ myself," he said again. + +"How dared you----" she broke out at last. They were, by good luck, +alone in the passage. "How could you? What do you come for if you care +nothing for music at all? If you can hear a voice like that and then +talk about your own silly little affairs.... And the selfishness of it! +Of course you think of nobody but yourself!" + +"Upon my word, Miss Beaminster!" + +"No, I've no patience with you. Go to your musical comedy if you like, +but leave music like this for people who can appreciate it!" + +Oh! she was superb! Entirely superb! She ought to be like this every day +of her life! To think that he should have the chance of winning such a +prize! + +Nevertheless she would not speak to him again and they went back to the +box. She would not speak to Lady Carloes nor to her uncle. + +Then as the loveliest music in all opera flooded the building her anger +began to melt. + +He had looked so charmingly repentant and, after all, the +_Meistersinger_ was long for anyone who did not really care for +music--and then they all did talk. It was only in the gallery that one +found the proper reverence. + +Her anger cooled and then descended upon her the quintet, and she was +once again swept, in her cage, to the stars. + +Now she and all live things seemed to be opening their hearts together +to God--no shame now to speak of one's deepest and most sacred thoughts. +No fear now of God nor the Archangels nor all the long spaces of +Immortality. The cage had ascended to the highest of all the Heavens, +and there, for a moment, one might stand, worshipping, with bowed head. + +The quintet ceased and Rachel felt that she could never be angry with +anyone again. She wished to tell him so. + +At last, the revels were over, the "Prieslied" had won its praises, +Sachs had been acclaimed by his world, and they were all in the lobby, +waiting for carriages, talking, laughing, hurrying to the restaurants. + +Her face was lighted now with happiness. She touched his arm. + +"I didn't mean to be angry--like that. It was silly and rude of me. +Forgive me, please----" + +He turned, stuttering. "Forgive you!" He took her hand--"I ought to have +been shot--Yes, I'll never forgive myself. You--you----" And then he +could say no more, but suddenly, raising his hat, bolted away. + +As the door swung behind him Lady Carloes turned a perplexed face-- + +"Why! he said good night! And now I shall never find----" + +But Lord John appeared just then and all was well. + +Going back, in the dark brougham, Rachel put her head on her uncle's +shoulder and, exhausted with excitement and happiness and something more +than either of them, cried her eyes away. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +LIZZIE AND BRETON + + "What of Adam cast out of Eden? + (And O the Bower and the hour!) + Lo! with care like a shadow shaken + He kills the hard earth whence he was taken." + + DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. + + +I + +To the ordinary observer Lizzie Rand was, during that hot July, as she +had ever been. + +The servants in 104 Portland Place could detect no change, but then they +did not search for one, having long regarded Miss Rand as a piece of +machinery, symbolized by that broad shining belt of hers, happily +calculated to fit, precisely, the duties for which it was required. + +But Miss Rand herself knew that there was a sharp, accurate, shrewd +piece of machinery named Miss Rand, and a breathing, emotional, +uncertain human being called Lizzie. There had always been those two, +but since the inadequacy of her mother and sister had been confronted +with the stern necessity of making two ends meet, Miss Rand had been in +constant demand and Lizzie had only, by her occasional obtrusion, made +life complicated and disturbing. + +Miss Rand had told herself that Lizzie was now almost an anachronism, +that the emotions in life that aroused her were bad cheap emotions, and +that this was an age that demanded increasingly of women a hard +practical efficiency without sentiments or enthusiasms. + +These forcible arguments had for a time kept Lizzie in a darkened +background; it was some years since Miss Rand had been disturbed. But +now in the warm weather of 1898 Lizzie had not only reappeared, but had +leapt, an insistent, shining presence, into urgent life. Miss Rand +faced her--what had created her? A little, the weather, the beauty of +those brazen days--A little, Rachel's coming out into the world, an +adventure that had stirred the whole house into a new and sympathetic +excitement--a little, these things. But chiefly, and no pretence nor +shame could conceal the fact, did this new Lizzie owe her creation to +the appearance of Francis Breton. + +Lizzie Rand had had, from her birth, a romantic heart; she had had also +a prosaic practical exterior, and a mind as hard and clear, if +necessary, as her own most lucent typewriter. + +The romantic heart had, throughout these years, been there, and now this +romantic, scandalous, youthful, engaging unfortunate had called it out. + +She was never so warmly attracted as by someone lacking, most obviously, +in those qualities with which she herself abounded. That people should +be foolish, impetuous, careless, haphazard commended them straight to +her keeping. "Poor dears" had their instant claim upon her. Her mother +and sister were "poor dears" and she had suffered from them now during +many years. Francis Breton was most assuredly a "poor dear!" + +Here the Duchess a little flung her shadow and confused the mind. +Although Lizzie had never seen that splendid figure she was, +nevertheless, acutely conscious of her. She was conscious of her through +her own imagination, through her mother, finally through Lady Adela. + +Her imagination painted the old lady, the room, the furniture fantastic, +strangely coloured, always with dramatic effect. Her picture was never +precisely defined, but in its very vagueness lay its terrors and its +omens. + +Miss Rand, the most practical and collected of young women, could never +pass the Duchess's door without a "creep." + +Through her mother the Duchess came to her as the head of society. +Society had never troubled Lizzie's visions of Life. She had, in her +years with the Beaminsters, seen it pass before her with all its comedy +and pathos, and the figures that had been concerned in that procession +had seemed to her exactly like the figures in any other procession +except that they were dressed for their especial "subject." But oddly +enough when, through her own observation, this life, seen accurately at +first hand, amounted only to any other life, seen through the eyes of +her mother, it achieved another size. + +She knew that her mother was a foolish woman, that her mother's opinions +on life were absurd and untrue, and yet that dim, great figure that the +Duchess assumed in her mother's eyes, in some odd way impressed her. + +Lastly, and most strikingly of all, came Lady Adela's conception to her. +Lady Adela was in terror of her mother; everyone knew it, friends, +relations, servants. Lizzie herself saw it in a thousand different +ways--saw it when Lady Adela spoke of her, saw it in the way that Lady +Adela addressed Dorchester when that grim woman was interviewed by her, +saw it when Lady Adela was suddenly summoned to that room upstairs. + +Lizzie, during the hours when she was writing from Lady Adela's +dictation or working with her, found her dry, stupid, sometimes kind, +never emotional. It was to her, therefore, the most convincing proof of +the Duchess's power, this emotion, this alarm drawn from so dry a heart. + +Now the influence that the Duchess had upon Lizzie was always a confused +one. Persuasion from this source followed lines of reasoning that were +false and led to some conclusions that were muddled and untrue. + +Through such minds as her mother's and Lady Adela's no clear truth could +come, and yet it was through such minds as these that the Duchess's +influence descended upon Lizzie. + +It descended now with regard to Francis Breton. It told Lizzie that +Breton had been proved by society to be a scoundrel, that he should be +no worthy man's friend, that he belonged to that world, the world of +shadows and past misadventures, that no proper soul might, with honesty, +investigate. + +This was what the Duchess told to Lizzie and perhaps by so doing +increased her sympathy with the sinner. + + +II + +It must not be supposed that Mrs. Rand had not, at first, been unsettled +by scruples. + +The fact that Breton was, in the eyes of the Beaminster family, a +ne'er-do-well who had brought disgrace upon the family name had, for a +time, distressed her, but the romantic hope of being herself the agent +of his restoration to his grandmother, and the delightful manners of the +scoundrel when he appeared, killed her alarm. Mrs. Rand's mind was a +dark misty place except when the candles of romance were lit; when +_they_ flamed, blown by the wind though they might be, there was, around +the candlesticks at any rate, a real and even splendid blaze. + +One afternoon, towards the end of July, Mrs. Rand meeting Breton on +their doorstep was moved to ask him whether he would come in and spend +the evening with them, if he had nothing better to do. They had only a +simple little meal, and would he please not bother to dress? Breton said +that he would be delighted. + +Mrs. Rand had been, that afternoon, to a romantic comedy in which ladies +and gentlemen with French accents had made love and escaped together and +been caught together and been married together. Mrs. Rand had gone quite +alone into the pit and had returned with tears in her eyes and affection +for all the world. + +So she had asked Mr. Breton to dinner. + +After a while, however, she was a little uncertain. Daisy was away in +the country with friends. How would Lizzie then like this unexpected +visitor? Mrs. Rand was, quite frankly, frightened of Lizzie and +complained of her a good many times a week to Daisy. Lizzie was for +ever interfering with innocent pleasures; Lizzie was mean and unromantic +and unimaginative; Lizzie was thoroughly tiresome. + +The fact that Lizzie worked incessantly for her mother and her sister +never occurred to Mrs. Rand at all. + +Lizzie objected to all innocent amusement and she would, in all +likelihood, object now. + +However, when Mrs. Rand with a fearful mind said, "Oh, Lizzie dear, I've +had such a delightful afternoon. I went to _Love and the King_ and +it was too charming--you ought to go, really--and Mr. Breton's coming to +dinner to-night," Lizzie only smiled a little and asked whether there +was food enough. Lizzie was _so_ strange.... + +Alone in her bedroom Lizzie wondered at her excitement. She looked at +her trim, neat figure in the glass, with the hair so gravely brushed, +with her collar and her cuffs, with her compact businesslike air: what +had she to do with excitement because a young man was coming to dinner? +"It must be because I'm tired--this heat," she said to the mirror. And +the mirror replied, "You know that you are glad because your sister +Daisy is away." + +And to that she had no answer. + +When he arrived he was grave and seemed sad and tired, she thought. +Dinner was a serious affair and Mrs. Rand, who disliked people when they +refused to respond to her moods, wished, at first, that she had not +asked him, and felt sure that there was much truth in what people said +about his wickedness. + +Then, when dinner was nearly over, he brightened up and told stories and +was entertaining. Mrs. Rand noticed that he drank much claret, but this +was, after all, a compliment to her housekeeping. By the end of dinner +Mrs. Rand almost loved him and wished that Daisy had been here to +entertain him. + +Of course it must be dull for a man with only a plain cut-and-dried girl +like Lizzie for company. + +Lizzie, meanwhile, knew that he was waiting for an opportunity of +speech. She had read an appeal in his eyes when he had first entered the +room, and now she sat there, curiously, ironically amused at her own +agitation. "Lizzie Rand," she said to herself, "you're only, after all, +the kind of fool that you despise other people for being. What are you +after in this _galère_?" + +Nevertheless even now, in retrospect, how arid and sterile seemed all +those other active useful days. One moment's little grain of sentiment +and a life's hard work goes for nothing in comparison. + +After dinner, when the lamp burnt brightly and the furniture seemed to +be less anxious to fill every possible space and the windows were opened +into the square with its stars and grey shadows, the room seemed, of a +sudden, comfortable, and Mrs. Rand, sitting in an arm-chair, with a +novel on her lap and spectacles on her nose, was almost cosy. She had +left, before going to her matinee, _Just a Heroine_ at one of its most +thrilling crises, and Lizzie knew that the talk with Breton depended for +its very existence on the relative strength of the play and the novel. +If _Love and the King_ were the more powerful, then would Mrs. Rand make +a discursive third. But no, for a moment there was a pause, then, +indecisively, Mrs. Rand took up her book. For a while she talked to +Breton over its pages, then the light of excitement stole into her eyes, +her soul was netted by the snarer, Breton was forgotten as though he had +never been. + +Their chairs were by the open window and a very little breeze came and +played around them. In the square there was that sense of some imminent +occurrence, a breathless suggestion of suspense, that a hot evening +sometimes carries with it. The stars blazed in a purple sky and a moon +was full rounded, a plate of gold; beneath such splendour the square was +cool and dim. + +"You mustn't think mother rude," Lizzie said with a little smile. "If +she once gets deep into a book nothing can tear her from it." + +He said something, but she could see that he was not thinking of Mrs. +Rand. It was always in the evening, she thought, when uncertain colours +and shadows filled the air, that he looked his best. He touched, now, as +he had touched on that day of their first meeting, a note of something +fine and strange--someone, very young and perhaps very foolish and +impetuous, but someone armoured in courage and set apart for some great +purpose. + +He sat back in his chair, flinging, every now and again, little restless +glances beyond the window, pulling sometimes at his beard, answering her +absent-mindedly. Then suddenly he began, fiercely, looking away from +her-- + +"Miss Rand, I've got an apology to make to you----" + +His voice was so low that she could only catch the words by leaning +forward--"To me?" + +"Yes--I've been wanting to speak all these weeks. It seemed right enough +before, but since I've known you I've felt ashamed of it--as though I'd +done something wrong." + +"What is it, Mr. Breton?" Her clear grave eyes encouraged him. + +"Why--I came to this house, took my rooms, simply because I knew that +you were here----" + +"That I was here?" + +"Yes. I was looking about in this part of the world for rooms. I wanted +to be--near Portland Place, you know. I came here and old Mrs. Tweed +talked a lot and then, after a time, I said something--about my +grandmother. And then she told me that someone who lived here did +secretarial work for my aunt----" + +He stopped abruptly. + +"Well?" said Lizzie, laughing. "All this is not very terrible." + +"Then, you see, I determined to stay. I was full of absurd ideas just +at the time, thought that I was going to take some great revenge--I was +quite melodramatic. And so I thought that I'd use you, get to know you +and then, through you--do something or another." + +Lizzie eyed him with merriment. "Upon my word, what were you going to +make me do? Carry bombs into your aunt's bedroom or set fire to the +Portland Place house? Tell me, I should like to know----" + +"Ah," he said, "it's all very well for you to laugh. It's very kind of +you to take it that way, but lots of women wouldn't have liked it. +They'd have thought it another of the things I'm always accused of +doing, I suppose." + +"_No_," said Lizzie gravely, "it was all perfectly natural. I +understand. I should have done just the same kind of thing, I expect, if +I'd been in your place." + +The fierceness of his voice showed her that he had been brooding for +weeks, and that life was, just now, harder than he could endure. + +"You can trust me a great deal farther than that, Mr. Breton," she said. + +"The other night," he began, "you said that I might talk to you. I've +been pretty lonely lately--and it would help me if----" + +"Anything you like," she assured him. + +"Besides, there's more than that," he went on. "You've heard--of course +you must have heard all kinds of things against me. You're in the +enemy's camp and I don't suppose they measure their words. I don't know +why you've been so decent to me as you have after what you must have +heard----" + +"Don't worry your head about that," she said. "We all have our enemies." + +"No, but now that we're friends I'd like you to know my side of it all. +I don't want to make myself out a hero or blacken all the other people, +but there _is_ something to be said for me--there _is_--there _is_----" + +He muttered these last words with the deepest intensity. He seemed to +fling them through the window into the square, as though he were +standing out there, on his defence, before all those listening lighted +windows. + +"I've been a fool--a thousand times. I've done silly things often and +once or twice bad, rotten things, but all these others--these virtuous +people who are so ready to judge me, have they been any better?" + +"My father was a scoundrel, although I loved him and would love him now +if he came back--but he was just as bad as they make 'em and there's no +use in denying it. He'd tell you so himself if he were here. He broke my +poor mother's heart and killed her. I don't remember her--I was no age +at all when she died--but I've got an old picture of her, kept it always +with me; she must have been rather like my cousin Rachel, who was here +the other day----" + +_Lizzie_ watched his face. There had left him now all that hint of +insincerity, of exaggeration that she had noticed when he had talked +before. She knew that he was telling her now absolutely the truth as he +saw it. + +"She died and after that I was taken about Europe with my father. We +lived in almost every capital in Europe--Berlin, Paris, Rome, Vienna, +everywhere. Sometimes we were rich, sometimes poor. Sometimes we knew +the very best people, sometimes the very worst. Sometimes I'd go to +school for a little, then I'd suddenly be taken away. My father was +splendid to me then; the best-looking man you ever saw, tall, broad, +carried himself magnificently--the finest man in Europe. I only knew, +bit by bit, the things that he used to do. It was cards most of the +time, and he taught me to play, of course, as he taught me to do +everything else. + +"When I was eighteen my eyes were opened--I tried to leave him--But I +loved him and I verily believe that I was the only human being in the +world that he cared for. Anyway, he died of fever and general +dissipation when I had just come of age, and I came home to England +with a little money and great hopes of putting myself right with the +world." + +As he had talked to her he had gathered confidence; her silence was, in +some way to him, reassuring and comforting. Some people have the gift of +listening without words so warmly, with such eloquence that they +reassure and console as no speech could ever do. This was Lizzie's gift, +and Breton, depending, more than most human beings, upon the protection +of his fellows, gathered courage. + +"My father had always taught me to hate my grandmother. He painted her +to me as I have since found her--remorseless, eaten up with pride, +cruel. I came home to England, meaning to lead a new life, to be +decent--as I'd always wanted to be. + +"Well, they wouldn't have me, not one of them. They pretended to at +first; and my Uncle John at least was sincere, I think, and was kind for +a time, but was afraid of my grandmother as they all were. +Christopher--you know him of course--was a real friend to me. He'd stood +up for my father before and he stood up for me now. But what was the +use? I was wild when I saw that my grandmother was against me and was +going to do her best to ruin me. I just didn't care then--what was the +good of it all? Other people encouraged me. The set in London that hated +my people would have done something with me, but I wouldn't be held by +anyone. + +"I'm not excusing myself," he said quietly, looking away from the window +and suddenly taking his judgment from her eyes. + +"I know you're not," she said, smiling back to him. + +"Cards finished me. I'd always loved gambling--I love it still--my +father had given me a good education in it. There were plenty of fellows +in town to take one on and--Oh! it's all such an old story now, not +worth digging up. But there was a house and a table and a young fool who +lost all he possessed and--well, did for himself. It had all been +square as far as I was concerned, but somebody had to be a scapegoat and +two or three of us were named. It was hushed up for the sake of the +young fellow's people, but everyone knew. Of course they all said, as +far as I was concerned, 'Like father like son,' and I think I minded +that more than anything----" + +"Oh! I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Lizzie said. + +"I give you my word of honour that it had all been straight as far as I +was concerned--gambling just as anyone might. That's what made me so +mad, to think of the rest of them--all so virtuous and good--and then +going off to Monte Carlo and losing or winning their little bit--just as +I'd done. + +"I tried to brazen it out for a bit, but it was no good. Christopher +still stuck by me--otherwise it was--well, the Under Ten, you +know----" + +"The Under Ten?" + +"Yes--all the men and women who've done something--once--done one of the +things that you mustn't do. It mayn't have been very bad, not half so +bad as the things--the cruel, mean things--that most people do every day +of their lives, but, once it's there, you're down, you're under. There's +a regular colony of them here in London; their life's amusing. There +they are, hanging on here, keeping up some pretence of gaiety, some kind +of decency, waiting, hoping that the day will come when they'll be taken +back again, when everything will be forgotten. They pretend, bravely +enough, not to mind their snubs, not to notice the kind people, once +their friends, who cut them now. Every now and again they make a spring +like fish to the top of the water, see the sun, hope that the light and +air are to be theirs again, after all--and then back they are pushed, +down into the dark, their element now, they are told. Oh! there's comedy +there, Miss Rand, if you care to look for it." + +She said nothing; the fierce bitterness in his voice had made him seem +older suddenly, as though, in this portion of his journey, be had spent +many, many years. + +"I must cut it short--you'll have had enough of this. I couldn't stand +it. I left London and went abroad. After that, what didn't I do? I was +everywhere, I did everything. Sometimes I was straight, sometimes I +wasn't. I was always bitter, wild with fury when I thought of that old +woman--of her complacency, sitting there and striking down all the poor +devils that had been less fortunate than she. All those years abroad I +nourished that anger and, at last, when I thought that I'd been abroad +long enough, that people would have forgotten, perhaps, and forgiven, I +came back. I came back to be revenged on my grandmother and to +re-establish myself. I'd got some money, enough for a little annuity, and +I was careful now--I wasn't going to make any mistakes this time." He +laughed bitterly. "One doesn't learn much with age. What a fool I was! +I've got the reputation I had before, whether I'm good or bad. It would +all be hopeless--utterly hopeless--if it weren't for one thing----" + +She looked up, and as she glanced at him, could feel the furious beating +of her heart. + +"I'd go back at once--I've almost gone back already--not abroad, that +never again for long--but back to my friends, the unfortunates--" He +laughed. "They're anxious to have me. They'll welcome me. I can have my +cards and the rest then, with no one to object or to lecture--and I'll +be done for quite nicely, completely done for." + +Then he pulled himself together, squared his shoulders. "But one thing +keeps me," he said. "Something's happened in the last few weeks--I've +met somebody----" + +"Yes," she said almost in a whisper. + +"Somebody who's made it worth while for me to fight on a bit." She could +feel his agitation: his voice, although he tried very hard to control +it, was shaking. Then he laughed, raised his voice and caught and held +her eyes with his. + +"But there, Miss Rand. I've talked a fearful lot, only I wanted to tell +you--I had to tell you. And now--if you feel--that you'd rather not +know me, you've only got to say so." + +She laughed a little unsteadily. + +"Thank you for taking me into your confidence. You shall never regret +it. I'm glad you're going to hold on, and, after all, we're all doing +that more or less." + +"It's done me a world of good talking like this. It's what I've been +wanting for months." + +She quieted her emotion. Looking out into the stars she knew that she +believed every word that he had said. She thought that she valued Truth +above every other quality; the directness that there was in Truth; its +honesty and clarity. He might not always be honest with her, but she +would never forget that he had, on this night, at least, spoken no +falsehood. + +Life--her work, her surroundings, Portland Place, her home--this was +full of falsehood and deceit and muddle. + +Here, this evening, at last, was honesty. + +They said no more, but sat there silently and listened to the echo of +dance music from some house. + +Mrs. Rand, whom their conversation had lured into oblivion of them, was +roused now by their silence. + +She looked up. "It's quite splendid," she said, "you must read it, +Lizzie. The part about the Riviera is lovely." Then, slowly remembering, +"Really, Mr. Breton, I'm afraid you must consider me very rude." + +He came towards her, assuring her that his evening had been delightful. + +Lizzie was happy, happier than she could ever remember to have been +before. She felt her cheeks burn. She leant out of the window to cool +them. She flung back, over her shoulder: + +"By the way, Mr. Breton--a piece of gossip. Your cousin is to marry Sir +Roderick Seddon!" + +She could not see him. He said nothing. Mrs. Rand said: + +"Really, Lizzie! How interesting! How long's that been announced?" + +"Oh! it isn't announced. I don't believe that he's even asked her, but +all the house knows it. It's settled. I believe she likes him immensely +and, of course, the Duchess is devoted to him." + +Anything would do to talk about. What did it matter? Only that she +should keep on talking so that they should not see how happy she +was--how happy! + +He said good night, rather sharply; his voice was constrained as though +he too were keeping in his emotion. + +After he had gone Mrs. Rand said, "I don't like him, my dear. I can't +help it--you may laugh at me--but my impressions are always right. He +hardly spoke to me all the evening." + +"Why, mother, you were reading. How could he?" + +"That's all very well, but I don't like him. And I believe he's in love +with his cousin. He went quite white when you spoke about the +engagement." + +"Mother--how absurd you are. He's only seen her once----" + +"Well, my dear, that's a book you ought to read; really, I haven't +enjoyed anything so much for weeks. I simply----" + +Up in her bedroom Lizzie flung wide her window and laughed at the golden +moon. Then she lay, for hours, staring at the pale light that it flung +upon her ceiling. + +Oh! what a fool she was! But she was happy, happy, happy. And he needed +someone to look after him--he did, indeed! + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +HER GRACE'S DAY + + +I + +The Duchess had suffered, during the last five or six years, from +sleeplessness, and throughout these hot days and nights of June and July +sleep almost deserted her. Grimly she gave it no quarter, allowing to no +one that she was sleeping badly, pretending even to Christopher that all +was well. + +Nevertheless those long dark hours began to tell upon her. She had known +many nights sleepless through pain, certain nights sleepless through +anxiety, but they, terrible though they had been, had not worn so stern +a look as these long black spaces of time when all rest and comfort +seemed to be drawn from her by some mysterious hand. + +To herself now she admitted that she dreaded that moment when Dorchester +left her; she began to do what she had never in her life done before, to +fall asleep during the daytime. Small mercy to anyone who might attract +any attention to those little naps. + +She fell asleep often towards six or seven and, therefore, without any +comment, Dorchester, seeing her fatigue, left her to sleep until late in +the morning. She had not for many years left her room before midday, but +she had been awake with her correspondence and the papers by half-past +seven at the latest. Now it was often eleven before she awoke. + +She found that she did not awake with the energy and freshness that she +had always known before. About her there always hovered a great cloud of +fatigue--something not quite present, but threatening at any moment to +descend. + +On a certain morning late in July she awoke after two or three hours' +restless sleep. As she woke she was conscious that those hours had not +removed from her that threatening cloud: she heard a clock strike +eleven. Dorchester was drawing back the curtains and from behind the +blinds there leapt upon her a blazing, torrid day. + +Her bedroom carried on the touch of fantasy that her other room had +shown; she was lying in a red lacquer Japanese bed that mounted up +behind her like a throne. Her wall-paper was an embossed dull gold and +the chairs were carved Indian, of black ebony. + +Lying in bed she appeared very old and ugly; the sharp nose was +exceedingly prominent and her white hair scattered about the pillow gave +her face the colour of dried parchment. + +Dorchester brought her her chocolate and her letters and _The Times_ and +the _Morning Post_. + +"Another terribly hot day, your Grace." + +"Yes--I suppose so." As she took her letters she felt, for the first +time in her life, that it would perhaps be better to lie in bed for the +rest of her life and conduct the world from there. + +She put the letters down and stared at the day-- + +"Draw the curtains again, Dorchester, and kindly ask Lady Adela if she +will be so good as to come and see me in a quarter of an hour's time." + +When Dorchester had gone she lay back and closed her eyes and dozed +again, whilst the chocolate grew cold and the births and deaths and +marriages grew aged and stale. She did not care, she did not want to see +her daughter ... she did not want to see anyone, nor was there anything +now in the world worth her energy or trouble. Her body, being now at +ease, was called back to days, brighter days, days filled with thrilling +events and thrilling people, days when the world was a world and not a +dried-up cinder. Those were men ... those were women ... and then, +suddenly, she was conscious first that her daughter was speaking and +then that her daughter was a tiresome fool. + +She sat up a little and her nightdress fell back showing a neck bony, +crinkled and yellow. + +"I said a quarter of an hour," she snapped. + +"It is a quarter of an hour, mother," said Lady Adela. + +Lady Adela hated and dreaded these morning interviews. In the first +place she disliked the decorations of her mother's bedroom, thought them +almost indecent, and could never be comfortable in such surroundings. +She was also aware, by long experience, that her mother was always at +her worst at this hour in the morning and many were the storms of temper +that that absurd bed and those unpleasant black chairs had witnessed. +Thirdly she knew that she herself looked her worst and was her weakest +amongst these eccentricities and shadowed by this dim light. + +She waited now whilst her mother fumbled her letters. + +"There's your chocolate, mother," she said at last. "It'll be cold." + +The Duchess was looking at her letters, but was absorbing only a little +of their contents. She was summoning all her will to her aid; she wanted +to order the blind to be pulled down, to command her daughter to avoid +her presence for at least a week, to scatter her correspondence to the +four corners of the earth, and to see none of it again; at the same time +she was driving into her brain the fact that before Adela, of all people +in the world, she must be alert and wise and wonderful; Adela, the +ugliest and most foolish of living women, must see no weakness. + +"Shall I read your letters to you, mother?" + +She did not answer; slowly, steadily at last, her will was flooding her +brain. She could feel the warmth and the colour and the strength of it +pervading again her body. The day did not now appear of so appalling a +heat and the weight of the things to be done was less heavy upon her. + +Lady Adela, meanwhile, watching her mother was struck once again by that +chill dismay that had alarmed her first on that May evening, after the +visit to the picture gallery. In that half-light her mother did seem +very, very old and very, very feeble. Lady Adela had a dreadful +temptation to say in a brusque sharp voice, "What do you let your +chocolate get cold like that for? Why don't you get someone to read your +letters sensibly to you instead of groping through them like that?" and +at the mere horror of such a thought a shudder shook her and her heart +began wildly to beat. Let once such words as those cross her lips and an +edifice, a wonderful, towering temple raised by submissions and subduals +and self-denials, would tumble to the ground. + +For some moments the struggle in Lady Adela's breast was sharp, then by +a tense dominion of her will she produced once again for herself the +Ceremonial, the Terror, the agitated, humble Submission. + +"Julia Massiter," the Duchess said, "has asked Rachel for the last +week-end in July--She'll go of course----" + +"Yes," said Lady Adela. + +"Roddy Seddon is going----" + +"Yes." + +"Roddy is going to marry Rachel. He's coming to see me this afternoon." + +Lady Adela was silent. + +"A very suitable business. I'd intended it for a long time." Then, after +a pause-- + +"You may tell Dorchester I will dress now." + +Lady Adela, conscious, as she left the room, of the relief of her +dismissal, joyfully yielded that relief as witness-- + +The Terror was still there, and she was glad. + + +II + +Very different, however, at three in the afternoon. Now she sat in her +high black chair waiting for Roddy Seddon. Very difficult now to imagine +that early discourage of the morning. Magnificent now with her black +dress and flashing eyes and white hair, waiting for Roddy Seddon. + +This that she had long planned was at length to come to pass. Roddy +Seddon was to be united to the Beaminster family, never again to be +separated from it. + +Of Rachel she thought not at all. She had never liked Rachel; indeed it +was a more positive feeling than that. Alone of all the family was +Rachel still in rebellion; even the Duke, although he was so often +abroad or in the country (he hated London), was submissive enough when +he was with them. But Rachel the old woman knew that she had not +touched. + +Frightened--yes. The girl hated that evening half-hour and would give a +great deal to avoid it, but the terror that she showed did not bring her +any closer to her grandmother's power; she stood outside and away. + +The Duchess had attempted to influence the girl's brain, to catch some +trait, some preference, some dislike, that she could hold and use. + +Still Rachel's soul was beyond her grasp, beyond even her guessing at. +But she knew Roddy Seddon--she knew Roddy Seddon as no one knew him. And +Roddy Seddon knew her. + +Even when he was a boy he had known her as no one else knew her. He had +seen through all her embroideries and disguises, had known where she was +theatrical and why she was so, had discovered her plots and prides, her +defeats and victories--and together they two, Pagan to the very bone of +them, had laughed at a credulous, superstitious world. + +The London that knew Roddy Seddon thought him a country bumpkin with +dissipated tastes and an amiable heart. But she knew him better than +that. He was not clever--no. He was amazingly innocent of books, he had +no intellectual attainments whatever--yet had he received any kind of +education, she knew that he might have had one of the finest brains in +the country. + +He had preferred dogs and horses and the simple enjoyments of his +sensations. + +Bowing to the outward rules and laws of the modern world he was less +modern than anyone she had ever known. + +Pagan--root and branch Pagan. In his simplicities, in his complexities, +in his moralities and immoralities, in his kindnesses and +cruelties--Pagan. + +When they were together it was astonishing the number of trappings that +they were able to discard. They were Pagan together. + +But Rachel? Rachel? + +Well, Rachel did not matter. It would be a rather good sight to see +Rachel suffer, to watch her proud spirit up against something that she +could not understand. + +And meanwhile the Beaminster family was strengthened by a great addition +and the campaign against this new generation, that refused to be led, +that wished to lead, that thought itself so very, very brilliant, should +go victoriously forward.... + +"Sir Roderick Seddon, your Grace." + +As she looked at the healthy and red-faced Roddy sitting opposite to +her, for an instant, some sharp warning, some foreordained consciousness +of trouble to come, bade her pause. She knew that a word from her, now, +would be enough to prevent the match. He would not prosecute it were she +against it. After all, ought Roddy to marry anybody? Could a girl, as +ignorant of the world as Rachel, put up any fight against Roddy's simple +complexities? + +What, after all, did Roddy think of the girl? Did he imagine that he was +in love with her? Did he know her, understand her? + +Then, looking at him, the affection that she had for him--the only +affection that she had for anyone in the world--swept over her. This +marriage would bind him to her, would give her another ally before the +world--yes, it should go on. + +She smiled at him. + +"Well, Roddy, have you no news for me, now?" + +He had been silent, gazing before him, his brows puckered. + +Now he smiled back at her. + +"Well, there's been the usual doin's the last week or two. I've been +dancin' every night till I'm tired. 'Bout time for the country agen----" + +"Have you been down to Seddon at all?" + +"Yes. Two nights last week--all dried up--Place wants me a bit oftener +down there----" + +"What's this I hear about young Olive Ormond marrying Besset Crewe's +daughter?" + +"So they say--can't imagine it myself. The girl's about eighty-four and +a half and he's the most awful kid. Saw them at the opera the other +night----" + +"What about Scotland this summer, Roddy? Are you going?" + +"Don't think so. Depends----" + +Then there was silence. The little conversation had been as stiff as it +was possible a conversation could be. The China dragons must have +wondered--never before so constrained a dialogue between these two! + +Now another pause, then suddenly Roddy, his hands clutching one another, +his face redder than ever-- + +"I want--I wonder--dash it--have I your leave to ask your granddaughter +to marry me?" + +She laughed. + +"Really, my dear Roddy, you've been very long about it--coming out with +it, I mean. Didn't you know and didn't I know that that's what you came +for to-day?" + +"Well then, may I?" + +She paused and watched his anxiety. Between both of them there hung, +now, the recollection of so many things--conversations and deeds and +thoughts known to both of them, so many, many things that no others in +all the world could know. She waited for his eyes, caught them and held +them. + +"Are you in love with her?" + +"Yes--that is--she's splendid----" + +"You haven't known her very long and you're a little impulsive, ain't +you, Roddy, about these things?" + +"No--I don't know her now. But we've seen a lot of one another these +last months--a fearful lot. She's--oh! hang it! I never can say +things--but she's a brick." + +"Do you think she'll accept you?" + +"How can any feller tell? I think she likes me--she's odd----" + +"Yes--she is--very. She's a mixture--she's very young--and she won't +understand you." + +His eyes were suddenly troubled and, as she saw that trouble, she was +alarmed. He really _did_ care.... + +"Yes, I know--I don't understand myself. I'm wild sometimes--I wish I +weren't----" + +"Marriage is going to make you a model character, Roddy. Of course I'm +glad--but it won't be easy, you know. And she won't be easy." + +"I want her though. I've never thought of marriage before. I do want +her." + +"My dear Roddy, you speak as though she were a sheep or a dog. It's only +her first season. Don't you think you'd better wait a little?" + +"No. I want her now." + +"Well, you're definite enough--" She paused and then, in a voice that +had, in spite of her, real emotion, "You have my consent. You've got +_my_ blessing." + +He rose and came clumsily towards her. + +"You don't know--I'm no use at words, but I'm dam' grateful--Rippin' of +you!" + +For a second he touched her dried, withered hand--how cold it was! and +in this hot weather, too. + +"You'll ask her at Julia Massiter's next week?" + +"Expect so--I say you are----" + +Then he sat down again. The room was relieved of an immense burden; once +more they were at ease together. + +"The other night--" he said, bending forward and chuckling ever so +little. + + +III + +Lady Carloes, Agnes Lady Farnet, and old Mrs. Brunning were coming to +play bridge with her. The ceremonial was ever the same! They arrived at +half-past nine and at half-past eleven supper for four was served in the +Duchess's little green room, behind her bedroom (a little room like a +box with a green wall-paper, a card-table and silver candlesticks). They +played, sometimes, until three or four o'clock in the morning; the +Duchess played an exceedingly good game and Mrs. Brunning (a bony little +woman like a plucked chicken) was the best bridge player in London. The +other two were moderate, but made mistakes which allowed the Duchess the +free use of her most caustic wit and satire. + +Lord John came just before dinner as he always did for a few minutes +every evening. He stood there, fat and smiling and amiable and, as +always, a little nervous. + +"Well, John?" + +She liked John the best of her children, although he was, of course, the +most fearful fool, but she liked his big broad face and he was always +clean and healthy; moreover, she could use him more easily than any of +them. + +"Bridge to-night, mother, isn't it?" + +"Yes. Not so hot this evening. Just give me that book. Turn the lamp up +a little--no--not that one. The de Goncourt book. Yes. Thank you." + +"Anything I can get for you, mother? Anyone I can send to you?" + +He was thinking, as he smiled down at her, "She's old to-night--old and +tired. This hot weather...." + +She looked up at him before she settled herself-- + +"Roddy Seddon came this afternoon----" + +"Yes. I know." + +Suddenly his heart began to beat. He had known, during all these last +weeks, of what the common talk had been. He knew, too, what his +conscience had told him, and he knew, too, how perpetually he had +silenced that same conscience. + +"He asked me whether he had my permission to propose to Rachel----" + +"Yes." + +"Of course I gave it him. I thought it most suitable in every way." + +Now was Lord John's moment. He knew, even as it descended upon him, what +was the right to do. He must protest--Roddy Seddon was not the right man +to marry Rachel, Rachel who was to him more than anyone in the world-- + +He must protest-- + +And then with that impulse went the old warning that because his mother +seemed to him older and feebler to-night than he had ever known her, +therefore if he spoke now, it would involve far more than the immediate +dispute. There was a sudden impulse in him to risk discomfort, to risk a +scene, to break, perhaps, in the new assertion of his authority, all the +old domination, to smash a tradition to pieces. + +He glanced at his mother. She met his eyes. He knew that she was daring +him to speak. After all to-morrow would be a better time--she was tired +now--he would speak then. His eyes fell, and after a pause and a word +about some indifferent matter, he said good night and went. + + +IV + +Once, in some early hour of the morning when the candles were burning +low, the thought of Rachel came to her. + +Even as she noticed that her hand shone magnificently with hearts she +was conscious that the girl stood opposite to her, there against the +green wall, straight and fierce, all black and white, looking at her. + +Christopher? John?... + +For a second her brain was clouded. Might she not have attempted some +relationship with the girl? Given her some counsel and a little +kindness? She must have been lonely there in that great house without a +friend. She was going now into a very perilous business. + +She pushed the weakness from her. Her eyes were again upon the cards. + +"Hearts," she said. The odd trick this game and it was her rubber. The +dying flame rose in the silver sconces and the four old heads bobbed, +wildly, fantastically, upon the wall. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +DEFIANCE OF THE TIGER--I + + +I + +Rachel sat in the train with Aunt Adela and Uncle John: they were on +their way to Trunton St. Perth, Lord Massiter's country house. It was a +July day softened with cool airs and watered colours; trees and fields +were mingled with sky and cloud; through the counties there was the echo +of running streams, only against an earth fading into sky and a sky +bending and embracing earth, sharp, with hard edges, the walls and +towers that man had piled together showed their outlines cut as with a +sword. + +Over all the country in the pale blue of the afternoon sky a great moon +was burning and the corn ran in fine abundance to the summit of the +hills. + +Rachel, as the train plunged with her into the heart of Sussex, was +gazing happily through the window, dreaming, almost dozing, feeling in +every part of her a warm and grateful content. Opposite to her Aunt +Adela, gaunt and with the expression that she always wore in trains as +of one whose person and property were in danger, at any instant, of +total destruction, read a life of a recently deceased general whose +widow she knew. Uncle John, with three illustrated papers, was +interested in photographs of people with one leg in the air and their +mouths wide open; every now and again he would say (to nobody in +particular), "There's old Reggie Cutler with that foreign woman--_you_ +know"--or "Fancy Shorty Monmouth being at Cowes after all this year--you +know we heard----" + +Rachel had been having a wonderful time--that was the great fact that +ran, up and down, through her dozing thoughts. Yes, a wonderful time. It +was surely, now, a century ago, that strange period when she had +dreaded, so terribly, her plunge. + +That day, after her visit to the Bond Street gallery, when it had all +seemed simply more than she could possibly encounter, those talks with +May Eversley (who, by the way, had just announced herself as engaged to +a middle-aged baronet) when the world had frowned down from a vast, +incredible height upon a miserably terrified midget. Why! the absurdity +of it! It had all been as easy, simply as easy as though she had been +plunged in the very heart of it all her life. + +Followed there swiftly upon that the knowledge that Roddy Seddon was to +be, for this same week-end, at Lady Massiter's. Rachel did not pretend +that, ever since that _Meistersinger_ night at the opera she had not +known of his attentions to her--impossible to avoid them had she wished, +impossible to pretend ignorance of the meaning that his inarticulate +sentences had, of late, conveyed, impossible to mistake the laughing +hints and suggestions of May and the others. + +She did not know what answer she would give did he ask her to marry him. +At that concrete suggestion her doze left her and, sitting up, staring +out at the wonderful day into whose heart muffled lights were now +creeping, she asked herself what, indeed, was her real thought of him. + +He was to her as were Uncle John and Dr. Christopher--safe, kind, +simple. He appealed to everything in her that longed for life to be +clear, comfortable, without danger. She loved his happiness in all +out-of-door things--horses and dogs and fields and his little place in +Sussex. Ever since that visit to Uncle Richard's fans she had suspected +him of other appreciations and enthusiasms, perhaps she might in time +encourage those hidden things in him. + +Above all did she find him true, straight, honest. Lies, little +mannerisms, disguises, these were not in him, he was as clear to her as +a mirror, she would trust him beyond anyone she knew. + +He did not touch in any part of him that other secret, wild, unreal +life of hers, and indeed that was, in him, the most reassuring thing of +all. + +The Rachel who was in rebellion, to whom everything of her London life, +everything Beaminster, was hateful, whose sudden memories and instincts, +whose swift alarms and fore-warnings were so shattering to every +clinging security that life might offer--this Rachel knew nothing of +Roddy Seddon. + +He was there to take her away from that, to drive it all into darkness, +to reassure her against its return, and marriage with him would mean +release, security, best of all freedom from her grandmother who knew, so +well, that life in her and loved to play with that knowledge. Her colour +rose and her eyes shone as she thought of what this so early escape from +the Portland Place house would mean to her. Already, in her first +season, to be free of it all--to be free of humbug and deception--Oh! +for that would she not surrender everything in the world? + +Roddy, as she pictured him, with his clean life, his love of nature, his +kindliness, seemed, just then, the safest refuge that would ever be +offered to her. + +And at that, without reason, she saw before her her cousin Francis +Breton. Several times she had met him since that first occasion at +Lizzie Rand's. Once again at Lizzie's and twice in Regent's Park when +she had been walking with May. + +Yes--that was all. Thinking of it now the meetings appeared to her +almost infinite. Between each actual encounter intimacy seemed to leap +in its progress, and although, on at least two of them, he had only +walked with her for the shortest period, yet, always with them, she was +conscious of the number of things that, between them, did not need to be +said--knowledge that they shared. + +In all this there was, with her, a confusion of motives and sensations +that, at present, refused to be disentangled. For one thing there was, +in all of this, a furtiveness, a secrecy, that she loathed. Against +that was the persuasion that it would be the finest thing in the world +for her to bring him back into the Beaminster fold, not, of course, that +he should remain there (he was far too strong and adventurous for that), +but that, accepted there, he could use it as a springing-off board for +success and fortune. Let her once, as the situation now was, say a word +to Uncle John or the others, and that of course was the end.... + +She knew, quite definitely, that now she wished that she had never met +him. + +He had been, during these weeks, the only influence that had drawn that +other Rachel to the light. It was always that other Rachel that met +him--someone alarming, rebellious, conscious of unhappiness, and +apprehensive, above everything, that in some hidden manner she was being +untrue to her real self. + +At such moments it was as though she had blinded some force within her, +muffled it, stifled it, because her way through the world was easier +with it so muffled, so stifled. + +At some future time, what if there should leap out upon her that muffled +figure, bursting its bonds, refusing any longer to be silenced, +proclaiming the world no easy, comfortable place, but a battle, a +fierce, unresting war? + +When she thought of Breton it was as though she knew herself for a +coward, as though he had threatened to expose her for one, and as though +(and this was the worst of all) something in her was eager that he +should-- + +Against this there was the peace, the security that Roddy could offer +her.... + +Beaminster security, perhaps--nevertheless.... + +They were at Trunton St. Perth. The little station glittered in the +evening air. It was all suddenly thrilling. Who would be there? What +might not happen before Monday? + + +II + +In the high beautiful hall where they all stood about and had tea she +could see who they were. There was a girl whom she had met on several +occasions this season, Nita Raseley, there was a large florid cheerful +person who was, she discovered, Maurice Garden, the well-known and +popular novelist, there was his wife, there was a thin intellectual +cousin of Lady Massiter's, Miss Rawson, old and plain enough for her +cleverness to have turned to acidity, Roddy Seddon and, of course, Lord +and Lady Massiter. + +Lord Massiter was large and florid like the novelist, and when they +stood together by the fireplace foreign customs and languages were +suddenly absurd, so English was the atmosphere. Lady Massiter was also +large, but she had the kind and warm placidity that makes some women the +type of all maternity. She would be, Rachel felt, a sure resource in all +time of trouble and she would also be entirely unsatisfactory as an +intimate personal friend. She would, like philanthropists and clergymen, +love people by the mass, never by the individual. + +Nita Raseley was pink and white, with large blue eyes that confided in +everyone they looked at. Her laugh was a little shrill, her clothes very +beautiful, and men liked her. + +So there they all were. + +She had said good day to Roddy and then had moved away from him, +governed by some self-consciousness and the conviction that Nita +Raseley's blue eyes were upon her. + +It was all very cheerful and very English as they stood talking there, +and the doors beyond the hall showed through their dark frames green +lawns and terraces soaked in evening light. It was all very, very +comfortable. + +As she dressed for dinner Rachel had her windows open, so hot was the +night, and she could watch the evening star that shone with a wonderful +brilliance above a dark little wood that crowned a rise beyond the +gardens. She had a maid who was very young indeed; this was her first +place, but she had, during the three months, learnt with great quickness +and had attached herself to her mistress with the most burning devotion. +She was a silent, unusual girl and kept herself apart from the rest of +the servants. + +Rachel as she sat before her dressing-table could see in that mirror the +dark reflection of the twilit garden. + +"It's a lovely place, Lucy----" + +"Yes, Miss Rachel." + +"Are you glad to get away from London?" + +"It has been hot there these last weeks." + +Rachel met in the glass the girl's black eyes. They were searching +Rachel's face. + +"Lucy, would you rather live in London or in the country?" + +"I don't mind, Miss Rachel." Then after a little pause: "I hope I've +give satisfaction these last weeks?" + +"Why, yes, of course." + +"Then I hope, miss, that you'll allow me to stay with you whether--in +London or the country." + +The colour mounted to Rachel's cheeks. + +"I hope there'll be no need for any change," she said. + +She found when she came down to the drawing-room that Monty Carfax had +arrived. Monty Carfax was the chief of the young men who were, just at +that time, entertaining London dinner-tables. About half a dozen of +God's creatures, under thirty and perfectly dressed, with faces like +tombstones and the laugh of the peacock, went from house to house in +London and mocked at the world. + +They belonged, as the mediæval jesters belonged, each to his own court, +and Monty Carfax, certainly the cleverest of them, was attached to the +Beaminster Court and served the Duchess by faith, if not by sight. + +Rachel hated him and always, when she found herself next to him, wrapped +herself in her old farouche manner and behaved like an awkward +schoolgirl. + +She was terribly disappointed at discovering that he was going to take +her into dinner to-night; he knew that she disliked him and felt it a +compliment that a raw creature fresh from the schoolroom should fail to +appreciate him; on this occasion he devoted himself to the elderly +Massiter cousin on his other side--throughout dinner they happily +undressed the world and found it sawdust. + +Rachel meanwhile found Maurice Garden her other companion. He genially +enjoyed his dinner and talked in a loud voice and prepared the answers +that he always gave to ladies who asked him when he wrote, whether he +thought of his plots or his characters first, and "she did hope he +wouldn't mind her saying that of all his books the one----" + +He frankly liked these questions and was taken by surprise when Rachel +said: + +"I've never read any of your novels, Mr. Garden, so I won't pretend----" + +He asked her what she did read. + +"Have you ever read anything by an author called Peter Westcott?" + +"Westcott? Westcott?... Let me see ... Westcott?... Well now--One of the +young men, isn't he?" + +"Yes. He wrote a book called _Reuben Hallard_." + +"Ah yes. I remember about _Reuben Hallard_--had quite a little success +as a first book. He's one of your high-brow young men, all for Art and +the rest of it. We all begin like that, Miss Beaminster. I was like that +myself once----" + +She looked at him coolly. + +"Why did you give it up?" + +"Simply didn't pay, you know--not a penny in it. And why should there +be? People don't want to know what a young ass thinks about life if he +can't tell a story. All young men think the same--green leaves, moons +and stars and lots of symbols, you know--all good enough if they don't +expect people to pay for it." + +"I think _Reuben Hallard's_ a fine book," she said, "and so are some of +the others. After all, everyone doesn't want only a plot in a book." + +He looked at her with patronizing kindness. "Well, you see if your Mr. +Westcott doesn't change. Every writer wants an audience whatever he may +pretend, and the best way to get a audience is to give the audience what +it wants. It needs unusual courage to sit on a packing-case year after +year and shave in a broken looking-glass----" + +She looked round the table. Everyone was happy. The butler was fat and +had the face of a Roman emperor, the food was very, very good, Nita +Raseley and Roddy laughed and laughed and laughed-- + +Suddenly Rachel's heart jumped in her body. Oh! she was glad; glad that +Roddy cared for her and would look after her, because otherwise she +didn't know what violence she might suddenly commit, what desperations +she might not engage upon, what rebels and outlaws she would not +support-- + +What Outlaws! And then, looking beyond the thickly curtained windows, +she could fancy that she could see one gravely standing out there on the +lawn, standing with his one arm and his pointed beard and his eyes +appealing to be let in. + +Then there was an ice that was so good that Peter Westcott and Francis +Breton seemed more outcast than ever. + + +III + +After dinner, when the men had come into the drawing-room, they all went +out into the gardens. It was such a night of stars as Rachel had never +seen, so dense an army that all earth was conscious of them; the sky was +sheeted silver, here fading into their clouded tracery, there, at fairy +points drawing the dark woods and fields up to its splendour with lines +of fire. The world throbbed with stars, was restless under the glory of +them--God walked in all gardens that night. + +At first Nita Raseley, Monty Carfax, Rachel and Roddy went together, +then, turning up a little path into the little wood that rose above the +garden, Rachel and Roddy were alone. + +They found the trunk of a tree and sat down--Behind them the trees were +thin enough to show the stars, below them in a dusk lit by that +glimmering lustre that starlight flings--a glow that would be flame were +it not dimmed by distance immeasurable--they could see the lawns and +hedges of the garden and across the dark now and again some white figure +showed for an instant and was gone. The house behind the shadows rose +sharp and black. + +Roddy looked big and solid sitting there. Rachel sat, even now uncertain +that she did not see Francis Breton in front of her, looking down, as +she did, into the shadowy garden. + +"I hope," she said abruptly, "that you don't like Monty Carfax." + +"I've never thought about him," he said. "He's certainly no pal of +mine--why?" + +"Because I hate him," she said fiercely. "What right has he got to +_exist_ on a night like this?" + +"He's always supposed to be a very clever feller," Roddy said slowly. +"But I think him a silly sort of ass--knows nothin' about dogs or +horses, can't play any game, only talks clever to women----" + +"I can't bear that sort of man and I don't like Mr. Garden either. He's +so fat and he loves his food." + +"So do I," said Roddy quite simply. "I love it too. It was a jolly good +dinner to-night." + +She said nothing and then, when he had waited a little, he said +anxiously: + +"I say, Miss Beaminster, we've been such jolly good friends--all these +weeks. And yet--sometimes--I'm afraid you think me the most awful +fool----" + +She laughed. "I think you are about some things, but then--so am I about +a good many things--most of your things----" + +"Look here, Miss Beaminster--I wish you'd help me about things I'm an +ass in. You can, you know--I'd be most awfully glad." + +"What," she said, turning round and facing him, "are the things you +really care about?" + +"The things? ... care about?" + +"Yes--really----" + +"Well! Oh! animals and bein' out in the open and shootin' and ridin' and +fishin'--any old exercise--and comin' up to town for a buck every now +and again, and then goin' back and seein' no one, and my old place +and--oh! I don't know," he ended. + +"You wouldn't tell anyone a lie, would you, about things you liked and +didn't like?" + +"It wouldn't be much use if I did," he said, laughing. "They'd find me +out in a minute----" + +"No, but would you? If you were with a number of people who thought art +the thing to care about and knew nothing about dogs and horses, would +you say you cared about art more than anything?" + +"No," he said slowly. "No--but sometimes, you see, pictures and music +and such do please me--like anything--I can't put into words, but I +might suddenly be in any old mood--for pictures, or your uncle's fans, +or dogs or the Empire or these jolly old stars--Why, there, you see I +just let it go on--the mood, I mean, till it's over----" Then he added +with a great sigh, "But I am a dash fool at explainin'----" + +"But I know you wouldn't be like Mr. Garden or Mr. Carfax--just +pretending not to like the thing because it's the thing not to. Or like +Aunt Adela, who picks up a phrase about a book or picture from some +clever man and then uses it everywhere." + +"I should never remember it--a phrase or anythin'--I never can remember +what a feller says----" + +"Oh! I know you'd always be honest about these things. I feel you +would--about everything. It's all these lies that are so impossible: I +think I've come to feel now after this first season that the only thing +that matters is being straight. It is the only thing--if a person just +gives you what they've got--what _they've_ got, not what someone else is +supposed to have. May Eversley used to say that people's minds are like +soup--thick or clear--but they're only thick because they let them get +thick with other people's opinions--you don't mind all this?" she said, +suddenly pausing, afraid lest he should be bored. + +"It's most awfully interestin'," he said from the bottom of his heart. + +"There are some men and women--I've met one or two--who're just made up +of Truth. You know it the minute you're with them. And they'll have +pluck too, of course--Courage goes with it. Our family," she ended, "are +of course the most terrible liars that have ever been--ever----" + +"Oh! I say----" he began, protesting. + +"Oh! but yes--they run everything on it. My uncle Richard ran through +Parliament beautifully because he never said what he meant. And Aunt +Adela--_and_ Uncle John, although he's a dear. But then my grandmother +brought them up to it. My grandmother would have about three clever +people and then muddle all the rest so that the three clever ones can +have everything in their hands----" + +"Look here," he broke in, "I'm most awfully fond of your +grandmother--we're tremendous pals----" + +"You may be--I hate her. Oh! I don't hate her with melodrama, I don't +want to strangle her or beat her face or burn her, but I'm frightened of +her and she's always making me do things I'm ashamed of. That's the best +reason for hating anyone there is." + +"But she's such a sportsman. One of the old kind. One----." + +"Oh! I know all that you can say. I've heard it so many times. But +she's all wrong. There isn't any good in her. She's just remorseless and +selfish and stubborn. She thinks she ran the world once and she wants to +do it still." + +"That's all rather fine, _I_ think," said Roddy. "I agree with her a +bit. I think most people have _got_ to be run--they just can't run +themselves, so you have to put things into them." + +"Well, that's just where we differ," she said sharply. "It isn't so. +That's where all the muddle comes in. If everyone were just himself +without anything _borrowed_--Oh! the brave world it'd be----" + +Then she laughed. "But I'm all wrong myself, you know. I'm as muddled as +anyone. I've got all the true, real me there, but all the Beaminster +part has slurred it over. But I've got a horrid fear that Truth gets +tired of waiting too long. One day, when you're not expecting it, it +comes up and says--'Now you choose--your only chance. _Are_ you going to +use me or not? If not, I'm going'--How awful if one didn't realize the +moment was there, and missed it." + +She was laughing, but in her heart that other woman in her was stirring. +For a startled, trembling second the wood seemed to flame, the gardens +to blaze with the challenge: + +"Are you, for the sake of the comfort and safety of life, playing false? +Which way are you going?" + +She burst into laughter, she caught Roddy by the arm. "Oh! I've talked +such nonsense--It's getting cold--we've got to go in. Don't think I talk +like that generally, Sir Roderick, because I don't--I----" + +She was nervous, frightened. The stars were so many and it was so dark +and Roddy no longer seemed a protection. + +"I know it's late--Look here, I'm going to run--Race me----" + +She tore for her very life out of the little wood, felt him pounding +behind her, seized, with a gasp of relief, the lights and the voices-- + +She knew, with joy, that Roddy was closing the door behind her and that +the garden and the stars and the wood were shut into silence. + +For a little while, in the drawing-room, she talked excitedly, laughed a +great deal, even at Monty Carfax's jokes. + +She knew that they were all thinking that she was pleased because she +had been with Roddy. She did not care what their thoughts were. + +At last in her room she cried to Lucy--"Pull the curtains +tight--Tighter--Tighter--Those stars--they'll get through anything." + +When at last Lucy was gone she lit her candle and lay there, hearing the +clocks strike the hours, wondering when the day would come. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +DEFIANCE OF THE TIGER--II + + +I + +Roddy, dozing after a night of glorious sleep, lay on his back and swung +happily to and fro. + +The footman who was valeting him had pulled up the blind and drawn aside +the curtains, and the garden came to him, not as on last evening, +weighed with its canopy of stars, but now asserting its own happiness +and colour and freshness. + +The man said: "The bathroom is the last door down the passage on your +right, sir. Breakfast is at half-past nine. It has just gone eight. What +clothes, sir?" + +Roddy stared at him and smiled. After a little time, the man enquired +again: "Which suit will you wear this morning, sir?" + +"Dark blue." Roddy, still happily floating somewhere near the +ceiling--floating with delicious lightness--"Dark blue--Dark blue--Dark +blue----" + +For a little while the man, a strange vague shape, pulled out drawers +and closed them and walked about the floor, like Agag, delicately. +Roddy, from the ceiling watched him and resented the fact that every +sharp click of a drawer pulled him nearer to the carpet. + +The man's final shutting of the bedroom door plumped Roddy into his bed, +wide awake. + +"Damn him! What a wonderful day!" + +He lay back and watched how waves of light danced on the walls. A +fountain splashed in the gardens and the long mirror on the right of the +bed had in it the corner of the green lawn and the cool grey stones of +an old wall. + +Roddy lay on his back and allowed his sensations to run up and down his +body. It was for moments such as this that his life was intended. He +lived, deliberately and without any selfishness in the matter, for the +emotions that the good old god Pan might choose to provide for him. + +He did not know Pan by name except as a silly fancy dress that Monty +Carfax had once worn at a fancy-dress dance and as Someone alluded to +every now and again, vaguely, in the papers, but even though he did not +call him by name he, nevertheless, paid, without question, his daily +homage. + +When, as on this beautiful morning, one had only to lie down and be +instantly conscious of a thousand things--sheep moving slowly across +hills, cattle browing in deep pools, those Downs that he loved rising, +slowly, like aged men, to greet a new day--then one questioned nothing, +one argued nothing, one needed no words, one was happy from the crown of +one's head to the toes of one's feet. + +On this especial morning these delights were connected with the fact +that, during the day, he intended to propose marriage to Rachel +Beaminster. He thought of her, now, as she had looked last night, +sitting in that wood, in a pale blue dress, with the stars behind her, +staring, so seriously, down into the garden. She had been very beautiful +last night, and it had been a splendid moment--not more splendid than +other moments that he had had, but splendid enough to remember. + +He was always prepared for the necessity of the short duration of his +sensations. He had discovered, when he was very young, that nothing +lasted and that the things that lasted the shortest time were generally +the best things, and therefore he had, quite unconsciously, trained +himself to store his memory with splendid moments; now, although he had +no memory at all for any sort of facts or books or histories, he could +recall precisely, in all their forms and colours, scenes, persons, +adventures that had, at any time, thrilled him. + +He could remember days; once when, as a little boy, he had been +overtaken by night on the Downs and had sheltered in a deserted house, +black and evil, that had, he afterwards discovered, been, in the +eighteenth century, a private mad-house; once when the sea had been +green and purple, the sky black, and he had discovered a star-fish for +the first time (very young on that occasion); once when his horse had +run away with him and the danger had been exceeded by the glorious speed +through the air ... many, many others, all to be counted by him to their +very least detail, and now, of some of them, Rachel Beaminster was the +central figure. + +He had had relations of many kinds with many different women and never +until now had he supposed, for an instant, that these relations would be +permanent. Even now, although he was intending to marry Rachel +Beaminster, he was not so foolish as to imagine that the freshness and +novelty of the feeling that he now had for her would last more than a +very short time. + +Quite deliberately he treasured up in his mind a thousand pictures of +her, as he had seen her during the last two months, so that when the +time came for seeing her no longer in that way, he would have his +memories: there was the time of her first ball, all excitement and +happiness, the day at her uncle's when she had looked at him over the +top of the fans, the night at the opera when she had been so angry with +him, last night-- + +She had, through all this time, remained elusive. He did not know her, +could not reconcile one inconsistency with another--but he thought that +she cared about him and would marry him. + +He had always known that he must one day marry. That necessity was, in +no way, connected with the emotional side of him, it rather had its +relationship with the common sense of him, the part that believed in the +Beaminsters and all their glory. + +He must marry because Seddon Court must have a mistress, because he +himself must have children, because he would like to have someone there +to be kind to. That need in him for bestowing kindness upon someone was +always most urgent, and all sorts of animals and all sorts of persons +had shared it--now one person would have it all. He could not bear to +hurt anyone or anything, and the crises of his life were provided by +those occasions when, in the delight of one of his emotional moments, +hurting somebody was involved--there was always then a conflict. + +He knew that it was just here that the Duchess failed to understand him. +She liked hurting people and expected him to be amused when she told him +little stories about her having done so. He had now a kind of dim +feeling that it was because the Duchess hoped that he was going to hurt +Rachel that she had prosecuted so strenuously his marriage. + +He trusted with all his heart that he would never hurt Rachel, he +intended always to be very, very kind to her; it was indeed a thousand +pities that the present quality of his attitude to her must, like all +attitudes, eventually change. + +But he was always--he was sure of this--going to be good to her and give +her everything that the mistress of Seddon Court should have. + +At the same time, vaguely, he wished that the old Duchess had had +nothing to do with this; sometimes he wondered whether the side in him +that found pleasure in her was really natural to him. + +Whenever he thought of her, she, in some way, confused his judgment and +made life difficult. + +She was doing that now.... + + +II + +When he came down to breakfast he found that he was the last. He sat +next to Nita Raseley and was conscious, after a little time, that she +was behaving with a certain reserve. He had known her in the kind of way +that he knew many people in his own set in London, pleasantly, +indifferently, without curiosity. She had, however, attracted him +sometimes by the impression that she gave him that she was too young to +know many men, but, however long she lived, would never find anyone as +splendid as he: she had certainly never been reserved before. Finally he +realized that she expected to hear of his engagement to Rachel +Beaminster at any moment. "Well, so she will," he thought, smiling to +himself. Meanwhile he avoided Rachel quite deliberately. + +He was now self-conscious about her and did not wish to be with her +until he could ask her to marry him. No more uncertainty was possible. +He felt, not frightened, but excited, just as he would feel were he +about to ride a dangerous horse for the first time. + +He seized, with relief, upon the proposal of church; he wanted the +morning to pass; his prayer was that she would not walk to church with +him, because he had now nothing to say to her except the one thing. When +he heard that she was staying behind and walking with Nita Raseley he +was surprised at his own sense of release. + +Lady Adela was kind to him this morning in a sort of motherly way and +apparently seized on his going to church as an omen of his future +married happiness. + +"They're all waiting to hear," he said to himself. + +They were to walk across the park to the little village church, and when +they set out he was conscious that Lord John, like a large and amiable +bird, was hovering about him: finally, Lord John, nervous apparently, +most certainly embarrassed, settled upon him. + +"Going to church, aren't you, Roddy?" + +"Yes, Beaminster." + +"Well, let's strike off together, shall we?" + +Roddy liked Lord John best of the Beaminster brothers; the Duke he could +not endure and Lord Richard was so superior, but Johnny Beaminster was +as amiable as an Easter egg and fond of race meetings and pretty women, +and not too dam' clever--in fact, really, not clever at all. + +But Johnny Beaminster embarrassed was another matter and Roddy found +soon that this embarrassment led to his own confusion. + +Lord John flung out little remarks and little whistles because of the +heat and little comments upon the crops. He obviously had something that +he very much wanted to say--"Of course," thought Roddy, "this is +something to do with Rachel--he's very fond of Rachel." + +Although Johnny Beaminster had not, in strict accuracy, himself the +reputation of the whitest of Puritans, yet Roddy wondered whether +perhaps he were not now worrying over some of Roddy's past history, as +rumoured in London society. + +"Doesn't want his girl to be handed over to a reg'lar Black Sheep, +shouldn't wonder," thought Roddy, and this led him to rather indignant +consideration of the confusion of the Beaminster mind and its muddled +moralities. + +The walk to the church was not very long, but it became, towards the +close of it, quite awful in its agitation. + +"Dam' hot," said Lord John. + +"Very," said Roddy. + +"Wouldn't wonder if this weather broke soon----" + +"Quite likely." + +"Makes you hot walking to church this hour of the morning." + +"Yes--don't it? Farmers will be wantin' rain pretty badly. Down at my +little place they tell me it's dried up like anythin'----" + +"Reg'lar Turkish bath----" + +"Well, the church ought to be cool----" + +"You never know with these churches----" + +Roddy thought "He's afraid of his old mother. Doesn't want me to marry +Rachel, but he's afraid of his old mother." + +"Massiter's getting fat----" This was Lord John's contribution. + +"Yes--so's that novelist feller----" + +"Oh! Garden! Yes--ever read anything of his?" + +"Never a line. Never read novels." + +"Not bad--good tales, you know." + +"He's probably," Roddy thought, "had a row with the old lady about +me----" + +Then, strangely enough, the notion hit him--"Wish it was he wanted me to +marry Rachel and the Duchess didn't--Wish she didn't, by Gad." + +As they entered the church Roddy might have seen, had he been gifted in +psychology, that there was in Lord John's face the look of a man who had +fought a battle with his dark angel and been, alas, defeated. + + +III + +After luncheon Roddy said: + +"Miss Beaminster, come for a walk?" + +"A little way," she said, looking at him with her eyes in that straight +direct way that she had. + +"She must know," said Roddy to himself, "that I'm going to do it now. +They all know. It's awful!" + +Some of the others had gathered together under a great oak that shaded +the central lawn, and now as he climbed the hill with his capture he +felt that from beneath that tree many eyes watched them. + +They did not go very far. At the top of the hill, above the little wood +and the gardens and the house, there was a grassy hollow, and under this +grassy hollow a great field of wheat, a sheet of red-gold with sudden +waves and ripples in it as though some hand were shaking it, ran down to +the valley. + +"Let's stop here," Rachel said. "I was out all this morning with Nita +Raseley and it's too hot for any exertion whatever." + +A tree shaded them and they sat down and watched corn. + +"What sort of a girl do you think she is--Nita Raseley, I mean?" asked +Rachel. + +"Oh! I don't know--the ordinary kind of girl--why?" + +"She seems to want to know me. Says that she hasn't many friends. Is +that true? I thought she had heaps----" + +"You never can tell with girls. You're all so uncertain about one +another--devoted one moment and enemies the next." + +"Are we?" said Rachel slowly. "I don't think I'm like that--Oh! how hot +it is!" She lay back against the grass with her arms behind her head. + +"Do you like me?" Roddy said suddenly. + +"I?... You!" + +She slowly sat up and he saw at once that she knew now what he was going +to say. At that moment, sitting there, staring at him, with her breasts +moving a little beneath her white dress and her hands pressing flatly +against the grass, in her agitation and the look in her eyes of some +suddenly evoked personality that he did not know at all she was more +elusive to him than she had ever been-- + +She was frightened--and also glad--but the change in her from the girl +he had known all the summer was so startling that he felt that he was +about to propose to someone he had never seen before. + +"Do I like you?" she repeated slowly, and her lips parted in a smile. + +"Yes," he said, looking at her hands that seemed to belong to the earth +into which they were pressing--"Because I want you to marry me----" + +The moment of her surprise had come before--now she only said very +quietly-- + +"Why--what do you know about me?" + +"I know--enough--to ask you," he said, stumbling over his words. He was +now afraid that, after all, she intended to refuse him, and the terror +of this made his heart stop. No words would come. He stared at her with +all the fright in his eyes. + +"Roddy" (she had never called him that before), "do you care----" + +Then she stopped. + +She began again. "I don't want to talk nonsense. I want to say exactly +what I feel. I suppose most girls would want to be free a little longer, +would want to have a good time another two or three seasons--but I +don't--I hate being free--I want somebody to keep me, to prevent my +doing silly things, to look after me ... and ... I'd rather you did +it--than anybody else...." Then she went on quickly--"But it is more +than that. I do like you most awfully, only I suppose I'm not the kind +of girl to be frantically excited, to be wild about it all. I'm not +that. I do like you--better than any other man I know--Is that enough?" + +"I think--we can be most awfully good pals--always," he said. + +"Oh!" she cried suddenly, putting her hand on his and looking straight +into his face. "That's what I want--that, that--If that's it, and you +think we can, why then, I'd rather marry you, Roddy dear, than anyone in +the world." + +"Then it's settled," he said. But he did not take her hand or touch her. +They sat for quite a long time, looking at the rippling corn and the +house, that was like a white boat sailing on the green far below them. + +They said no word. + +Then, without speaking, they got up from the grass and walked down the +path to the little wood. But when they came to the place where they had +been the night before he caught her to him so furiously that his own +body was bent back, and he kissed her again and again and again. + + + + +BOOK II + +RACHEL + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE POOL AND THE SNOW + + "For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow. + And trains of sombre men, past tale of number, + Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go: + But even for them awhile no cares encumber + Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken, + The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber + At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the charm + they have broken." + + ROBERT BRIDGES. + + +I + +In the early days of the December of that year, 1898, the first snow +fell. + +Francis Breton, standing at his window high up in the Saxton Square +house, watched the first flakes, as they came, lingering, from the heavy +brooding sky; as he watched a great tide of unhappiness and restlessness +and discontent swept over him. His was a temperament that could be +raised to heaven and dashed to hell in a second of time; life never +showed him its true colours and his sensitive suspicion to the signs and +omens of the gods gave him radiant confidence and utter despair when +only a patient quiescence had been intended. During the last three +months he had risen and fallen and risen again, as the impulse to do +something magnificent somewhere interchanged with the impulse to do +something desperate--meanwhile nothing was done and, standing now +staring at the snow, he realized it. + +He had never, in all his days, known how to moderate. If he might not be +the hero of society then must he be the famous outcast, in one fashion +or another London must ring with his name. + +And yet now here had he been in London since the end of April and +nothing had occurred, no steps, beyond that first letter to his +grandmother, had he taken. He had not even responded to the advances +made to him by his old associates, he had seen no one save Christopher, +Brun once or twice, the Rands and his cousin Rachel. + +Throughout this time he had done what he had never done before, he had +waited. For what? + +A little perhaps he had expected that the family would take some step. +Looking back now he knew that the shadow of his grandmother had been +over it all. He had always seen her when he had contemplated any action, +seen her, and, deny it as he might, feared her. She confused his mind; +he had never been very readily clear as to reasons and instincts--he had +never paused for a period long enough to allow clear thinking, but now, +through all these weeks, he had been conscious that that same clear +thinking would have come to him had not his grandmother clouded his +mind. He felt her as one feels, in a dream, some power that prevents our +movement, holds us fascinated--so now he was held. + +The other great force persuading him to inaction was Rachel Beaminster, +now Rachel Seddon. + +Long before his return to England the thought of this cousin of his had +often come to him. He would speculate about her. She, like himself, was +by birth half a rebel, she _must_ be--She _must_ be. He had sometimes +thought that he would write to her, and then he had felt that that would +not be fair. Behind all his dreams and romances he always saw some +destiny whose colours were woven simply for him, Francis Breton, and +this confidence in an especial personally constructed God had been +responsible for his wildest and most foolish mistakes. + +Often had he seen this especial God bringing his cousin and himself +together. Always he had known that, in some way, they two were to be +chosen to work out, together, vengeance and destruction against all the +Beaminsters. When, therefore, that meeting in the Rands' drawing-room +had taken place he had accepted it all. She was even more wonderful +than he had expected, but he had known, instantly, that she was his +companion, his chosen, his fellow-traveller; between them he had +realized a claim, implied on some common knowledge or experience, at the +first moment of their meeting. + +From the age of ten, when he had been petted by one of his father's +mistresses, his life had been entangled with women; some he had loved, +others he had been in love with, others again had _loved him_. + +He did not know now whether he were in love with Rachel or no--he only +knew that the whole current of his life was changed from the moment that +he met her and that, until the end of it, she now would be intermingled +with all his history. + +At first so sure had he been of the workings of fate in this matter that +he had been content (for the first time in all his days) to wait with +his hands folded. During this period all thought of action against the +Beaminsters on the one hand or a relapse into the company of the friends +of his earlier London days on the other, had been out of the question. +This certainty of Rachel's future alliance with himself had made such +things impossibly absurd. + +Then had come the announcement of her engagement to Seddon. For a moment +the shock had been terrific. He had suddenly seen the face of his +especial God and it was blind and stupid and dead.... + +Then swiftly upon that had come thought of his grandmother. This was, of +course, her doing--Rachel was too young to know--She would discover her +mistake: the engagement would be broken off. + +During this time he had met Rachel on several occasions, and although +the meetings had been very brief, yet always he had felt that same +unacknowledged, secret intimacy. After every meeting his confidence had +risen, once again, to the skies. + +Then had come the news of her marriage. + +From that moment he had known no peace. At first he had wildly fancied +that this had happened because he had not come to her and more plainly +declared himself; his picture of her idea of him was confused with all +the dramatic untruth of _his_ idea of her; then, interchanging with +that, had come moods when he had seen things more plainly as they were +and had told himself that all relations between herself and him had been +invented by himself, that any kindness that she had shown him had been +kindness sprung from pity. + +During the early months of the autumn Rachel and her husband were +abroad, and during this time, Breton told himself that he was waiting +for her return before taking any action. Then a certain Mrs. Pont, a +lady whose beauty had been increased but her reputation lessened by +several scandals and a tiresomely querulous Mr. Pont, had suggested to +Francis Breton a continuation of certain earlier relationships. + +He knew himself well enough to be sure that one evening in Mrs. Pont's +company would put an end to his struggles, so weak was he in his own +knowledge that the only possible evading of a conflict was by the denial +of the enemy's very existence. + +He denied Mrs. Pont and, throughout those dark gloomy autumn weeks, +clinging to Christopher and Lizzie Rand, waited to hear of Rachel's +return. + +Although he would confess it to no man alive, he longed now, with an +aching heart, for some sort of reconciliation with the family. He would +have astonished them with his humility had they given him any sign or +signal. He fancied that Lord John or even the Duke might come.... Once +admitted to his proper rank again and what a citizen he would be! Vanish +for ever Mrs. Pont and her tribe and all that dark underworld that +waited, like some sluggish but confident monster, for his inevitable +descent. Wild phantasmic plans crossed his brain every hour of every +day--nothing came of it all; only when at last it was announced that +Sir Roderick and Lady Seddon had returned to England he discovered that +he had nothing to do, nothing to say, no step to take. + +That return had been at the end of October; from then until the end of +November he waited, expecting that she would write to him; still, by +this anticipation, were Mrs. Pont and Mrs. Pont's world kept at bay. + +No word came. Driven now to take some step that would shatter this +silence, he wrote to her a long letter about nothing very much, only +something that would bring him a line from her. + +For ten days now he had waited and there had come no word. As these +first flakes of snow softly, relentlessly, fell past his window the +nebulous cloud of all the uncertainties, disappointments, rebellions, of +this pointless wasted thing that men called Life crystallized into +form--"I'm no good--Life, like this, it's impossible--I'm no good +against it--I'd better climb down...." + +And here the irony of it was that he'd never climbed _up_. + +The awful moments in Life are those that threaten us by their suspension +of all action. "Just feel what's piling up for you out of all this +silence," they seem to say. Breton's trouble now was that he did not +know in what direction to move. His relation to Rachel was so nebulous +that it could scarcely be called a relation at all. + +He only knew that she alone was the person for whom now life was worth +combating. He had told her in his letter that she could help him, and +the absence of an answer spoke now, in this threatening silence, with +mighty reverberating voice. "She doesn't care." + +Well then, who else is there? Almost he could have fancied that his +grandmother, there in the Portland Place house, was withdrawing from him +all the supports in which he trusted. + +Now the snow, falling ever more swiftly, ever more stealthily, seemed to +be with him in the room, stifling, choking, blinding. + +He felt that if he could not find company of some kind he would go mad, +and so, leaving the storm and the silence behind him in his room, he +went to find Lizzie Rand. + + +II + +Lizzie Rand did not conceal from herself now that she loved him. So long +had her emotional life been waiting there, undesired, that now it could +be kept by her utterly apart from her daily habit, but it became a +flame, a fire, that lighted with its splendid warmth and colour the +whole of her accustomed world. She indulged it now without restraint, +through the long dark autumn she had it treasured there; she did not, as +things then were, ask for more than this splendid knowledge that there +was now someone upon whom she loved to spend her care. She had not loved +to spend it upon her mother and sister, but that had been a duty defined +and necessary. Now everything that she could do for Breton was more fuel +to fling to her flame. That further question as to whether he might care +for her she kept just in sight, but nevertheless not definite enough to +risk the absolute challenge. + +At least, now, as the weeks passed, he sought her company more and more. +She helped him, she cheered and comforted him, enough for her present +need. + +Even, beyond it all, could she survey herself humorously. This the first +love affair of her life made her smile at her capture and defeat. + +"Well, I'm just like the rest--And oh! I'm glad, I'm glad that I am." + +Finally she knew that there was still a step that might be taken, +between them, at any moment. He had, she knew, something to tell her. +Again and again lately he had been about to speak and then had caught +the impulse back. + +This too she would not examine too closely, but from the moment that he +should demand from her definite concrete assistance, from that moment +she would be to him what she knew no one now living could claim to be. + +Breton was glad when the little maid told him that Mrs. Rand was out, +but that Miss Lizzie was at home. He saw her in the warm cosy room, +sitting before the fire with her toes on the fender and her skirts +pulled up, drying her shoes. + +She looked up and smiled at him and told him to sit down, but did not +move from her position. + +"Mother's out at a matinee with Daisy. I got away early this afternoon. +Do you hate snow, Mr. Breton?" + +"I hate it to-day. I've got the dumps. I had to find someone to talk to +or I'd have gone screaming into the street----" + +"Couldn't find anyone better, so took me--thank you for the compliment. +But I like the snow. Your pool's more like a pool now than ever, Mr. +Breton." + +He went across to the window and stood there looking at the little +square now white with the gaunt trees rising black from the heart of it +and the grey houses that hemmed it in. Over it the snow, yellow and grey +and then delicately white, swirled and tossed. + +He came back and sat down beside her and wondered at her neat comfort +and air of calm control of all her emotions and desires. + +She, looking at him, saw that he was ill. Dark lines beneath his eyes, +his cheeks pale and an air of picturesque melancholy that made her want +first to laugh at him and then mother him. + +"I know what's the matter with you," she said, nodding her head. + +"What?" + +"Something to do. That's what you want." She turned towards him, looking +at him with a little smile and yet with grave seriousness in her eyes. +"Oh! Mr. Breton, why don't you? What is the use of sitting here month +after month, doing nothing, just waiting for something to +happen--something that can't happen unless you make it? Things don't +fall into people's mouths just because they sit with them open." + +He coloured. "Everybody's always scolding me," he said. +"Christopher--you--everybody. Nobody understands--how difficult...." + +He broke off. So intangible were his difficulties that no words would +define them, and yet, God knew, they were real enough. + +"I know--" she said, nodding her head. "It's the thought of them all at +Portland Place that's holding you back. You began by fancying that you +wanted to cut their throats, and you still wouldn't mind slaughtering +them if only they in their turn would do something definite. It's their +doing _nothing_ that just holds you up. But really as long as your +grandmother's alive I'm afraid that it's no good thinking of them. When +she's dead--and she _can't_ live for ever--anything may happen. +Meanwhile why not show them what you _can_ do?" + +"But what _can_ I do?" he answered her fiercely. "I've never been +brought up to do anything--except what I oughtn't--There's my arm and +one thing and another--Besides, there's more than that in it, Miss Rand. +It's the fact that--well, that there's nobody that cares that's--so +freezing. If only somebody minded----" + +As he spoke Rachel rose, beautifully, wonderfully, before him. There, as +she had been on that first day when she had had tea there, bending +forward, listening, her dark wondering eyes on his face. + +Lizzie at the sound of the appeal in his voice had felt her heart +expand, beat, so that her body seemed to hold, suddenly, some great +possession that hurt her by its force and urgency. + +But she answered almost sharply: + +"Nonsense, Mr. Breton. Excuse me, but I've no patience with that kind of +thing. People are meant to stand alone, not to go leaning about for +other people's support. You're cursed with too much imagination, Mr. +Breton, and you remember too clearly everything that's happened before. +Begin now, as though you were born yesterday, and startle the family by +your energy----" + +"Now you're laughing at me," he said hotly. "I dare say I deserve it, +but I don't feel as though I could stand--very much of it from anyone +to-day----" + +Then he was astonished by the sudden softness of her voice. "No, no, +please," she said; "I understand so well. But indeed you have got +friends who believe in you. Dr. Christopher, myself, if you'll count me, +and lots more. You'll win everyone in time if you're not impatient and +don't despair. Don't think of your grandmother too much. The mere fact +of your not seeing her makes you imagine her as something portentous and +dreadful, and she weighs you down, but she isn't really anything at all. +She can't stop one's energies if one's determined to let them go. +Please, please don't think I'm laughing. I only want to help----" + +"I know you do," he answered warmly, "I owe you more than I can say. All +these last weeks you and Christopher have been the two people who've +held the world together for me. But there's more than you know, Miss +Rand. There's----" + +He bent towards her. She knew that the confidence was at last to be +hers. It needed her strongest control to prevent the trembling of her +hands. His eyes were alight, his whole body eloquent. At the thought of +what he might be about to tell her the room turned before her. + +Voices in the little hall. Then the door opened and in came Mrs. Rand +and Daisy. They had been to the play--_Such_ nonsense. One of these new, +serious plays with long, long conversations--Mrs. Rand wanted tea. Daisy +wanted admiration. + +Between Lizzie and Breton the precious cup had fallen, smashed to the +tiniest atoms. + +Meanwhile aimless conversation was more than he, in his present mood, +could endure. + +He made some excuse and, scarcely knowing what he did, found his hat and +coat and went out into the square. + + +III + +There had come to him one of those agonies of loneliness that no +argument, no reasoning can destroy. + +The absence of any letter from Rachel seemed to show that she had +abandoned him. In all this vast thickly peopled world there was now no +one to whom his presence or absence, his fortunes or disasters mattered. +The snowstorm gathered him into its folds; the snow fell against his +mouth, his eyes, and before him, behind him, around him there was a +world deserted of man, houses blind and without life. + +The snow might fall now to the end of time. It would creep up and up, +falling from the heavens, rising from the earth, swallowing all +creation--the end of the world. + +He pressed into the park and there under the trees stretching like +gallows against the throttling sky temptation to give it all up, to go +under and have done with it all, leapt, hot and fierce, upon him. Mrs. +Pont and the others were waiting for him. They would be good to him. The +Upper World would not hear nor see nor think of his disasters, and +slowly, with the others, life would recede, he would crumble and decay +and cease to care, and death would come soon enough. + +Then the wind smote his face and tore at his coat: the snow died away, +beyond the black bare trees a very faint yellow bar threaded the thick +grey--promise that the storm was at an end. + +Suddenly with the cessation of the storm the long field of white seemed +good and restful, and beyond the park the houses showed light in their +windows. + +The yellow spread through the sky, and stars, very slowly, came and the +wind died away. + +Courage filled him. Rachel might never come or write or care, but he +would make the thought of her the one true thing in his heart, and with +that he would do battle so long as he could. + +Christopher and Miss Rand ... he thought of them as he trudged his way +home--and when he saw the white silence of Saxton Square and the golden +sky breaking above its peace and quiet he thought that, for a time +longer, he would keep his place and hold his own. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +A LITTLE HOUSE + + "Each in the crypt would cry, + 'But one freezes here! and why? + 'When a heart, as chill, + 'At my own would thrill + Back to life, and its fires out-fly? + 'Heart, shall we live or die? + The rest ... settle by-and-by!'" + + ROBERT BROWNING. + + +I + +Rachel at Seddon Court watched, from her window, that first fallen snow. + +Seddon Court is about three miles from the town of Lewes and lies, +tucked and cornered, under the very brow of the Downs. It is a grey +little house, old and stalwart, with a courtyard and two towers. The +towers are Norman; the rest of the house is Tudor. + +Beyond the actual building there are gardens that run to the very foot +of the Downs, with only a patch and an old stone wall intervening. Above +the house, day and night, year after year, the Downs are bending; +everything, beneath their steady solemn gaze, is small and restless; as +the colours are flung by the sun across their green sprawling limbs the +house, at their feet, catches their reflected smile and, when the sun is +gone and the winds blow, cowers beneath their frown; everything in that +house is conscious of their presence. + +Rachel had been at Seddon Court for a month and now, at the window of +her writing-room, looking across the garden, up into their dark shadows, +she wondered at their indifference and monotony. Anyone who had known +her before her marriage would be struck instantly, on seeing her now, by +a change in her. + +Her whole attitude to the world, during her first season in London, had +been an attitude of wonder, of expectation, of the uncertainty that +comes from expectation. + +With that expectation were also alarm, distrust, and it was only when +some sudden incident or person called happiness into her face that that +distrust vanished. + +Now she was older, that hesitation and awkwardness were gone, but with +their departure had vanished, too, much of her honesty. Her dark eyes +were as sincere as they had ever been, but to anyone who had known her +before her attitude now was assumed. Nothing might catch her unprepared, +but what experiences were they that had taught her the need for armour? + +Sitting in her room looking on to a lawn that would soon be white and to +Downs obscured already by the thick tumbling snow, she knew that she was +unhappy, disappointed, even alarmed. Suddenly to-day the uneasiness that +had been gathering before her throughout the last weeks assumed, on this +afternoon, the definite tangibility of a challenge. + +"What's the matter--with me, with everything?... What's happened?" + +Her room, dark green and white, had no pictures, but a long low +book-case with grave handsome books, an edition of someone in red with +white paper labels and another edition of someone else in dark blue and +another in gold and brown, an old French gilt mirror, square, with a +reflection of the garden and the foot of the Downs in it, an old Queen +Anne rosewood writing-table, some Queen Anne chairs, a gate-legged +table--a very cool, quiet room. + +At her feet with his head resting on her shoe there lay a dog. This dog +about a fortnight ago she had found in a field near the house with a +kettle tied on to his tail, and his body a confused catastrophe of mud +and blood. + +She had carried him home; it had needed some courage to introduce him +into the household, for Roddy possessed many dogs all of the finest +breeds, and this was a mongrel who defied description. He was very +short and shaggy and stumpy. He was much too large for a Yorkshire +terrier and yet that was undoubtedly his derivation. There was something +of a sheep-dog in him and something of a Skye; his hair fell all over +his face and, when you could see them, his eyes were brown. His nose was +like a wet blackberry and his ears were long and full of emotion; when +he ran his short tail, on which the hairs were arranged like branches on +a Christmas tree, stuck up into the air and he resembled a rabbit. + +In the confusion of the moment Rachel had called him Jacob, because she +thought that Jacob was, in the Bible, the "hairy one".... After all, you +_could_ not call a dog Esau. + +Yes, to retain him had needed courage. Thinking of Roddy's attitude to +the dog brought so many other attendant thoughts in its train. Roddy in +his devotion to animals (and oh! he _was_ devoted), had no room for +those that were not of the aristocracy. + +Concerning dogs who were mongrels he was kind but thought them much +better dead. Unkind he would never be, but the way in which he ignored +Jacob was worse than any unkindness. + +Jacob, sensitive perhaps from early suffering, knew this and avoided +Roddy, ran out of the room when he came into it, showed in every way +that he must not expect to rank with the other dogs. + +Very characteristic this attitude of Roddy, but very characteristic, +too, the affection that Jacob was now receiving from his mistress. There +was something that Jacob drew from Rachel that none of the fine, noble +dogs of the house was able to secure.... Why?... What, again, was the +matter? Why was Rachel unhappy? + +Rachel was unhappy, and the answer came quite clearly to her as the room +was darkened by the great storm of snow now falling over the Downs and +the garden, because marriage with Roddy had not lessened in any way that +uneasy disquiet that had stirred, without pause, beneath her life +before her marriage; that uneasiness had, indeed, during the last three +months, increased.... + +Was this her fault or Roddy's? + +Attacked now by a scrutiny that refused dismissal she delivered herself +up to the investigation of these months of her married life. + +She knew that she had only once been happy since her marriage--that was +on the first evening, when, the noise and clamour of the London wedding +having died away, she had walked with Roddy in the peace of the Massiter +garden (Lady Massiter had lent her house for the first weeks of the +honeymoon), had felt his arm about her, had believed that there had +really come to her that comfort and safety for which she longed. + +After that there had followed a fortnight of great unreality--the +strangest excitement, the most adventurous wonders, but a wonder and +excitement that were from herself, the real Rachel Beaminster, most +absolutely removed. It was as though she had watched closely but +detached the experiences of some other girl. Roddy had, during those +times, been a most ardent and passionate lover; she had tried to respond +and had hidden, as best she could, her failure. + +Then, suddenly, with the time of their going abroad, passion had left +him; it had left him as swiftly as the passing of wind over a hill. It +was there--it was gone. + +But he remained the perfect husband. His kindness, his charm, his +simplicity, his affection for her--an affection that could never for an +instant be doubted--these things had delighted her. He was now the +friend, the strong reliant companion that she had wanted him to be. +During those first weeks in Italy and Greece happiness might have come +to her had she not been stirred by her remembrance of the earlier weeks. +The passion that had been in him, although it had not touched her, now +in retrospect lit fires for her imagination. Instantly back to her had +come the whole disquiet and unrest. The things that Roddy called from +her now, she suddenly discovered with a great shrinking alarm, were all +the Beaminster things. All the true emotions, qualities, traditions that +made up her secret life were roused in her by their own inherent +vitality, never by his evocation of them. _He_ was Beaminster--Roddy was +Beaminster. With his kindness and courtesy his eyes saw the world with +the eyes of his ancestors, his tongue spoke the language that had in it +no sincerity, his heart wished for all the ceremonies and lies that the +Beaminster had believed in since the beginning of time. + +But her discovery did not lead her much further. She had, in her heart +of hearts, always known that Roddy was a Beaminster. Why then had she +married him? She had married him because she had been untrue to herself, +because she had herself encouraged the Beaminster blood in her to blind +her eyes, because she had desired deceit rather than truth, because she +had wanted the comfort that the man could give her rather than the man +himself, because she had muffled and stifled and silenced that Power in +her--the Power that made her restless and unquiet; the Power that was as +hostile to the Beaminster faith as heaven is to hell-- + +And yet this vehemence of explanation did not altogether explain Roddy. +Roddy was not _simply_ a Beaminster like Uncle John or Uncle Richard or +Aunt Adela. There was an elemental direct emotion in Roddy that was +exactly opposed to Beaminster conventionality. + +These two elements in him puzzled and even frightened her. His attitude +during that first fortnight of their marriage she saw, again and again, +in lesser degrees during their time abroad. She had seen him so +primitive in his joy and excitement over places and people and +moments--colour, food, storms, towns, passers-by, anything--that she had +been astounded by the force of it. Emotions swept over him and were +gone, but, whilst they were there, she knew that she counted to him for +nothing. Strangest of ironies that when he was least a Beaminster, then +was she farthest from him--strangest of ironies that her link with him +should be the Beaminster in him. + +She was frightened of his primitive passions. She had in her the +instinct that one day they would touch his relationship to her and that +that contact would rouse in her the full tide of the unhappiness of +which she was now so conscious, and that then ... what might not +happen?... + +And yet behind it all she felt a strange, almost pathetic satisfaction +because he, after all, had in him, just as she had, his two natures at +war. There at least they found some common link; her eagerness to find +some link was evidence enough of the affection she had for him. + +After their return to England the wilder nature in him had extended and +broadened. Everything to do with Seddon Court drew it out of him; his +passion for the place was wonderful to witness. Every stone of the +little grey building was a jewel in his eyes; the servants, the cattle, +the horses, the dogs, the flowers, the villagers, even the townspeople +of Lewes drew sentiment from him. + +"My old place," he would say, cuddling it to himself; he was never +"sloppy" about it, but direct and simple and straightforward. It was +obviously _the_ great emotion above all other emotions. + +He was most anxious that Rachel should share this with him, and during +her first weeks there she thought that she would do so. Then the +disquiet in her spread to the place. The house spread itself out before +her now as the lure that had from the beginning tempted her. + +"It was for this place and quiet that you were false to yourself----" + +Roddy felt that she did not share his enthusiasm, and their difficulty +over this was exactly their difficulty over everything else; simply that +Roddy was the least eloquent person in the world. He could explain +nothing whatever of the vague unhappiness or dissatisfaction at his +heart. Rachel _could_ have explained a great many things, but Roddy, she +felt, would only look at her in his kind puzzled way and wonder why she +couldn't take things as they were. + +Perhaps during these last weeks he had himself felt that all was not +well. Rachel thought that sometimes now through, all his kindness she +detected a floating, wistful speculation on his part as to whether she +were happy. + +He _wanted_ her to be happy--most tremendously he wanted it--and did she +explain to him that she was not happy because she was, now, for ever +attended by a sense of her own disloyalty to all that was best in her, +he would have suggested a doctor or have made her a present. + +Had she been some stranger and had the case been presented to him he +would have probably dismissed it by saying that "having made her bed she +must lie on it." "After all, she married the feller--Well then, that's +_her_ look-out." + +So, perhaps, if this had been simply her trouble she would have done her +bravest best to endeavour. + +But there was more behind it all--far, far more. + +She saw her marriage to Roddy, her struggling for self-respect, her +present morbid introspection as a stage in what was now developing into +a duel between herself and her grandmother. + +Her grandmother had planned this marriage. Her grandmother was +determined to destroy the honesty and truth in her and had chosen a +Beaminster for her agent and now waited happy for the death of Rachel's +soul. + +But Rachel's soul should not so readily die! During all these weeks the +thought of her grandmother had been continually with her. How she hated +her, and with what fervour did Rachel return that hatred! + +There was no melodrama in this hatred. When she had been a very little +girl Rachel had somehow believed that her grandmother had been very +cruel to her mother and father--She had hated her for that. Then she had +seen that her grandmother disliked her and wished to tease her--so she +had hated her for that also. + +Her older amplification of this into principles and instincts had not +altered the original vehemence of the passion, it had only given it +grown-up reasons for its existence. + +And so, thinking of her grandmother, she thought also of Francis Breton. + +Some weeks ago she had received a letter from him and that letter was +now lying in the desk of her writing-table. + +She had thought that her marriage would have snapped her interest in her +cousin because it would have broken that hostility with her grandmother +upon which her relationship with her cousin so largely depended. But now +when she saw that marriage had only intensified her hostility to the +Duchess, so therefore it had intensified her perception of Breton. His +letter had aroused in her, just as contact with him aroused in her, +everything in her that now, for her own peace of mind, she should keep +at bay. His letter had amounted to this: + +"You are a rebel as I am a rebel. We have said very little, but you have +recognized in me the things that I have recognized in you. You have +escaped through marriage, but for me there is no escape, and if you +would, for the sake of those things that we have in common, keep me from +going utterly under, then you must help me--as only you can." + +He did not say this nor anything at all like this. He only, very +quietly, congratulated her on her marriage, hoped that she would be very +happy, said that London was a little desolate and difficult, hoped that +she would not think more harshly of him than she could help, and, at the +very end, told her that meeting her made him feel that he was not +entirely abandoned by everybody. + +It was the letter of a weak man and she knew it, but it was the letter +of a man who was weak exactly in the places where she also failed. And +this, more than anything else, moved her. + +They two alone, it seemed, were struggling to keep their feet in a world +that did not need them. It had been, through these months, Rachel's +sharpest unhappiness, the consciousness that Roddy and indeed everything +at Seddon Court could get on so very well without her. + +Nobody in London needed her--nobody here needed her. If you accepted the +Beaminster doctrine, then no wife would demand more from a husband than +Roddy gave Rachel--but was this not simply another proof that Rachel had +made a Beaminster marriage? + +Rachel had been flung straight from the schoolroom into marriage and the +sensitive agonizing cry of a child to be loved by somebody--the cry that +had always been so urgent in her--was urgent still. + +It was exactly this comfortable sense of being a help that Roddy had not +given her. Now this letter gave it to her. + +But if this letter was an appeal, just as the mongrel Jacob, now at her +feet, was an appeal, on the part of someone wounded and outcast, to her +pity, so also was it an invitation to rebellion. + +It was also a temptation to deceit and, did she answer the letter, she +encouraged Breton to write again; she opened up not only a new +relationship to him, but also a new relationship to all the forces that +were most hostile to Roddy and her married happiness. May Eversley had +once said to her: "Sit down and see, without any exaggeration or false +colouring, what you've got. Take away, ruthlessly, anything that you +imagine that you've got but haven't. Take away ruthlessly everything +that you imagine that you would like to have but are not confident of +securing--See what's happened to you in the past--Take away ruthlessly +any sentimental repentances or sloppy regrets, but learn quite +resolutely from your ugly mistakes." + +Long ago she had written this down--now was the first necessity for +applying it. + +The doctrine of Truth--Truth to Oneself, the one thing that mattered. +She knew that the pursuit of Truth was to her, and to every rebel +against the Beaminsters, the restive Tiger. In marrying Roddy she had +been untrue to herself. In writing to Breton she would be true to +herself but untrue to Roddy. She was fond of Roddy although she did not +love him, nor did he, really, love her. The anxiety on both their parts +to avoid hurting one another was proof enough of that, she thought. + +There then was the whole situation. As she felt Jacob's warm head +against her foot a great agitation of loneliness and dismay and +helplessness swept over her. + +Tears were in her throat and eyes--Then with a strong disdain she pushed +it all from her. She was growing morbid, losing her sense of humour and +proportion. Here in the house there was Nita Raseley staying; in the +country there were people to be called upon, to be invited, to be +interested in, there was Roddy, a perfect husband. + +She strangled that other Rachel, there in her room. "Now you're dead," +she felt, and seemed to fling a lifeless, crumpled figure out into the +snow-- + +She looked at herself in the glass. + +"You're not Rachel Beaminster now--you're Rachel Seddon. Act accordingly +and don't whine--" She washed her face and brushed her hair, and combed +Jacob's hair out of his eyes, and then, determined to be sensible and +cheerful and civilized, went down to tea. + + +II + +The room called the Library was the pleasantest room in the house; an +old, long, low-ceilinged room with windows that stretched from floor to +ceiling, with a large stone open fireplace and book-cases running from +end to end and old sporting prints above them. + +Before the great fireplace the tea was waiting and there also was Nita +Raseley, very charming and fresh and pink in the face and golden in the +hair. It was strange that Nita Raseley should have been their first +guest since their marriage, because Rachel, most certainly, did not like +her; but, after that meeting at the Massiters' the girl had flung a +passionate and incoherent correspondence upon Rachel and had ended by +practically inviting herself. + +Roddy liked her; Rachel knew that--so perhaps after all it had been a +good thing to have her there. Rachel's dislike of her was founded on a +complete distrust. "She's all wrong and insincere and beastly. I'll +never have her here again...." And yet, really, Miss Raseley had behaved +herself, had been most quiet and decorous and _most_ affectionate. + +The electric light was delicately shaded, the curtains were drawn, +outside was the storm, here cosiness and shining comfort. + +"Oh! _darling_ Rachel--I _am_ so glad you've come--I do so want +tea----" + +"Where's Roddy?" + +"Just come in--He'll be here in a minute----" + +Rachel came over to the fire and was busy over the tea-table. + +"Well, Nita, what have you been at all the afternoon?" + +"Oh! that silly old book. Rachel, how _could_ you tell me----" + +"What book?" + +"Oh! _you_ know--you lent it me. Something like drinking--_you_ know. By +that man Westcott--_such_ a silly name." + +"_The Vines!_--Didn't you like it?" + +"Like it! My dear Rachel, why, they go on for pages about each other's +feelings and nothing happens and I'm sure it's most unwholesome. They're +all so unhappy and always hating one another. I like books to be +cheerful and about people one knows--don't you?" + +"Well, Nita dear, it's a good thing we don't all like the same things, +isn't it? Sugar?" + +"Yes, dear, you know--lots--Darling, have you got a headache? You _do_ +look rotten--you _do_ really." + +Rachel knew that she must keep an especial guard to-day: she was +irritable, out of sorts. She would have liked immensely to send Nita to +have her tea in the nursery, were there one. + +"No, I'm all right. But I wanted to get out and this storm stopped me." + +"You do look dicky! Oh! what do you think! Roddy's taking us over to +Hawes to-morrow to lunch if the weather's anything like decent. He's +just fixed it up--sent a wire----" + +"To-morrow? But _I_ can't.... He knows. I've got Miss Crale coming +here----" + +"Only old Miss Crale? Put her off----" + +"I can't possibly--I've put her off once before. She wants to talk about +her Soldiers' Institute place--" Then Rachel added more slowly, "But +Roddy knew----" + +"Oh! he said you'd got some silly old engagement, but he _knew_ you'd +put it off!" + +"He knows I can't. He was talking about it this morning. He knew +how----" Then she stopped. She was not going to show Nita Raseley that +she minded anything. + +But Roddy had always said that they would go over together to Hawes--one +of the loveliest old places in the world--He had always promised.... + +She knew perfectly well what had occurred. Nita had caught Roddy and +clung on to him and persuaded him--Roddy was such a boy--But she was +hurt and she despised herself for it. + +"Oh," she said, laughing. "That's all right. You two must just go over +together--that's all! I'll go another time----" + +"Well, you see, Roddy _did_ send a wire and the Rockingtons would _hate_ +being put off at the last moment.... Oh! You beastly dog! He's been +licking my shoe, Rachel. Really he oughtn't to, ought he? So funny of +you, Rachel, when he's _such_ a mongrel and Roddy's got such lovely +darlings--Of course Jacob's a dear, but he _is_ rather absurd to look +at----" + +Jacob glanced at her, shook his ears and then, hearing a step that he +knew, retired, instantly, under a sofa in a far corner of the room. + +Roddy came in and stood for a moment laughing across at them. He was in +an old tweed suit with a soft collar and his face was brick-red; looking +at him as he stood there, the absolute type of health and strength and +cleanly vigour, Rachel wondered why she felt irritable. She certainly +was out of sorts. + +"Hullo, you two," Roddy said, "you do look cosy! Talkin' secrets, or +will you put up with a man?" + +"Oh! _Roddy_," said Nita Raseley, "why, of _course_. Rachel's only just +come down, hasn't been any time for secrets. Come and get warm." + +Room was made for him. Rachel smiled at him as she gave him his tea. +"Well, Roddy, what have _you_ been doing? I've been trying to write +letters and Nita's been abusing a novel I lent her. I hope you've been +better employed----" + +"I've been botherin' around with Nugent over those two horses he bought +last week. And--oh! I say, Rachel, you'll come over to Hawes to-morrow, +won't you?" + +"You know I can't. I've got Miss Crale coming to luncheon----" + +"Oh, I say! Put her off----" + +"Can't--I've put her off before and she doesn't deserve to be badly +treated----" + +"Oh! dash it! But I've gone and wired. The Rockingtons won't like my +changin'----" + +"Well, don't change--you and Nita go over----" + +"No, but you know we'd always arranged to go over together. You see, I +felt sure you'd put old Miss Crale on to another day. _She_ won't +mind----" + +"No, Roddy, thank you. That's not fair on her. It can't be helped. You +go over with Nita." + +Then there occurred between them one of those little situations that +were now so frequent. Rachel was hurt, but was determined to show +nothing; Roddy knew that she was hurt, but was quite unable to improve +relations, partly because he had no words, partly because "a feller +looks such a fool tryin' to explain," partly because there was in him a +quality of sullen obstinacy that was mingled, most strangely, with his +kindness and sentiment. + +He was absolutely ready to fling Nita and the Rockingtons into limbo, +but he was quite unable to set about such a business. + +Moreover now there was Nita Raseley--It was at this moment that Jacob, +having fought in the dark recesses of the sofa between his dislike of +Roddy and his love of tea, declared for his stomach and walked slowly, +and with the dignity required by the presence of an enemy, across the +room. + +"Hullo! there's the mongrel--" Roddy endeavoured to cover earlier +awkwardness by easy laughter, but the laughter was not easy and his +attempt to pat Jacob was frustrated by a sidling movement on the dog's +part. + +Then Nita Raseley laughed. + +Roddy now thought that women were damnable, that his wife had no right +to drag a mongrel like that about with her, that he'd show them if they +laughed at him, and that if Rachel couldn't come to-morrow, why then, +she must just lump it--The last thought of all was that Rachel was +always finding a grievance in something. + +He waited a little while, talked in a stiff and unnatural fashion and +then went. + +"This weather _is_ very trying, dear, isn't it?" said Nita. "If I were +you I really would go and lie down. You do look _so_ seedy!" + +"I think I will," said Rachel. + +As she went slowly upstairs to her room she knew that she would answer +Francis Breton's letter. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +FIRST SEQUEL TO DEFIANCE + + "He began to love her so soon, as he perceived that she was + passing out of his control." + + JANE AUSTEN. + + +I + +Next morning Rachel wrote the following letter to Francis Breton: + + "DEAR MR. BRETON, + + It was good of you to write to me and I must apologize for + allowing your letter to remain so long unanswered, but, on my + return from abroad, there were naturally a great many things to + do and a great many people to see. + + My husband and I enjoyed our time abroad immensely: it was my + first visit to Greece and Italy and I loved every bit of + it--Athens is to me more wonderful than now, here so snugly in + England, seems possible; Florence and Rome very beautiful of + course but spoilt, don't you think, by tourists and the modern + Italian who has learnt American habits-- + + How is London? I've not yet had a good look at it since I came + back, but we shall be coming up soon, I expect, and have taken + a flat in Elliston Square, between Portland Place and Byranston + Square. + + Your letter sounds a little dismal; it is kind of you to say + that I can help you, but, indeed, if writing to me helps do so. + It is only fair to say that at present my husband shares the + family point of view and, so long as that is so, I cannot ask + you to come and see me, but I hope that soon he will see the + whole affair more sensibly. + + Yours very sincerely, + + RACHEL SEDDON." + +She was not proud of this letter when she read it. She whose impulse was +for truth seemed to be flung, at every turn, into direct dishonesty. No, +she would not seize on the excuse of some vague tyrannical fate. + +She was herself her own agent in this affair and she bitterly, from her +heart, condemned herself ... and yet, strangely, this letter to Breton +seemed, in obedience to some inward impulse, her most honest action +since her marriage. + +Yet why did she not go to Roddy now and say to him that she had written +to Breton and was determined to act as his friend? + +Roddy would forbid any further relationship; she knew that. And then?... + +No, she could not see beyond-- + +She banished the letter from her mind, saw the two of them off to Hawes, +and entertained Miss Crale to luncheon. Miss Crale was a broad and +shapeless old maid with huge boots, a bass voice and a moustache. She +was behind most of the charitable affairs in the county, was popular +everywhere, and the most energetic character Rachel had ever met-- + +Rachel liked her and she liked Rachel, and after she had departed, +breathless and red-faced, on some further visit concerned with some +further charity, Rachel felt braced and invigorated and happier than she +had been for many weeks. + +It was a day of frosted blue and the sun flashed fire on to the great +field of snow that stretched from sky to sky. The Downs lay humped +against the blue and the whole world was frozen into silence. + +The only sounds were the soft stir the snow, falling from branches or +walls, made and the sharp cries of some children playing in a field near +at hand. + +When Miss Crale had gone Rachel went off for a walk. Jacob was with her. +She struck up the winding path on to the Downs. The snow was hard and +yielded a pleasant friendly crunch beneath her feet. Shadows that were +dark and yet were filled with colour lay across the snow; beneath her a +white valley against which trees and buildings seemed little wooden toys +and, in the far distance, hills rising, cut, with their iridescent glow, +the blue sky. + +No clouds; no movement; no sound: and soon the sun would be golden and +then hard and red, and then across all the snow pink shadows would creep +and the evening stars would burn-- + +In the heart of the snow, a valley between the shoulders of the Downs, a +black clump of trees clustered; she could see, now, Seddon Court like a +grey box at her feet, very tiny and breathing rest and peace. + +Some of her trouble slipped from her under this clear sky and in this +sharp air; from these quiet hills she saw all her introspection as an +evil thing, morbid, cowardly; from here it seemed to her that her +trouble with Roddy had been because he did not know what introspection +meant and could not understand the appeals that she made to him. + +But was it not unfair that men should have so many things that could +take the place of love? For Roddy there were a thousand emotions to give +meaning to life: for Rachel all experience seemed to come to her only +through people and her relations with people. + +Soon the valley and the little toy houses were behind her and she had +only the white rise and fall of the hill on every side. Dropped into a +hollow was a little dark deserted house with bare trees about it; +otherwise there was no dwelling-place to be seen. + +This absence of human life suddenly drew up before her, as sharply and +with as living an actuality as though some mirage had cast it +there--London-- + +Three months in the country had flung the London that she knew into a +vivid perspective that was quite novel to her. By the London that she +knew she did not mean the London of parties and theatre, the London of +Nita and her kind, but rather the actual London of the streets and +squares and fountain and parks and dusty plane trees and tinkling +organ-grinders. + +She felt now quite a thrill of excitement to think that, in another week +or two, she would be back in it all and would see all the lamps coming +out and the jingling cabs and the heavy lumbering omnibuses, and that +she would hear again the sharp crying of the newspaper boys and the +ringing of church bells and the thud of the horses down the Row and the +hum of voices above the orchestra during the intervals of some play. + +She thought of Portland Place and the park and the Round Church and the +little shops and Oxford Circus and the buses tumbling down Regent Street +into Piccadilly and then tumbling down again into Pall Mall. From +Portland Place she seemed to look down over the whole of London and to +see it like a jewel, with its glow dazzling the night sky-- + +She knew now that although she hated her grandmother she did not hate +the Portland Place house and she was glad that Roddy had taken a flat +near there. No other part of London would ever be quite the same to her +as that was: it would always be home to her more than any other place in +the world, with its space and air and sense of life crowding around it. + +And, as she walked, she was fired with the desire to have some real +active share in the London life; not in the sham life of pleasure and +entertainment, but to be working, as all kinds of men must be working, +with London behind them, influencing them, sometimes depressing them, +sometimes exalting them, always moving within them. + +That was a fine ambition to work towards a greater London, a greater, +finer, truer world, and whether you were politician or artist or +journalist or merchant or novelist or clerk or philanthropist, still by +your working honestly you would deserve your place in that company. + +If she could have some share in such things, then her miserable doubts +and forebodings would vanish in a vision too bright and glorious to +contain them-- + +As she walked her face glowed and her body moved as though it could +continue thus, swinging through the clear air, for all time. + +She determined that on this very evening she would tell Roddy about +Breton. Whatever might be the result life in the future should be clear +of Beaminster confusions. She would even ask Roddy to help her about +Breton, to influence, perhaps, her grandmother with regard to him-- + +Then, in a few days, Nita Raseley would be gone, and, afterwards, she +would discipline all her wit and energy towards establishing a fine +relationship with Roddy. + +Something had, throughout all these months, been wrong; she would +discover where that wrong lay--She would curb her own impatience, would +fling herself into his interests, would learn the things that Roddy +wanted from her and give them to him-- + +Then, as the sun sank lower and the yellow shadows crept up the sky, she +felt desolate and lonely. Vigour left her--She had descended now into +the valley and had come to the deserted house with the stark frowning +trees. This place, she had heard, had in the eighteenth century been a +private mad-house, and now behind its darkened windows she could have +fancied shapes and down the wind the echo of voices. + +She fought with all her might against a great tide of loneliness that +was now sweeping up about her. There had always been so many people +around her and yet she had always been lonely. Even May and Dr. +Christopher had not helped her there. She had a sense now of all the +people in all the world who were waiting for the other people who could +understand them; they were always missing one another, so near +sometimes, sometimes touching, and then, after all, going through life +alone. + +Those were the people with feelings and emotions--and as for the people +without them, of what use was life to _them_? + +Either way, except for the fortunate way, Life was a futile business. + +Then, climbing up from that sinister little valley and seeing that the +sky had turned to violet and that the evening star was there burning as +she had known that it would, she laughed at her morbidity. + +She shook herself free from it, thought once more of the things that she +would do with Roddy, thought of London and the fun that she would have +there, thought of Christopher and Uncle John and even Aunt Adela; then, +as she turned down the little crooked path towards the house, she +thought again of her cousin; she would work without ceasing to bring him +back into the family. + +That, at any rate, was work upon which she might commence on her return +to London, and as she clicked the little wicket-gate, a side-entrance to +the garden, behind her, she was almost happy again. + +The dusk was deepening into darkness, the moon had not yet risen above +the hill. She had entered the garden on the further side of the house +and passed through a long laurel path, her feet silenced by the snow. + +Jacob had stayed, some way behind. She could see the white lawn and +beyond it the lighted house; she was about to step out of the dark +shadow of the laurels when she found, just in front of her, almost +touching her, hidden by the black depth of the trees, two figures. + +She was upon them with a startled cry. A man had his arms about a woman; +bending back a little he had pulled her forward against him and was +kissing her so fiercely that her hands were buried deep in his coat to +steady herself. + +Rachel knew them instantly; they were her husband and Nita Raseley-- + +She stepped past them on to the lawn and at that instant they were +conscious of her-- + +Then she walked swiftly into the house. + + +II + +She went up to her bedroom. No thought came to her, her mind was blank, +but she noticed little things, put some of the silver things on her +dressing-table in order, pulled her blind a little lower, moved to the +fire and pushed the logs into a blaze. She sat there for a long, long +time. + +When the dressing-bell echoed through the rooms she was still sitting +there, thinking nothing-- + +Her maid came to her; she told her the dress that she would wear and +after a while sat staring into her mirror whilst her hair was brushed. + +Lucy said, "The snow's begun again, my lady. Coming down fast----" + +Then some absence of light in her mistress's eyes frightened her and she +said no more. + +Someone knocked on the door: a note for her ladyship. Rachel read it: + + "It was all a horrible, _horrible_ mistake. Darling Rachel, you + _know_ it was only fun--just nothing at all. Shall I come and + explain? If you'd rather not see me just now say so and I shall + _quite_ understand. I've been so upset that I think I won't + come down to dinner, if it isn't _too_ much bother having just + a little sent up to me. It was all _such_ a silly mistake, as + you'll see when we've explained. + + Your loving + + NITA." + +When she came to "we" Rachel coloured a little. Then she said, "Lucy, +bring me the local railway-guide. In my writing-room." + +Lucy brought it to her. Then she wrote: + + "DEAR NITA, + + No explanations necessary. There is a good train up to town + from Hawes at 9.30 to-morrow morning. + + Yours, + + RACHEL SEDDON." + +"I want this taken to Miss Raseley, Lucy--now. She's not very well, so +ask Haddon to see that dinner is sent up to her room, please." + +Then she finished dressing and went down to Roddy. + + +III + +He had perhaps expected that she would not come down, but there was no +opportunity given them for speech because the butler announcing dinner +followed her into the library. They went in. + +He sat opposite her, looking ashamed, with his eyes lowered, and the red +coming and going in his sunburned cheeks. + +They talked for the sake of the servants, and she asked him whether +Hawes had been as lovely as ever and whether Lady Rockington's nerves +were better, and how their youngest boy (delicate from his birth) was +now. + +Whilst she spoke her brain was turning, turning like a wheel; could she +only, for five minutes, think clearly, then might much after disaster be +avoided. She knew that in the conversation that was to come Roddy would +follow her lead and that it would be she who would be responsible for +all consequences. + +She knew that and yet she could not force her brain to be clear nor +foresee what the end of it all was to be. + +The dessert and the wine came at last and she went-- + +"I'll be in the library, Roddy," she said. + +He gave her a quarter of an hour, and in that pause, with the house +quite silent all about her and the fire crackling and the lights softly +shining, she strove to discipline her mind. + +She had known as soon as she had seen them there that the most awful +element in it was that this had in no way altered the earlier case--it +merely precipitated a crisis and demanded a definition. Nothing could +have proved to her that she had never loved Roddy so much as her own +feeling at this crisis towards him. Therein lay her own sin. + +It was simply now of the future that she must think. The awful chasm +that might divide them after this night, were not their words most +carefully ordered, shook her with fear; peril to herself, for she could +stand aside and see herself quite clearly: and she knew that if to-night +she and he were to say things that they could neither of them afterwards +forget, then, for herself, and from her deep need of love and affection, +there was temptation awaiting her that no disguise could cover. + +Then, as more clearly she figured the scene in the garden, patience +seemed difficult to command. + +She hated Nita Raseley--that was no matter--but she despised Roddy, and +were he once to-night to see that contempt she knew that his after +remembrance of it would divide them more completely than anything else +could do. + +When he came in she had still no clearer idea of what she intended to +say, or how she wished things to go. She was sitting in an arm-chair by +the fire with her hands shielding her face, and he sat down opposite her +and stared at her and cleared his throat and wished that she would take +her hands down and then finally plunged: + +"Rachel--I don't know--I can't--hang it all, what _can_ I say? I've been +a beastly cad and I'd cut my right hand off to have prevented it +happening----" + +She took her hand down and turned towards him-- + +"Let's cut all the recrimination part, Roddy," she said. "It was very +unfortunate--that was all. It was rather beastly of you, and as for +Nita----" + +Here he broke in--"No, I say, you mustn't say anythin' about her. She +wasn't a little bit to blame--It just----" + +"Well, we'll leave Nita. She isn't of any importance, anyway. The point +is that things have been wrong for months between us, and as we haven't +been married very long that's a pity. This has just brought things to a +head, that's all----" + +"No," said Roddy firmly. "No, Rachel, that ain't fair to Nita. I know it +isn't nice, but I must put that out fair and square--fair and square to +Nita. + +"We'd had a jolly old drive to Hawes--rippin' day, cold as anythin', +with the horse just spankin' along, and then the Rockingtons were jolly +and the lunch was jolly and back we came. We looked about the house for +you and heard you were still out walkin', so we just strolled about the +garden a bit and then--Well, anyway, Nita simply had nothin' to do with +it. It was so rippin' and jolly after the drive and all, that I just +kissed her. All in a second I just felt I had to ... beastly weak of +me," he finally added in a contemplative tone. + +"Well, that disposes of Nita," said Rachel. "Don't let's mention her +again. Meanwhile what sort of life am I going to have if 'things' are +going to sweep over you like this continually? Besides, it's rather +early days, isn't it? We haven't been married half a year yet." + +"No," said Roddy slowly, "no, we haven't and it's simply beastly. I'm a +perfect swine. When I married you the one thing I meant to do was to be +just as kind to you as I jolly well could be, and give you a perfectly +rippin' time, and here I am hurtin' you like anything----" + +She moved impatiently. "Never mind that, Roddy. You _have_ been very +kind and I'm sure you'd have given anything for me not to have come into +the garden just when I did, so as to have avoided hurting me. But what I +do know is that you're not straight with me. You know I told you before +we were married that the one thing that mattered was Truth--truth to +oneself and truth to everyone else--Well, we haven't been straight with +one another for a single instant. You've done any number of things that +would be wrong to you if I knew about them, but wouldn't be in the least +wrong if I didn't." + +"Of course," said Roddy, "no feller tells his wife everything--that +would be absurd. I think things are worse if people know about 'em whom +it hurts to know--_much_ worse." + +She was suddenly confronted now with a Roddy whose assurance and +confidence in his own personality startled her. Because he had never +been gifted with words and liked to be in the company of dogs and horses +she had fancied that he had no ideas about anything. + +Rachel was a great deal younger than she knew and a great deal more +contemptuous of the other half world than her experience of it +justified. Strangely enough this confidence on Roddy's part angered her +more than anything else could have done. + +"The fact is that since our marriage we've never got to know each other +in the least. We talk and go to places together and you give me things +and I give you things--and that's all. I don't know you and now, after +to-day, I can't trust you----" + +He coloured a little at that, but said nothing. + +She went on, rather fast and her breath coming between her words: "But +I'm not going to be so silly as to make a scene because I saw you +kissing Nita Raseley. She's simply not worth thinking about,--but you +ought to be straighter to me all the way round. If you've wanted to be +kind to me as you say, then you might have taken me more into your +life----" + +"Well," said Roddy slowly, "if you'd managed to love me a bit, Rachel, +things might be different." + +This answer was so utterly unexpected that it took her like a blow. That +Roddy should attack _her_ when he had, only a few hours before, been +discovered so abominably! + +"What do you mean, Roddy?" she stammered angrily. "Love you? But----" + +"Yes," he persisted doggedly, "I know when you accepted me you said you +didn't and I know that I hadn't any right to expect it, but I believe if +you hadn't thought me such a silly ass and hadn't looked all the time as +though you were just indulgin' my silly fancies until somethin' more +sensible had come along, things might have been different. I'm the sort +of feller," Roddy said, choosing his words carefully, "that you could +have made anythin' out of, Rachel. I'm weak in some ways--most men +are--and when a thing comes dancin' along lookin' ever so temptin', why, +then I generally have to go after it. But you could have kept me, +Rachel, more than anyone I've ever known----" + +She was not touched nor moved, only angered that he, so obviously in the +wrong, should attempt justification. + +"Yes," she said hotly. "And I suppose in another moment you'll be +telling me that it's silly of me to be angry at what I saw this +afternoon?" + +He thought it out a moment, then answered: "No, it was perfectly natural +of course--only I don't think you ought to mind much. If you really +cared, you wouldn't. It don't matter _really_ so much what I do if I +still like you best. Moments don't count--it's what goes on all the time +that matters. Why, I might kiss a hundred women and still you'd be the +only woman who mattered to me. I've never cared for one so long before," +he added simply. + +Then as she said nothing he went on: "I've never been sort of +educated--never cared enough for anyone to give things up. I would have +given things up for you if you'd wanted me to, but you didn't +really----" + +"Aren't we a little off the point, Roddy?" she flung back. "The point is +how are we going to get along all the years and years we've got in front +of us? What are we going to do?" + +"Everybody's just the same," said Roddy quietly. "It takes a lot of +years before married people settle down. We can't expect to be any +different----" + +But although he spoke so quietly he watched her, hoping for some +yielding on her part; in an instant, had she come to him, she would have +seen a Roddy whom she had never seen before and from that moment onwards +would have had a power over him that nothing could have shaken. + +So delicately hung the balance between them. But she was filled with a +sense of her own wrongs, her loneliness, the injustice of it all. At +that moment all affection for Roddy had left her, she would only have +been glad if she had known that she was never to see him again. His slow +voice, his way of thinking out his sentences, his thick clumsy hands and +his red face, everything came to her now as a continuation of the chains +that she had worn all her days. + +She got up and confronted him-- + +"Yes," she said fiercely, "that's exactly it. Life is to be like +everyone else. We're to say the things, do the things that our +neighbours say and do. Because your friends at Brooks's kiss their +wives' friends, therefore you are to do so. Because the men you know +never say what they mean and lie about everything they do, therefore you +do the same. Oh! I know! Haven't I heard it all my life? Haven't my +precious family lived on lies? You've caught it all from my delightful +grandmother! I congratulate you!" + +"What if I have?" he said. "She's a friend of mine, Rachel. She's been +dashed good to me--You're not to say a word against her." + +"I hate her," Rachel cried passionately. "All my life she's been over +me--for years she's been my enemy. If she stands for everything that you +believe, then it isn't any wonder that we have nothing in common, that +you should be proud of this afternoon, that--that----" + +She was biting her lips to keep back the tears. Over his face had crept +a sulky obstinate look that might have told her, had she seen it, that +she was driving him very far. + +"She's fine," he said. "She's made England what it is. You're all for +ideas, Rachel, and for Truth and lots of things, but you're difficult to +live with." + +"Very well, Roddy. Thank you. Now we know how we stand. I at least owe +Nita a debt for having cleared up the situation. If you find it +difficult with me I can at least return the compliment--and I have at +any rate this added advantage, that I speak the truth." + +As he looked at her across the room he saw in her that same figure that +he'd seen once just before proposing to her--someone foreign, +unknown--He felt as though he were quarrelling with a stranger.... + +She turned and went. + +For a long while he stood gazing into the fire, his hands in his +pockets. How had it all happened? Why had they let it come to that kind +of quarrel when they might so easily have prevented it? + +And she, crying bitterly in her room, asked herself the same question. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +RACHEL--AND CHRISTOPHER AND RODDY + + +I + +Christopher had snatched his first holiday for two years and was abroad +during the January of 1899 when the Seddons were in town. + +February, March and April they spent at Seddon Court, and it was not +therefore until early in May that Christopher saw Rachel. + +She had dreaded with an almost fantastic alarm this meeting. No other +human being knew her so honestly and accurately as did Christopher, and +the change in her that he would at once discern would, when she caught +the reflection of it in his eyes, mark definitely the sinister country +into which these last months had carried her. + +It had seemed as though some malign spirit had been determined to make +the most of that quarrel that Nita Raseley had provoked. + +Both Roddy and Rachel hated scenes--upon that, at least, they were +agreed--and from their determination never to have another arose a +deliberate avoidance of any plain speaking. Rachel, longing for honesty, +found herself caught in a thousand deceits--Roddy, avoiding any kind of +analysis, found that everything that he provided in conversation seemed +to lead to danger. + +He was now always ill at ease in Rachel's company; he had stood on that +fatal evening, more strongly for the Beaminster interest than he had +intended, but from his very determination to maintain his new +independence, he produced the Duchess for Rachel's benefit at every turn +of the road. + +Roddy knew that the Duchess feared that Rachel would lead him from her +side and that she received with rejoicing every sign on his part of +irritation against Rachel. She had wanted him to marry her granddaughter +because that bound him more closely to her, but she had not, perhaps, +been prepared for the probable effect of Rachel's character upon him. + +The Duchess therefore made, throughout these months, a third member of +their company. Roddy, finding Rachel's society a growing embarrassment, +spent more and more of his time with his animals and his tenants and +labourers. But all this time he was conscious, in a dumb way, of +unhappiness and a puzzled dismay, so that his very affection for Rachel +produced in him a growing irritation that it should be so needlessly +thwarted. Things were all wrong and his resentment of his own failure to +right them reacted, without his will, upon the very person whom he +wished to propitiate. + +For Rachel these months were baffling in their hideous discomfort. Her +affection for Roddy was there, but it was swallowed by her desperate +efforts to analyse a situation that was, in definite outline, no +situation at all. + +As Roddy withdrew, her loneliness wrapped her round, and in every day +that added to her distance from Roddy she saw the active and malignant +agency of her grandmother. She was intelligent enough to be aware that +in this constant vision of the Duchess she was outstepping the +probabilities; but her early years and the precipitation with which she +had been shot out of them into an atmosphere that unexpectedly resembled +their own earlier surroundings seemed to point to some diabolical +agency. + +"Oh! when I get free of this," had been her earlier cry, and now the +foreboding that she was never to be free of it until she died terrified +her with its possibility. Imagine her brought up in a stuffy house with +windows tightly closed, in full vision of a high road, imagine her +promised the freedom of the road at a future time; imagine her +liberated, at last, rushing into the new life and finding that, after +all, the walls of the house were still about her, and about her now for +ever. + +Her one reserve during the early months of the year at Seddon had been +her letters to Francis Breton. His letters to her had been a series of +self-revelation; he had restrained himself in so far as appealing to her +simply on the score of their relationship and his enmity to the head of +the house. She had replied revealing her sympathy, hinting at rebellion +on her own side and feeling, after the writing of every letter, a hatred +of her own deceit, a curiously heightened sense of affection for Roddy, +above all a conviction that impulses were, of their own agency, working +to some climax that she could not, or would not, control. + +The foreign blood in her, the English blood in him, baffled their +advances toward one another. Everything that Rachel did now seemed to +Roddy so close to melodrama that it was best to use silence for his +weapon. All Roddy's actions were to Rachel further illustrations of +Beaminster muddle and second-rate personality. + +Had Roddy called out of Rachel the great depth of passion and reality +that she inherited from her mother her own love of him would have solved +everything--but that he could not call from her, nor ever would. + +For Rachel, she saw in him now a possibility of perpetual infidelity, +and at every suspicion of it her disgust both at herself and him grew +because that possibility did not move her more. + +They came up to London at the beginning of May and hid, very +successfully from the world, the widening breach. + +To Rachel, it was sheer terror to discover the thrill that the adjacence +of Elliston Square to Saxton Square gave her. In this one +self-revelation there was enough to present her with night after night +of sleepless misery. She visited the Duchess and found that her presence +was continually demanded. Every visit was a battle. + +"Show me how you are treating him, whether he cares for you. Have you +found him out? Tell me everything----" + +"I will tell you nothing. I will come here day after day and you shall +gather nothing from me. I have escaped you." + +"Indeed you have not escaped me. My power over you is only now +beginning----" + +No word between them but the most civil. There was no trace in the old +woman now of her earlier irony--no sign in Rachel of irritation or +rebellion. + +But the girl knew that war was declared, that her only ally was one in +whose alliance lay, for her, the very heart of danger. + +All these things she might hide from the world--from Christopher she +knew that she could hide nothing. + + +II + +It was on an early afternoon in May that Christopher had tea with +Rachel. He had waited for his visit with very real anxiety; the letters +that he had had from her had been unsatisfactory, not because they were +actively expressive of unhappiness, but because there was an effort in +every word of them--Rachel had never found it difficult to write to him +before. + +He was also uneasy because he had been against this marriage from the +beginning. He did, as he said to the Duchess, know Rachel better than +anyone else knew her; he knew her from his love for her, and also from +that scientific study that he applied in his profession. And he had +found, too, in her, as he had found in Breton, some strain of fierce +helplessness, as of an animal caught in a trap, that especially moved +his interest and affection-- + +Was Rachel's marriage a disaster? If so she had certainly managed to +conceal it, for even the Duchess did not know--of that he was sure. + +If Rachel were indeed unhappy would she come to him as she used to come +to him? + +What change had marriage wrought in her? + +It was one of those May days when the weather is hot before London is +ready. It was a day of tension; buildings, streets quivered beneath a +sun in whose gaze there was no kindliness nor comfort. Christopher drove +from Eaton Square, where, for some hours he had been engaged in +preventing an old man from dying, when both the old man himself and all +his friends and relations were convinced that death was the best thing +for him-- + +Sloane Street ran like white steel before his eyes, not dimly veiled as +he had so often seen it; Park Lane offered houses that stared with +haughty faces upon a world that would, they knew, do anything for +money-- + +Elliston Square itself was white and sterile; the town was, on this +afternoon, irritated, sinister ... feet ached upon its pavements and +hearts were suddenly clutched with foreboding. + +As he ascended in the lift to her flat he knew that, did he find that +this marriage was, truly, a misadventure for Rachel, then, until his +death, he would reproach himself for some weak inaction, some hesitation +when first he had heard that it was to be. + +He _had_ protested, but now he felt that he should have done more. + +Soon he had his answer to all his questions. + +He saw at once that Rachel was no longer the impulsive, nervous girl +whom he had always known. She was a girl no longer. + +Her eyes greeted him now steadily, she seemed taller and her body was in +perfect control--very tall and slim and dark, her cheeks pale but +shadowed a little with the shadow deepening beneath her eyes. Her mouth, +that had always been too large, had had before a delightful quality of +uncertainty, so that smiles and frowns and alarms, distress and +happiness all hovered near. It was now grave and composed. + +Her limbs had always moved unsteadily and with the awkward lack of +control of a child, now there was no kind of impulse, every movement was +considered, and that was the first thing that Christopher saw, that +nothing that Rachel now did or said was spontaneous. + +There was less in her now to remind him of her foreign blood. + +The flat was comfortable, but more commonplace than it would have been +had it been Rachel's only. + +He kissed her, as he had always done, and he fancied that she clung for +a moment to him, as her hands went up to his coat. + +He settled his big loose body and looked across at her. + +Christopher was no subtle analyser of other people's emotions. His own +feelings were never complicated and he expected life to run on plain and +simple lines of likes and dislikes, sorrow, anger, love and hatred. If +someone of whom he was fond made a direct appeal to him his simple +remedies were often wonderfully useful--he was no fool and he had been +brought, during a great number of years, into the most direct relations +with men and women, but, if that direct appeal was not made, then he was +frightened and baffled. + +He was frightened of Rachel now; he knew instantly that instead of +appealing she would defend herself from him.... Some mysterious +conviction seemed to forebode that he would not be able to help her. He +was, essentially, of those who, believing in goodness and virtue and the +glorious Millennium, are contented, quite simply, with that belief and +might, if they stated those simplicities, irritate the scoffers. But he +was saved because he made statements on the rarest occasions and lived +his life instead. + +Here, however, was a crisis in his relations with Rachel that no +platitudes could satisfy. Did he not touch her now he might never touch +her again. + +In a situation that was beyond him he was always hopelessly +self-conscious. His love for Rachel was so tremendous a thing in him +that a statement of it should surely have been the simplest thing in +the world. But he saw in her eyes that to challenge her with--"My dear, +you know how I love you. Tell me what's the matter," would frighten her +to absolute silence. "I'm going to tell you nothing," she seemed to say +to him, "unless you move me in spite of myself. But, if I don't tell you +now I shall never tell you." + +"Well, my dear," he said, smiling at her, "how are you after all this +time?" + +"I'm all right," she answered, smiling back at him. "It is good to see +you again. Tell me all about your holiday." + +"Tell me about yours first." + +"Oh! There isn't very much to tell. I enjoyed it all enormously, of +course." + +"What did you enjoy most?" + +"Oh! some of the smaller towns--Rapallo, for instance.--Oh! yes, and +Bologna was fascinating." + +"Not Rome and Florence?" + +"In a way. But there were too many tourists. Rome one's got to stay in, +I'm sure. That first view was disappointing." + +"And how did Roddy--if I may call him Roddy--enjoy it?" + +"Immensely, I think. He liked the country better than the towns though." + +"You saw lots of pictures?" + +"Heaps. Roddy enjoyed them enormously. I'd no idea he knew so much about +them. Oh! it was all lovely, and such colours, such light--London seems +like a cellar, even in June." + +There followed then a pause that swelled and swelled between them until +it resembled some dreadful monster, horribly stationed there to separate +them. + +Christopher looked at Rachel, but she refused to meet his eyes. + +"I've lost her. I shall never see her again!" he thought with despair. +Two years ago he would have gone to her, put his arms around her, +kissed her and drawn from her at once her trouble. + +He could not do that now. + +"Your turn, Dr. Chris dear. Tell me about your holidays." + +"Oh, mine don't count. I went to Brittany first, then up to St. Andrews +with another man to play golf." + +"You're looking splendidly well and you're thinner. What was Brittany +like?" + +"Delightful. Have you ever been there?" + +"Never. I must get Roddy to take me. Just suit him, I should think." + +To Christopher's intense relief tea was brought. He came to the table +and then, for an instant, he did catch her eyes, saw tears in them, and +behind the tears some appeal to him to help her. Her hand was shaking. + +"How silly of me to spill your tea. I'm so sorry. Let me pour it +back...." + +"Rachel----" he began, but a servant entered with something and he +waited. When they were alone again, standing over her as though he were +afraid that she would escape him, he plunged. + +"Rachel dear. We're talking as though we'd never met before. You've +never been shy with me like this. If marriage is going to make a +stranger of you, I shall break young Seddon's neck----" + +"No," she said in a voice that was between laughter and tears. "Of +course, Dr. Chris. Things are just the same between us, only, +only--well, I'm married and--one thing and another, you know." + +He caught both her hands. + +"You're perfectly happy?" + +She met his eyes. + +"Perfectly." + +"Happier than you've ever been in your life?" + +She dropped her eyes. + +"Happier than I've ever been in my life." + +"And you'll come to me just the same if there's any kind of trouble?" + +"Of course." + +"You promise?" + +"I promise." + +They talked then, for a little time, of other things. But he was not +satisfied. Rachel's soul, caught away in alarm, was still beyond his +grasp. + +At last, feeling that the moments were precious and that Roddy might at +any instant appear, he sat down on the sofa beside her. + +"Rachel dear. Something's worrying you. You won't tell me?" + +"Nothing's worrying----" + +"Ah, but I know--well, if you won't you won't--but if you knew how much +I loved you you'd feel that you were cruel not to let me help you." + +"_Dear_ Dr. Chris--but there is _nothing_." + +But her eyes were full of tears. + +"Look here," he said. "Perhaps you'll feel later on you can talk to me. +Just come straight away if you do feel that." + +He went on. "Don't be frightened, my dear, if there are a whole heap of +new emotions, new instincts, stirred in you by marriage. Just take them +all as they come. It's all progress, you know. Don't be frightened of +anything. Just take the animal by the head and look at it." + +That led him to speak about Brun's Tiger. He explained it--the force in +people, the way they either grappled with the creature, and at last +trained it to help them with their work in the world, or ignored it, +silenced it, allowed it at last to die, and so, cosy and lazily +comfortable, passed to their day's end, but had, nevertheless, missed +the whole purpose of life. + +He enlarged on that and showed the connection of the individual Tiger +with the welfare of the world, so that everyone who denied his Tiger +added to his world's muddle and confusion, and at last there would come +an inevitable crisis when war would spring up between those who had +grappled with their Tiger and those who had not. + +"One knows one's own Tiger--absolutely of oneself one knows it and has, +of oneself, the choice whether to grapple or not--at least that's what I +gathered he meant--I know it struck me at the time." + +"Oh," she said, with a sigh that quivered through her whole body. "It's +so _easy_ to talk.... But it's true what he says. I know it." + +At last Christopher got up to go. He did not know whether he had done +any good; he felt that he was a miserable failure, and he had a +foreboding that one day he would be ashamed indeed that he had not +helped her. + +"Do something," a voice seemed to tell him. "You'll regret ... all your +life you'll regret." + +He turned and held again her hands in his.... "Rachel--dear--tell +me----" + +Her hands were chill and lifeless. Her voice caught. "Oh! Dr. Chris!..." +Then she suddenly stepped back from him-- + +"_It's_ all right.... I'm all right. Come again soon, Dr. Chris +dear--come soon." + +He left her and found his way into the hot, breathless street. + +After he had gone Rachel sat, staring beyond the room out on to the +white walls of the houses and the green branches of the trees in the +square. + +Roddy came in. + +All the afternoon he had been thinking about her; at one moment he was +furious with the discomfort that life was now becoming to him, at +another moment he was imagining little plans that would sweep all the +discomfort away. + +All this spring they had been miserable together. Now was beginning a +time that was always jolly in London and yet he could not enjoy a moment +of it. Did she dislike him instead of liking him, or did he like her +instead of loving her, it would all be so easy--just the same as any +other couple. + +Ever since that silly Nita incident there had been this restraint, and +yet how could that be the cause? + +Rachel had made nothing of it; it was because it had meant so little to +her that he had chafed so at the remembrance of it. + +She was fond of him--he knew that--she was miserably unhappy. + +He loved her--and he was miserably unhappy. + +Damn this weather. + +He looked at her, wondered what would happen did he cross over and +suddenly kiss her, knew that he would see her struggle to be kind, to +give him what he wanted, knew that that would hurt most damnably, and +that he would be in a bad temper for the rest of the evening and would +wonder why-- + +So, with a muttered word he went out and up to his dressing-room, had a +bath, and then lay reading with serious brows _The Winning Post_ until +his man told him that it was time to dress. + +Slowly and with the absorbed care that he always gave to these +preparations he made himself ready for the Beaminster dinner. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +LIZZIE'S JOURNEY--I + + "So thy great gift, upon misprision growing, + Comes home again, on better judgment making; + Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter + In sleep a king; but waking no such matter." + + WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. + + +I + +During this year Lizzie Rand was glad that she had so much to do. As she +had never until now given the romance in her an opportunity for freedom, +so had she never before realized the amazing invasion upon life that +that same romance might threaten. + +Indeed by the early summer months of 1899 "threaten" was no longer an +honest definition, for, now this same Romance had invaded, had +conquered, had confronted the very citadels of Lizzie's heart, citadels +never surveyed nor challenged at any time before. + +Nevertheless, even now, Portland Place noticed no change in Miss Rand. +Norris, Mrs. Newton, Dorchester would still, had they been challenged, +have protested that Miss Rand had no conception of the softer, more +sentimental side of life; she was there for discipline and order--Norris +had been known to be led a fearful dance by young women "time and +again"--Mrs. Newton had passionately adored the late Mr. Newton until a +sudden chill had carried him to St. Agnes, Bare Street Cemetery, whither +Mrs. Newton, every Sunday, did still make her stately pilgrimage--even +Dorchester had once, it was said, paid grim attentions to a soldier who +had, unhappily, found in some fluffy young woman a more hopeful comfort. + +Here, above and below stairs, passion had marked its victims ... Miss +Rand only could have felt no touch of it. + +She sometimes wondered at herself that she could so calmly and +dispassionately separate the one life from the other. Never, within that +neat stern room at Portland Place, was there a shudder or sudden +invading thrill at some flashing recollection or imagination. To her +work every nerve, every energy was given. Now, indeed, more than ever +before in her experience of it did 104 Portland Place demand her +presence. Increasingly throughout these months of 1899 was the solemn +heavy air unsettled. + +Lizzie, to whom all impression came with sharpening acuteness, had seen +in the appearance, success and marriage of Rachel Beaminster the +disturbing elements at work--"Things will never be the same here +again"--she had said to herself. + +It was, of course, through Lady Adela that Lizzie studied the house. The +Duchess she never saw, but it was Lady Adela's attitude, before and +after those interviews with her mother, that told their story. Lady +Adela had never until now appeared an interesting figure to Lizzie, but +now forth, from the dry sterile husk of her, a life, pathetic, +struggling against heritages of dumb years, tried to come. + +Lady Adela was unhappy; the very foundations of her existence threatened +to dismay her, at any moment, by their insecurity. Within her the +Beaminster tradition urged, before Lizzie Rand at any rate, the +maintenance of dignity and indifference, but the novelty to her of all +this disturbance brought with it a hapless inability to deal with it, +and again and again little exclamations, little surprised wonders at +what the world could be coming to, little confused clutchings at +anything that offered stability, showed Lizzie that trouble was on every +side of her. Then through the house rumour began to twist its way--Her +Grace was not so well--"The Old Lady was breaking up" (this, in the +close security of shuttered rooms below stairs). + +No one could say whence these whispers gathered. Dorchester would admit +nothing. Her own position in the servants' hall was that of a lofty +uncompromising female Jove, and she knew well enough that her supremacy +over Norris and Mrs. Newton depended on her mistress's supremacy over +the world in general. Not for her then to admit ill health. + +"Indeed no--Her Grace has been better of late than for years past." + +But Norris and Mrs. Newton were not to be taken in. They were truly +proud now of their alliance with the Beaminster family royal, but, +supposing Her Grace were to leave this world to rule in a better one +("Here to-day, gone to-morrow 'igh or low," as Norris remarked), why, +then "Le Roi est mort--Vive le Roi," and the Crown might, in the +meanwhile, have passed elsewhere. + +"You mark my words," Mrs. Newton said to Norris, "'er Grace will go, old +Victorier will go, and where'll the Beaminster crowd be then, I ask you? +Times are movin' too quick. I wouldn't give a toss for your Birth and +Debrett and all in another twenty years." + +To Lizzie also there came other signs of the times. She noticed that now +the relations and friends of the family gathered more frequently +together than ever before within her memory. The Duke, Lord Richard were +continually in the house, and the adherents, Lady Carloes, Lord Crewner, +the Massiters and all the others, called, dined, came to tea. + +Throughout it all there was no expression of any change in the family +policy. To Lizzie Lady Adela admitted nothing, only there were occasions +when, almost against her will, she asked for advice, was uncertain a +little, vague a little, even appealing a little. + +Here Lizzie was exactly right, assisted and yet admitted no need for +assistance. Her tact was perfect. + +Lizzie had also Lady Seddon to besiege her attention. + +To her considerable surprise Rachel had written to her three times +during this year. On each occasion there had been some definite reason +for writing, but behind the reason there had been some implied +friendliness and Lizzie had, in her turn, sent answers that were more +than businesslike replies. + +Lizzie had seen Rachel several times in January and at each meeting her +impression of Rachel's unhappiness had grown. + +"There've been three of you," Lizzie said to herself. "There was the +girl in the schoolroom, and a fierce awkward difficult creature she was. +There was the girl in her first season, and a delightful, joyful, +radiant creature she was. And now--well, there's a girl married, fierce +again, suffering again--above all, afraid of herself." + +In May Rachel asked Lizzie to go and see her, and Lizzie went. That +meeting was in no way personal: Rachel seemed less friendly than she had +been on that day, a year ago, when she had been to Lizzie's, but behind +all that outward stiffness the appeal was there. + +"She wants me to help her," thought Lizzie. "She's too proud now to ask +me: the time will come though." + +All this was connected, she knew, with the fortunes of the house. +Through Lord John, Lord Richard, the Duke, Lady Adela, Dorchester, +Norris, Mrs. Newton the spirit of uneasiness was abroad. + +The Duchess, during these months, more than ever before, was present in +every room and passage of the house-- + +The shadow of some coming event hovered. + + +II + +Over Lizzie's other life, also, the Duchess hovered. Were any disaster +to snatch Her Grace from the domination of this world into a +comparatively humble position in the next, Lizzie did not doubt that the +Beaminsters would once more take Francis Breton into their ranks. It was +the Duchess who held the gate against him. + +The romantic side of her did not hold complete dominion. She knew that +were Francis Breton once more accepted by the family, his distance from +her would be greatly increased. Were he, on the other hand, to marry +her whilst he was yet an exile, then had she no fear of after +consequences. She could hold her own with anyone. + +She had now very little doubt that he loved her. She had seen, during +the last year, the flame of some passion burning in his eyes, +increasingly he depended upon her and found opportunities for being with +her. There was no other woman whom he saw, of that she was convinced. + +Often he had been about to tell her some secret and then had refrained; +she thought that he was waiting until he could be quite assured that she +loved him, and she had fancied that since that day in last December when +the first snow had fallen and they had had that little talk together he +had been much happier, as though he were now convinced of her love for +him. + +The spring passed and still his confession did not come. With the early +summer he seemed to be once more unhappy and unsettled, and throughout +May she scarcely saw him. + +Then in July he asked her whether she would dine with him and go to the +theatre. He had two dress circle tickets for _Mrs. Lemiter's Decision_. + +Something told her that on this evening he would speak to her. + +As she dressed her fingers trembled so that buttons and hooks and laces +were of terrible difficulty. In the glass she saw her cheeks flaming; +she wished she were taller, not so sturdy. The lines of her face, she +thought, were all so set as though they knew well for what purpose they +were there. "Business _we're_ here for ..." they seemed to say. + +For once she envied her sister's fair rounded fluffiness. Her black +evening dress was fashionable, almost smart, but just a little stern: +she fastened some dark red carnations into her waist and hung around her +throat a chain of tiny pearls, her only piece of jewellery. Her hair was +restrained and disciplined--she could not extract from it any waves or +soft indulgencies. + +At the end, staring at her reflection, she let herself go. + +"He's seen me all this time as I am. How silly to try to alter things!" +Her face glowed, the pearls and carnations seemed to smile encouragement +to her. + +What possibilities had this new, this wonderful Lizzie Rand! What a life +might be hers! What a happy, fortunate woman she was! + +God, how grateful she was! + +Mrs. Rand saw them off in a four-wheeler with an air of reluctance. It +always hurt her that anyone should go to the theatre without her. + +Of course Lizzie was old enough by now to look after herself, but at the +same time this Mr. Breton was no safe character and it would have been +altogether "nicer" if Lizzie had suggested her company-- + +Lizzie had not suggested it; with a shiver Mrs. Rand resigned herself to +an evening made hideous by a vision of a world crowded with theatres +through whose portals gay audiences were pouring-- + +"Of course it's selfish of her," she said again and again to +Daisy--"Selfish is the only word." + +Meanwhile the cab was, for Lizzie, a chariot of happiness. He looked +splendid to-night, more romantic than he had ever been, with his pointed +beard, his armless sleeve buttoned across on to his coat, his top-hat +shining, his clothes fitting so perfectly. Poor though he was, he always +stood up as smart as anyone, the Duke or Lord John were no smarter. + +Did he realize, she wondered, that the edge of his hand touched the silk +of her dress? Did he notice the absurd way that the pearls jumped up and +down on her throat? Did he feel the little shiver of happiness that ran +through her body and out at her toes and fingers? + +The chariot was dark, but beyond it there were piled lighted buildings; +before these ran streets that flung dark figures, here one by one, now +in throngs, against the glittering colour. + +She could not believe that anyone there by the lumbering cab could show +happiness that could equal hers. + +Had she been coldly surveying, from the careful distance of an outside +observer, these emotions in some other woman she would have demanded her +reasons for such expectation of happiness, but it was her very +inexperience of any other such affair in her life that allowed her now +to rest assured. As he touched her hand to help her into the restaurant +she was sure, by the beating of her heart, that she could not be +deceived. + +The restaurant was in Pall Mall, and as she went in she noticed the +string of faithful people waiting round the corner of Her Majesty's +Theatre; she was glad that there were so many others enjoying themselves +to-night. + +They sat at a little round table on a balcony and below them other happy +people were laughing and talking--Flowers, lights, women not so +beautiful that they disheartened one, and, from the open windows, a +whir, a rattle, a shout, a cry, a bell, a hurdy-gurdy, a laugh--Oh! the +world was turning to-night! + +There was a beautiful dinner, but she was far too happy to eat much. He +seemed to understand. They both talked a little, but it was, it +appeared, implied between them that their real conversation should be +postponed. + +She was, to herself, an utterly new Lizzie Rand to-night, inarticulate, +uncertain, confused. + +"What's this the papers say about South Africa?" + +"Yes, it looks as though there were going to be trouble there. But you +can trust Milner--a strong man----" + +"Yes, I suppose so--but it seems a pity that this Conference that they +hoped so much from has all fallen through, doesn't it? They do seem +obstinate people." + +"Well, they are. I was out in Pretoria in '95--obstinate as mules. But +there won't be much trouble--a troop or two of our fellows have only got +to show their faces----" + +"Yes, of course. Isn't that a pretty woman down there? There to the +right--with the black hair and the diamonds--tall--" + +But tall women with black hair and Boers in South Africa were merely +points to catch hold, and, for an instant, the thrill of the contact and +the anticipation and the glorious vision of the wonderful future. + +Him all this time she closely observed. He was not entirely at his ease, +when she had been in public with him before she had noticed it, his +glance at every new-comer, his conscious summoning of control lest it +should be someone whom he had once known, someone who might now, +perhaps, not know him. + +It made him in her eyes all the younger, all the more happily demanding +her protection; how terribly she loved him she had never, she thought, +realized until this moment. + +The Haymarket Theatre, where _Mrs. Lemiter's Decision_ had been given to +a grateful world for nearly two hundred nights, was next door. + +In a moment they were there and the band was playing and the lights were +up, and then the band was not playing and the lights were down, and she +was instantly conscious of the places where his body touched hers and of +his hand lying white upon his knee. + +She, Lizzie Rand, most perfect of private secretaries, most sedate and +composed of women, found it all that her self-control could secure that +she should not then and there have touched that hand with her own. + +It was not really a good play. There was a lady, Mrs. Lemiter, who had +once done what she should not have done. There were a number of ladies +and gentlemen, placed round her by the author, in order that she should, +for the benefit of as many audiences as possible, confess what she _had_ +done. + +During the first and second acts Mrs. Lemiter made little dashes towards +escape and the author (naturally omniscient) always placed someone in +front of her just in time and there were cries of "Not this way, my good +woman." At the end of the third act, Mrs. Lemiter, thoroughly bored and +exasperated, turned on them all and, for a good twenty minutes, told +them what she thought of them. + +During the fourth act they all assured her that they liked her very much +and that, as it was now eleven o'clock and she'd lost her temper so +successfully that the house would certainly be filled for many months to +come, they'd all better have tea or dinner, whilst a young couple, who +had throughout the play loved one another and quarrelled, made it up +again. + +When the play was at an end Lizzie did not know what it had been about. +She took his hand and when he was about to hail a cab stopped him. + +"Let's walk," she said, "it's such a lovely night." + +He eagerly agreed and they started. + + +III + +She knew that her moment had come; he knew too--she could tell that +because all the way up the Haymarket he said nothing. + +Piccadilly Circus was a screaming confusion. A music-hall invited you to +come and hear "Harry and Clare, drawing-room entertainers." Lights--red +and green and gold--flashed and advised drinks and hair-oil and tobacco. +Ladies, highly coloured and a little dishevelled; stared haughtily but +inquisitively about them, boys shouted newspapers and dived under horses +and appeared, miraculously delivered from the wheels of omnibuses. + +It was a rushing, whirling confusion and through it his arm led her, +happier in his secure guard than in anything else under heaven. + +Regent Street was quiet and softly coloured above the maelstrom into +which it flowed. He suddenly began: + +"I've got something I want to tell you--something I've wanted to tell +you for a long time. You must have seen----" + +Her voice coming to her as though it were a stranger's, said, "Yes." At +the same time, looking about her, almost unconsciously, she registered +her memory of the place and the hour--the shelving street, rising with +its lamps reflected, before them, a bank of dark cloud that had suddenly +appeared and hung, sinister against the night sky, behind the white +houses, a slip of a silver moon surveying this same cloud with anxiety +because it knew that soon its darkness would engulf it. + +"I've wanted to tell you," he began again, "this long time. It's needed +courage, and things during this last year have rather taken my courage +away from me." + +"You needn't be afraid," she said with a little laugh. "You ought to +know by this time that you can tell me anything, Mr. Breton." + +"Yes, I do know," he said earnestly. "Of course I know. What you've been +to me all this last year--I simply can't think how I'd have kept up if +it hadn't been for you." + +"Oh, please," she said. + +"No, but it's true. Even with you it's been a bit of a fight." + +He paused. She saw that the black cloud had already swallowed up the +moon and that a few raindrops were beginning to fall. + +He went on: "You must have seen that all this time something's been +helping me. I've never spoken to you, but you've known----" + +The moment had come. Her heart had surely stopped its beat and she was +glad, in her happiness, of the rain that was now falling more swiftly. + +"I don't know--" he stammered a little. "It's so difficult. It's come to +this, that I must speak to somebody and you're the only person, the only +person. But even with one's best friends--one knows them so +slightly--after all, perhaps, you'll think it very wrong----" + +At that word it was as though a great hammer had, of a sudden, hit her +heart and slain it. The street, shining with the rain, rose ever so +little and bent towards her. + +"Wrong?" she said, looking up at him. + +"Yes. I don't know about your standards--you've been always so kind to +me and put up with my faults and so I've been encouraged----" + +Her relief should have awaked the gods of Olympus with its triumph. + +"I've meant everything I've ever said----" + +"Yes, I'm sure you have and that's why I think you'll understand. As I +say, I've got to tell someone or I'll burst. It's just this--it's my +cousin Rachel--Lady Seddon. Ever since we first met in your room she's +been my whole world. Nothing else has mattered. It's she that's kept me +all these months from going under. She's my life, my whole existence now +and in the world to come, if there is one. Oh! Thank God!" he cried. +"I've told someone at last. If you don't approve I can't help it. I know +you'll keep my secret and, after all, it's nothing very terrible. I'm +content to go on like this, just seeing her sometimes, writing to her +sometimes. Now you know, Miss Rand, what's been my secret all this time. +I've felt it's been between us and that's why I had to tell you. We'll +be twice the friends that we were now that I've told you. And I must, I +_must_ have someone to talk to about her sometimes. It's been killing +me, getting along without it." + +Now that he had begun words poured from him. He did not know that it was +raining; he saw only Rachel with her white face and dark hair. + +Lizzie pulled her wrap about her; she was very cold and the rain was +coming fast. + +He was suddenly conscious of this. + +"I say, what a brute I am! It's pouring!" He called a passing hansom and +they climbed into it. + +He was aware that she had said nothing. + +"There!" he said, "you wish I hadn't told you. I know you do. You're +shocked." + +"No," she said, struggling to prevent her teeth from chattering. + +He felt her shiver. "Why! you're shaking with cold! We oughtn't to have +walked, but I did so want to speak to you about this. We must talk about +it another time. But, I say, you aren't really horrified about it, are +you?" + +"No," she said again. "Another time though--There must be thunder. This +storm makes my head ache." + +She could say no more. The rest of the drive was in silence. In the hall +she thanked him for her delightful evening. + +She looked through the drawing-room door and wished her mother and +sister good night, but did not stay to discuss incidents. + +"Well," said Mrs. Rand, who had a fine list of questions ready about the +play--"There's selfishness!" + +Lizzie locked her door, undressed and lay down. + +Like a sword jagging through and through her brain and piercing from +there down to her heart stabbed the refrain: + +"Oh! I hate her! I hate her! I hate her!" + +So, wide-eyed, she lay throughout the night. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +ALL THE BEAMINSTERS + + "We must expect change," returned Mrs. Chick. + + "Of weather?" asked Miss Tox in her simplicity. + + "Of everything," returned Mrs. Chick. "Of course we must. It's + a world of change. Anyone would surprise me very much, + Lucretia, and would greatly alter my opinion of their + understanding, if they attempted to contradict or evade what is + so perfectly evident. Change!" exclaimed Mrs. Chick, with + severe philosophy--"Why, my gracious me, what is there that + does _not_ change! Even the silkworm, who I am sure might be + supposed not to trouble itself about such subjects, changes + into all sorts of unexpected things continually." + + _Dombey and Son._ + + +I + +At four o'clock on the afternoon of Wednesday, October 11th, in this +year 1899 war between England and South Africa was declared. + +At that same hour on that same afternoon an afternoon party was given by +Lady Adela Beaminster at 104 Portland Place, and all the more important +believers in the Beaminster religion were present. + +The Long Drawing-room had the happy property of extending to accommodate +its company and now, shadowy as its corners always were, it yielded the +impression still of size and space, its mirrors reflecting its dark +green walls that receded from the figures that thronged it. + +The Duchess (now Ross's portrait of her) hung above the Adams fireplace +and a little globe of light shone, on this dark October day, up into +that sharp and wizened face and lit those bending fingers and flung +forward the dull green jade and the dark black dress. + +Many people were present. The Duke, Lord John, Lord Richard of +course--also, of course, Lady Carloes, the Massiters, Lord Crewner, +Monty Carfax, Brun, Maurice Garden the novelist, and his wife--also a +fine collection of ladies and gentlemen, important in politics, in the +graver camps of society--also a certain number who belonged by party to +those whom Brun had once called the Aristocrats, the Chichesters, the +Medleys, the Darrants. Old Lady Darrant was there looking like a cook, +and Fred Chichester and his kind and freckled features, and Mrs. Medley +who had married Judge Medley's only son. + +Of the Democrats--of the Ruddards, the Denisons, the Oaks, not one to be +seen. + +The men and women who stood about in the room seemed strangely, oddly, +of one family. No human being present was without his or her +self-consciousness, but it was a self-consciousness that had about it +nothing vulgar or strident. No voice in that room was raised, the very +laughter implied, "Here we are, in the very Court of our Temple; we may +then relax a little. For a time, at any rate, we know who we all are." + +This security was implied on every hand. It was: "Young Rorke's going +out--he's the son of Alice Branches--he married old Truddits' daughter," +or-- + +"No, I don't know him personally, but Dick Barnett has seen him once or +twice and says he's a very decent feller," or-- + +"Well, I should go carefully, if I were you. Neither the Massiters nor +the Crawfords know her and, in fact, I can't find anyone who does." + +Had a stranger penetrated into the fastnesses of the Chichesters or the +Medleys he would have been overwhelmed with courtesy and politeness and, +unless he had full credentials, would have been utterly excluded at the +end of it. Had he boldly invaded the Denisons he would, unless he could +prove his contribution to the entertainment of the day, have been told +frankly that he was not wanted. + +Had he passed the doors of No. 104 and had no proof of his Beaminster +faith upon him, Norris would have exchanged with him a quiet word or two +and he would have found himself in the bright spaces of Portland Place. + +Rachel and Roddy had come to the party. Rachel sat on a high chair and +looked stiff and pale; Lady Darrant, bunched up in an arm-chair, was +beside her. Lady Darrant's emotions were divided between the welfare of +the church in her parish in Wiltshire and the welfare of her only son, a +boy aged twenty who, supposed to be studying for the Diplomatic Service, +was really interested in race meetings and polo. Lady Darrant had, like +most of the Aristocrats, a tranquil mind. Sorrow, tragedies, +perplexities might come and go, the plain surface stability was in no +way disturbed. She would have liked to possess more money that she might +bestow it upon the church, and she would have preferred that her son +should place foreign languages above horses, but, since these things +were not so, God knew best and the world might have been much worse: +none of her friends were ever agitated, outwardly at any rate. Life was +calm, sure, proceeding from a definite commencement to a definite +conclusion and--God knew best. Rumours came to her of atheists and +chorus girls and American millionaires, but she was neither alarmed nor +dismayed. + +At a Beaminster entertainment she felt that she was among strangers. Her +account of such an affair given afterwards to friends implied that this +world into which she had glanced was not her world. Lady Adela +frightened her and the mere suggestion of the Duchess, whom she had +never seen, threatened more fiercely her tranquillity than any other +event or person. + +Now, every minute or so, she flung little agitated glances at the +portrait. At the back of her mind, this afternoon, was the reflection +that there was going to be a war and that quite certainly her boy, Tony, +would insist on helping his country. + +She was proud that he should insist, but, had she not been quite so +confident of God's care for her, would have been very near to most real +agitation. + +She looked at Rachel timidly and wondered whether that strange, fierce, +pale girl would be sympathetic. She had heard of Rachel and her +marriage, and she knew that that rather stout healthy-looking young man +standing and talking to Lord John Beaminster was the husband. + +He looked kinder than she did, Lady Darrant thought. + +"It's terrible about this horrid war, isn't it?" she said at last. + +Rachel, watching the room, was absorbed by her own thoughts; she +scarcely noticed the little woman beside her. + +She saw Uncle John, his white hair and happy smile and large rather +shapeless body, his way of laughing with his head flung back, the look +of him when he was thinking, his face precisely that of a puzzled +pig--simply to see him there across the room brought back to her a flood +of memories. + +She knew that she had avoided him lately and she knew, too, that he was +unhappy about her. He was unhappy, poor Uncle John, about a number of +things--always behind his laughter and cheerful greetings there was the +little restless distress as though Life were offering him, just now, +more than he could control. + +Rachel looked and then turned her eyes away. + +"Yes," she said to Lady Darrant, "I hope it won't be very much. They say +that a week or two will see the end of it." + +Truly, for herself, this afternoon was almost too difficult for her. She +had received, that morning, a letter from Francis Breton asking her to +go to tea with him in his rooms, one day within the following week. + +She had never been to his room; she had not met him once during the +whole year. + +She had known, during all these last twelve months, that meeting him had +nothing at all to do with the especial claim that they had upon one +another. That claim had existed since that day of their first coming +face to face and nothing now could ever alter it. + +But the next time that they met must be, for both of them, a definite +landmark. She might either decide, now, once and for all, never to see +him again, or grasp, quite definitely, the possible result of her going +to him. + +The writing of this letter brought, at last, upon her the climax that +she had been avoiding during the last year. + +Sitting there in the Beaminster camp it was difficult to act without +prejudice. With the exception of Uncle John and Roddy she hated them +all. + +After all if she were to refuse to see Francis Breton did it solve the +question? Did it help her--and that was the great need of her present +life--to love Roddy any better? + +And if she went to his rooms and saw him, would not the truth emerge +from that meeting and the miserable doubts and temptations that had +shadowed her since her marriage be cleared away for ever? + +She liked Roddy and did not love him--nothing could alter that. + +Breton and she belonged to a world that was hostile to this world that +she was now in--nothing could alter that. + +Yes, she would go and see Breton. She got up, smiled at Lady Darrant and +went across the room to talk to Uncle John. + +On this afternoon she had a great overpowering longing for someone to +love her, to care for her, to pity her, to take her into their arms and +whisper comfort to her. It was so long--oh! so long, since Dr. Chris and +Uncle John had done that. + +And yet--the irony of it--there was Roddy eager to do it all: and from +him, the fates had decreed that it should mean nothing to her. + +"Why can't he touch me? Why can't he give me what I want? Is it my +fault? Whose fault is it?" + +And when she came to Uncle John she was almost afraid to look at him +lest he should see the unhappiness in her eyes. + +But, in spite of her unhappiness, she could be satirically observant. +Her grandmother, up there on the wall, controlled, like the moon, this +tide of human beings. They flowed forward, they retreated. About them, +around them, behind and in front of them hovered this War.... + +Rachel knew that it was the Beaminster doctrine that anything that +occurred to the nation was to be attributed, in the main, to Beaminster +principles. She could tell at once that they had seized upon this war as +an example of Beaminster government. Had diplomacy prevented it, behold +the triumph of Beaminster diplomacy; now, as it had not been prevented, +a swift and total triumph would assert the genius of Beaminster +militancy. + +"A week out there ought to be enough.... It's tiresome, of course, but +they'll soon have had enough of it...." + +Even Rachel, looking up at the portrait, might, not too fantastically, +imagine that this war presented the last great manifestation of power on +the part of that old woman. + +Everyone in the room, perhaps, felt the same. + + +II + +Many eyes were upon her as she moved across to Lord John. This girl, +with the foreign colour and bearing, having, apparently, so little of +the Beaminster about her and making so quickly so conventional a +marriage ("One hadn't expected her to care about a man like Seddon"), +stirred their curiosity. + +Monty Carfax, licensed transmitter of public opinion, reported her +unpopular. "Met her one week-end at the Massiters'--that very time when +Seddon proposed. Didn't like her and, really, can't find anyone who +does. Conceited, farouche. It's my opinion Roddy Seddon finds her +difficult." "Yes, but she's interesting," someone would reply, "unusual. +Dissatisfied-looking--not at all happy, I should say." + +Lady Adela, stiff, awkward but important, in an ugly grey dress found +Lord Crewner the only helpful person in the room. He seemed to +understand the way that worries accumulated about one and yet refused to +be defined.... He stayed near her throughout the afternoon. She saw +Rachel moving across to her brother and the sight of her stirred all her +discomfort. + +"Why need she look as though she hated everyone?" she thought. + +Rachel came at length to Uncle John and found him talking to Maurice +Garden. That large and prosperous gentleman hastily proclaimed his +delight in meeting Rachel again, but she had very little to say to him. + +He left them, secretly determined that he would never speak to the girl +again if he could help it. + +Uncle John regarded her with an air of supplicating nervousness. + +"Come along, my dear," he said. "We haven't had a talk for weeks. Let's +find a corner somewhere----" + +They found a corner and then were both of them uncomfortable. The girl +whom Uncle John had known and loved had had her tempers and +intolerances, but she had also had her wonderful spontaneous affections +and tendernesses. + +Now she sat there looking straight before her and replying only in +monosyllables to his questions. + +She was saying to herself: "Shall I go? Shall I go?" + +At last he said timidly: + +"You'll see mother before you leave?" + +"Yes," Rachel said. + +"I'm afraid she's not very well." + +"Not very well?" Rachel looked up at him sharply, Lord John stared away +from her. No one had ever said that publicly before, Lord John himself +wondered at his words when he had spoken them. + +"Of course she doesn't admit it," he said hurriedly. "No one _says_ +anything about it--even Christopher. I oughtn't perhaps to have said +anything myself--but I thought----" He broke off. Rachel knew that he +meant that she should be kind and considerate on this visit. + +Before she could say anything the Duke came up and joined them. + +It always amused Rachel to see her two uncles together. The Duke was a +little dried-up wasp of a man, absolutely selfish, with a satirical +tongue and a self-conceit that nothing could pierce. He wore high white +collars, over which his brown sharp face searched for compliments. He +walked on his toes, his hands were most wonderfully manicured and his +trousers were so stiff and rigid over his thin little legs that they +looked like iron. The one soft spot in him was a strangely tender +affection for his sister Adela which was in no way returned; for her, +and for her alone, he would forget his selfishness. Richard and John he +despised. + +"Well, John," he said. "Well, Rachel?" + +"Well, Uncle Vincent," she said. The Duke was afraid of Rachel because +her tongue was as sharp as his, but he respected her for that. + +"Going up to see mother?" + +"Yes," said Rachel. Should she go? Should she go? + +Suddenly, arising, as it seemed, out of that crowd of moving figures and +coming and standing there in front of her, was her answer. + +Yes, she would go. All these months of indetermination should be ended. +She should know, once and for all, what this Francis Breton meant to +her, what that other life of hers meant to her, and so, in opposition, +what Roddy meant to her. She would, as Christopher would have put it, +grapple with her Tiger.... + +Instantly, the relief, the glad, happy relief showed her how wretched +life had been. + +"What about this war, Uncle Vincent?" she said. + +"Well--hem--well--no need to worry--_I_ assure you--no need to worry!" + +"It seems a pity," said Lord John, still looking furtively at Rachel and +wishing that he could carry her off into some other corner and just ask +her whether she were really happy or no. + +"Why, John," said the Duke, cackling. "You'll have to go out, 'pon my +word, you will--fight 'em, by Jove--Ha! ha! You'd make a fine soldier, +old boy." + +Rachel got up, hating Uncle Vincent very much. She put her hand on Uncle +John's fat arm. + +"You may go, Uncle Vincent," she said. "We all give you leave--Uncle +John we love too much: if it's a question of bravery he'd be quite +certainly the first of this family." She gave his arm a squeeze. + +Uncle Vincent looked at her, smiling-- + +"Well," he said. "None of us would dream of going ... we're all much too +comfortable." + +"I'll see you before I go, uncle dear," she whispered to Lord John. Then +she moved away. + +Slowly making her path through the room she left it and climbed the +great stone staircase. + + +III + +Outside her grandmother's door she paused; so she had always paused, and +now, as she waited there, all the procession of other days when she had +stood there came before her. Conditions might be changed, but her +agitation was the same. Never until she died would she open that door +without wondering, in spite of common sense, whether she might not be +caught by some disaster before she closed it again. + +She went in and found her grandmother sitting back in her stiff chair +and looking at some patterns of bright silks that lay on a little table +beside her. + +A great fire was burning and the room seemed to Rachel intolerably hot; +she noticed at once that what Uncle John had said was true. Before she +had heard Rachel's entrance the Duchess looked an old, tired woman. Her +head was drooping a little over the blue and purple silks; she seemed +half asleep. + +But at the sound of the door she was alert; when she saw that it was her +granddaughter who stood there, tall and stately, her large black hat +shadowing her face, she seemed in a moment to be transformed with energy +and life--her head went up, her eyes flashed, her hands stiffened on her +lap. + +"May I come in for a moment, grandmother?" Rachel said. + +By the door she had wondered--how could she be afraid of this old sick +woman? Now as she crossed over to the fire her sternest self-command was +summoned to control her alarm. She was frightened by nothing but +this--here it was indeed as though there were some spell that seized +her. + +"Certainly, my dear--come in." The Duchess gave a last look at the silks +and then turned to her granddaughter. "I'm afraid you'll find it very +hot--I must have a fire, you know." + +She had a trick of drawing in her lower lip as she spoke, so that her +words hissed a little over her teeth. She did not do this with everybody +and Rachel believed that it was only because she had noticed that Rachel +as a little girl had been frightened of it that she did it now. + +Rachel sat down opposite her and the heat of the fire and a scent of +something that had violets and mignonette in it--a scent that was always +in the room--stifled her so that her head began to swim and the rings on +the Duchess's hand to hypnotize her. + +"There's a great party going on downstairs," she said. + +"Yes. I know. John came up for a moment and told me about it--and how +are you?" + +"Very well, thank you, grandmamma. Roddy and I have been ever so +sociable lately, given several dinner-parties and one musical thing." + +"You're not looking very well. Roddy here?" + +"Yes." + +"Hope he'll come and see me before he goes. Hasn't been to see me much +lately." + +Their eyes met. Rachel held her ground and then, beaten as though by a +physical blow, lowered her gaze. + +"Oh! hasn't he? He's been here a lot, I thought. He's been very busy +over some horses that he's had to go up and down to Seddon about." + +"H'm. Well--I dare say he'll remember me again one day--so we're in for +a war?" + +"Yes. They don't seem to think it very serious though--Uncle Richard +says----" + +"Your Uncle Richard knows nothing about it--nothing. However, I don't +think anyone need be alarmed." + +There was in this last sentence a ring in the Duchess's voice that flung +her words out for the nation to grasp at. "No need, my good people, for +you to worry--_I_ have this in hand." + +"Well, I'm very glad," said Rachel. "It's such a long while since +anything has happened that it seems quite odd for everyone to have +something to talk about except dinner-parties and scandal----" + +The old woman looked across at her and then very slowly a smile rose, +stiffened between her old dried lips and stayed there-- + +"What would you say, my dear, if Roddy thought it his duty to go and +defend his country?" + +There was, suddenly, the sharp ring in her voice that Rachel knew so +well. + +"I know," Rachel said quietly, "that Roddy would do his duty, and of +course I would want him to do that." + +The Duchess, with her eyes still upon her granddaughter's face, +said--"I've heard a good deal about a young friend of yours lately." + +"Who is that, grandmamma?" Rachel said, and, in spite of herself her +hand trembled a little against her dress. + +"Nita Raseley." + +Rachel caught her breath. + +"I gather that you and she haven't seen so much of one another lately." + +"Oh! I think we have. We never were great friends, you know." + +"Did she enjoy her time at Seddon? A clever little thing. I shouldn't +drop her, Rachel, if I were you." + +"She seemed to enjoy Seddon, grandmamma. I must be going, I'm afraid, +with the patient Roddy waiting for me. Shall I tell him to come up?" + +The old hand struck the arm of the chair and the rings flashed. + +"No, thank you, my dear. If he can't come of his own accord, I'd prefer +that he had no prompting. There was a time when it was otherwise." + +Rachel got up. Their eyes met again, and their hatred for one another +was so settled, so historic, so traditional an affair, that their glance +now was almost friendly. + +Then Rachel bent down very slowly and kissed her grandmother's cheek. +How much, she wondered, did she know of the Nita affair? Nita's spite +would, assuredly, have found a happy ground in which to plant its seed. +Oh! how she loathed this thick clouded atmosphere, this deceit, this +deceit! It seemed that, at every turn since her marriage, she had been +dragged into an atmosphere of disguise and subterfuge and +double-dealing. + +Well, she was soon to be done with it. At the thought of what her +grandmother would say did she know of her friendship with Breton her +heart beat triumphantly. There at any rate was a weapon! + +"Well, good-bye, my dear. Come and see me again soon." + +"Yes, grandmamma--good-bye." + + +IV + +In the carriage with Roddy she suddenly laughed. + +All those people, moving so solemnly with such self-importance about +that room. The Duke, Lord Richard, Aunt Adela ... Norris, the +footman.... + +Over them all that fierce commanding portrait. And upstairs that old, +sick woman.... + +And beyond, away from that house, a war that that old woman and those +self-important people saw only as a means of increasing their own +self-importance. + +It was all as a box of tin soldiers and a parcel of stiff china-faced +dolls-- + +What were they all about? What did they think they were all doing? What, +after all, was she, Rachel? Had they no conception of the sawdust that +they all were beside this real, swiftly moving, death-dealing War that +was suddenly amongst them? + +"What is it?" said Roddy. + +"Grandmother--grandmother--my dear, delightful, wonderful grandmother. +To think of her sitting all alone up there in her bedroom and all those +people moving about downstairs--all so conscious of her. And yet she +does nothing--_nothing_." Rachel, in her excitement, struck her knee +with her hand. "She isn't even clever, really--She's never in all her +life been known to say a witty thing--never. She doesn't really know +much about politics.... She just sits there and acts--That's what it's +always been, acting the whole time. If it's effective to be old and +feeble she _is_ old and feeble--if it's effective to be fantastic she +_is_ fantastic--She just sits still and takes people in. Why, if she'd +wanted she could have been going out all these thirty years, I believe!" + +"You're always unfair to her, Rachel," said Roddy. "You know she has +ghastly pain often and often." + +"Yes. I'll give her that," said Rachel. "She's brave--brave as anything. +And after all," she added, "she couldn't affect me more if she were the +wittiest woman in the world----" + +Roddy yawned--"Dam dull party," he said. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +RACHEL AND BRETON + + "We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go + Always a little farther: it may be + Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow, + Across that angry or that glimmering sea. + ... but surely we are brave + Who make the Golden Journey to Samarcand." + + _The Golden Journey to Samarcand._ + + JAMES ALROY FLECKER. + + +I + +Rachel now awaited her meeting with Breton with restless impatience. It +should afford her, beyond everything, a solution. She was young enough +and inexperienced enough to make many demands upon life--that it should +be romantic, that it should, in the issues that it presented, be honest +and open and clear, that it should allow her to settle her own place in +it without any hurt to anyone else, that it should, in fact, arrange any +number of compromises to suit herself and that it should nevertheless be +so honest that it would admit of no compromises at all. + +She approached life with all the reckless boldness of one who has never +come into direct contact with it. Neither her relations with her +grandmother nor with Roddy had as yet taken from her any of her youngest +nor simplest illusions. Were life drab and uninteresting, why, then one +turned simply to the place where it promised colour and adventure. + +She had not yet discovered that when we go deliberately to grasp at +happiness we are eternally eluded. + +But in spite of her desire for honesty she refused to face the actual +meeting with Breton. She knew him so slightly as Francis Breton and so +intimately as an idea. What she felt in her heart was, that her +grandmother had hoped to catch her by marrying her to Roddy and that +nothing could prove so eloquently that she had not been caught as her +friendship with Breton. + +"I will show her and I will show Roddy that I am my own mistress, free +whatever they may say or do." + +Breton--seen dimly as a rebel against a harsh dominating world--was the +figure of all romance and freedom. "Roddy doesn't care what happens to +me. He'll do anything grandmother tells him to...." + +She was now out to attack the Beaminster fortress; she did not as yet +know that half of her was urgent for its defence. + + +II + +When the afternoon arrived she took a cab and was driven to Saxton +Square. She mounted the stairs, knocked on the door and was admitted by +his ugly man-servant. + +"Is Mr. Breton at home?" she asked. + +"Yes, my lady," he answered and smiled; she disliked his smile and +before she passed into the room had a moment of wild unreasoning panic +when she wished that she were not there, when Roddy's face came to her, +kind and loving and homely. + +She stepped forward into the room, heard the door close behind her and +felt rather than saw him as he came forward to greet her. + +Then she heard him say-- + +"Oh, I'm so glad you've come. I was so afraid lest something should stop +you." + +His windows, although only on the first floor, had a wide sweeping view; +a world of chimneys and towers glittering now beneath the sinking sun. + +His room was simple and had the effect of cleanly emptiness; a table +arranged for tea, two rather faded arm-chairs, a dark green carpet, a +book-case, two large framed photographs on the walls, one of some street +in Bombay, the other of the Niagara Falls. + +The sunshine lit the bare room and their faces and she was suddenly +comfortable and at ease. + +He drew one of the easy chairs forward to the window. + +"Sit down in the sun; Marks will bring the tea in a moment." + +She sat back in the chair and looked out on to the shining roofs and +towers, not glancing towards him, but acutely aware of him, of all his +movements. He sat down upon the broad window-seat near her and looked at +her. + +She knew that she had never been conscious, physically, of anyone +before. Roddy's clumsy hands and rather awkward body had always simply +belonged to Roddy and stayed at that; now she felt as if Francis +Breton's hand, close, as she knew, to hers, was joined to her by a +running current of attraction. + +Although he was not touching her, it was as though she were chained to +him. If he moved she felt that she must move with him and every motion +that he made seemed to rouse some response in her. + +She was aware, of course, as she was always aware with him, of the way +that intimacy between them had moved since their last meeting. All her +romantic evocation of life as she wanted it to be helped her to this. It +was as though she said to herself, "Here at least is my true self free +and dominant. I must make the most of it"--and yet, with that, something +seemed to warn her that freedom too easily obtained carried at its heart +disappointment. The ugly man-servant brought in tea and then +disappeared. Breton moved about, waited upon her, then sat down closer +to her, leaning forward and looking into her eyes. + +It was part of his temperament that he should take her coming to him as +an instant acknowledgment of the complete fulfilment of his wishes. He +always saw life as the very rosiest of his dreams until it woke him to +reality. He was ruled completely by the mood of the moment, and his one +emotion now was that Rachel was divinely intended for him alone of all +human beings-- + +But he could not wait.... He knew, by this time, that reflection was +always a period of disappointment. He was unhappily made in that he +yielded to his impulses of regret as eagerly as to his impulses of +anticipation--One mood followed so swiftly upon another that collision +might seem inevitable. + +They were, both of them, young enough to see life as something that +would inevitably, in a short time, condemn them both to years of sterile +monotony. Rachel indeed felt that she was already caught.... + +They must, both of them, therefore, make the best of their time. + +"I _was_ so afraid," he repeated again, "lest something should have +stopped you." + +"I would have asked you to come to us, only I'm afraid that my husband +still----" + +"Oh! I quite understand." + +"It's natural--Roddy's like that. If he wants to do a thing he doesn't +care for anybody and just does it. But if nothing makes him especially +want to do it, then he just takes other people's opinions. Now he might +ask you suddenly to come and see us--simply because he took it into his +head. Then nobody could stop him.... He's very obstinate." + +She was rather surprised at herself for talking about Roddy. She had a +curious feeling about him as though she were going on a journey and had +just said good-bye to him and had a rather desolate choke in her throat +because she wouldn't see him again for so long. + +"Oh! but I'm glad you've come! If you knew the times and times when I've +imagined this meeting--thought about it, pictured----" + +She saw that his hand was trembling on the window-ledge-- + +"I oughtn't to have come, perhaps--But I don't know. I've felt so +indignant at the way that grandmother is treating you. I wanted to +_show_ you that I was indignant...." + +"You don't know," he said, "what a help you've been to me already--You +showed me the very first time that we met that you _did_ sympathize...." + +His voice was tender, partly because her presence moved him so deeply +and partly because the sympathy of anyone about his own affairs made him +instantly full of sorrow for himself--When anyone said that they thought +that he had been badly treated he always felt with an air of surprised +discovery: "By Jove, I _have_ been having a bad time!" + +"Yes--Wasn't it strange, that first meeting in Miss Rand's room? We seem +to have known one another all our lives." + +She looked at him. "That you should hate grandmamma so," she said, "was +a great thing to me. I'd been all alone--fighting her--for so long." + +Rachel felt, in the glow of the occasion, that, all her days, there had +been active constant war-to-the-knife in the Portland Place house. + +"She's been the curse of my life," he said bitterly. "Always keeping me +down, making me unable to do myself justice. Why should she hate me so?" + +"She hates us," cried Rachel, "because we're both determined to be free. +We wouldn't have our lives ruled for us. She wants everyone to be under +her in _everything_." + +They glowed together, very close to one another now, in a glorious +assertion of rebellious independence. He put his hand upon the back of +her chair-- + +"Now," he said, his voice trembling, "now that we've got to know one +another, you won't go back on it, will you? If I couldn't feel that you +were behind me, after being so encouraged, it would be terrible for +me--worse than anything's ever been for me." + +"You needn't be afraid," she said, not looking at him, but tremendously +conscious of his hand that now touched her dress. Then there was a long +and very difficult silence during which events seemed to move with +terrific impetus. + +She was overwhelmed by a multitude of emotions. She was past analysis of +regret or anticipation. Somewhere, very far away, there was Roddy, and +somewhere--also very far away--there was her grandmother, but, for +herself, she could only feel that she was very lonely, that nobody cared +about her except Breton and that nobody cared about him except +herself--and that she wanted urgently to be comforted and that he +himself needed comfort from her. + +She knew that if she were not very strong-minded and resolute she would +cry; she could feel the tears burning her eyes. + +"Perhaps I oughtn't to have come--Oh! it's all so difficult--with +grandmother--and everything--I thought I could--could manage things, but +I can't--We oughtn't--I wanted to do what was best. I--I didn't +know--You----" + +Then the tears came--She tried desperately to stop them, then they came +rushing; she buried her head in her hands and abandoned herself to +weeping that was partly sorrow for herself and partly sorrow for Breton +and partly, in the strangest way, sorrow for Roddy. + +He was on his knees by her chair, had his arm about her, was crying: + +"Oh! Rachel--Rachel--Rachel--I love you. I love you--Don't +cry--Don't--Rachel----" He kissed her again and again and she clung to +him like a frightened child. + + +III + +After a time her crying ceased, she got up from the chair, moving gently +out of his embrace, and then went to the looking-glass above the +fireplace and stood there wiping her eyes. + +Then, smiling, she looked back at him--He was standing in front of the +window and behind him the reflection, from the departed sun, flooded the +town with gold. He seemed a man transformed, gazing upon her with an +ecstasy of triumph, exaltation, happiness. + +"My dear--my dear--Oh! how glorious you are!" + +But she did not move. + +He stirred impatiently, and then, looking at her with adoring eyes, he +whispered, "Oh! my dear! but I love you!" + +"I must go," she said, her eyes, large and frightened, appealingly upon +him-- + +He smiled at her, his eyes laughing. + +"Yes, Francis--let me--let me. Now while I can still see what I ought to +do." + +"There's only one thing that you ought to do. You belong to me now." She +plucked nervously with her hands one against the other. + +"Francis, let me go--please--please----" He saw then that she was +unhappy and the laughter died from his eyes. His voice, fallen from its +happiness, was almost harsh, as he replied-- + +"You know we love one another, have loved one another ever since that +day when we met in Miss Rand's rooms? You know it as well as I do. You +knew it when you came to these rooms to-day." + +"I oughtn't to have come." Her voice had gathered strength. "It's only +because I realize now what you are to me that I want to go. I thought I +was so strong, that I could be fair to Roddy and to you too ... I didn't +know----" + +"Then stay--stay--" he whispered urgently. "It's a thing that you've got +to face anyhow--We can't stay apart, you and I, now. We can try, but you +know--you know as well as I--that we can't do it." + +"We must--That's what I meant before. That's why I must go now, because +soon I shan't be strong enough. But we've got to part--we've got to." + +"Oh, this is absurd," he cried. "We're human beings, not figures to hang +a theory on--Now just as we realize what we are to one another----" + +"Yes, because of that," she broke in swiftly, urgently. "You know that I +love you--I know that you love me. We've got that knowledge that nothing +can take away from us--and we've got the love--nothing can touch it. But +my duty is with Roddy." + +"You knew that," he said, "when you came here to-day." + +Her face flamed--"That's not fair of you, Francis." + +"No, I beg your pardon. It isn't----" He suddenly came to her, caught +her and kissed her, holding her with his arm close to him, murmuring in +her ear. At first she had struggled, then she lay absolutely still +against him, making no response. + +He felt her passive against his beating heart. He released her and +watched her as she went across to the window and looked out into the +darkening city. + +"I don't care," he said roughly, "I love you. There's no talk about it +or anything else. You belong to _me_." + +"I belong to Roddy," she answered quietly. "It's all quite clear. My +duty is to him until ... unless, life with him becomes impossible. I've +got absolutely to do my best and while I'm doing that you've got to help +me." + +"What do you mean?" he said, his eyes upon her. + +"Help me by our not meeting, by our not writing, by our doing +nothing--nothing----" + +"No--No," he answered her, his eyes set upon her. + +"You don't get me any other way. Francis, don't you see that we're not +the sort of people, either of us, to put up with the deceits, the +trickeries, the lies that the other thing means? Some people might--lots +of people do, I suppose--but we're not built that way. We're +idealists--We aren't made to stand quietly and see all the quality of +the thing vanish before our eyes--just to take the husk when we've known +what the kernel was like. + +"Besides, it isn't as though I hated Roddy. If I did I'd go off with you +now, in a minute if you wanted me, although even then it would be a +hopeless thing for _us_ to do. But I'm very fond of Roddy. I'm not in +love with him--I never have been--I told him from the first--But I'm +going to do my best by him." + +"Why did you come here?" + +"I came here because I was driven towards you. I wanted to hear you say +that you loved me--I wanted to tell you that I loved you. We've both of +us said it. We know it now--and we've got to keep it, the most precious +thing in the world. + +"But we should soon hate one another if we destroyed one another's +ideals. For many people it wouldn't matter--For us, weak as we are, it +matters everything." + +"All this talk," he said. "I'm a man. I'm here to love you, not to talk +about it. I've got you and I'm going to keep you." + +"You haven't got me," she cried. "You've got a bit of me. There'll be +times when I'm away from you when I shall think that you've got all of +me. But you haven't--no one's got all of me.... + +"And I haven't got you either--You think now for the moment that it is +so--But I know what it would be if we were hiding about on the Continent +or secretly meeting here in London--That's not for us, Francis." + +"I've got you," he repeated. "I'm not going to wait any longer----" + +"It's the only way you'll ever have me," she answered, "by letting me do +my duty to Roddy--I promise you that. If ever life is impossible--if +it's ever better for both of us that I should go, I'll come to you--But +I shall tell him first." + +"Tell him! But he won't let you go." + +"He won't stop me--if it comes to that." + +He pleaded with her then, telling her about his life, its loneliness, +his unhappiness, how impossible it would be now without her. + +But she shook her head. + +"Don't you think," she cried, "that grandmother would be delighted if we +went off? Both of us done for--you never able to return again ... Ah! +no! For all of us, for every reason, it's not to be." + +"I won't let you go--I've got you. I'll keep you." + +"You can't, Francis----" + +"I can and I will----" + +Then looking up, catching a vision of her framed in the window with the +lighted city behind her, he saw in her eyes how unattainable she might +be.... + +He had, he had always had, his ideals. There was a long silence between +them, then he bowed his head. + +"You shall do as you will--anything with me that you will." + +"Oh, my dear," she whispered, "I love you for that." + +Then hurriedly, moving as though she feared her own weakness, she went +to put on her wraps--He came to her. + +"Let me write--let me." + +"No--Better not." + +"Just a line--Nothing that any ordinary person----" + +"No, we mustn't, Francis." + +He put her furs about her neck, then his hand rested on her shoulder. +Her head fell back. + +"Once more"--she said. He kissed her throat, then her eyes, then their +lips met. + +"Stay," he whispered, "stay"--Very slowly she drew away from him, smiled +at him once, and was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +CHRISTOPHER'S DAY + + "I judge more than I used to--but it seems to me that I have + earned the right. One can't judge till one is forty; before + that we are too eager, too hard, too cruel, and in addition too + ignorant." + + HENRY JAMES. + + +I + +The War had the City in its grip. There was now, during these early +weeks of November, no other thought, no other anxiety, no other +interest. The shock of its reality came most severely upon those whose +lives had been most unreal. Here, in the midst of their dining and their +dancing, was the sure fact that many whom they knew and with whom they +had been in the habit of playing might now, at any moment, find death-- + +Here was a reality against which there was no argument, and against the +harshness of it music screamed and food was uninteresting. + +During that first month of that war, so new a thing was the horrid +grimness of it, that hysteria was abroad, life was twopence coloured. +For everyone now it was the question--"What might they do?" + +Something to help, something to ease that biting truth--"Your life has +been the most utterly useless business--no purpose, no strength, no +unselfishness from first to last--what now?" + +Christopher's life had not been useless and he knew it. The reality of +it had never been in doubt and death--the haphazard surprise of it and +the pathos and melodrama and sometimes drab monotony of it--had been his +companion for many years. + +Christopher, although he had been a hard worker from his childhood, had +always taken life lightly. He loved the gifts of this world--food and +amusement and exercise and pleasant company. He loved, also, certain +people whose lives were of immense concern to him. He also believed in a +quite traditional God about Whom he had never argued, but Whose definite +particular existence was as certain to him as his own. + +He had faults that he tried to cure--his temper--his pleasure in food +and wine. + +He had three great motives in his life--His love of God, his love of his +friends and his love of his work. He hated hypocrites, mean persons, +cruel persons, anyone who showed cowardice or deceit or arrogance. He +was dogmatic and therefore disliked anyone else to be so. He was humble +about his work, but not humble about his position in the world, which he +thought, quite frankly, a very good one. + +His interest in his especial friends was compounded of his love for them +and also of his curiosity about them, and he always loved someone the +more if he or she gave him the opportunity to practise his +inquisitiveness upon them. + +After Rachel Seddon he cared more, perhaps, for Francis Breton than +anyone in the world. He had also of late been interested in Roddy, who +was a far better fellow than he had expected. + +One puzzle, meanwhile, obstinately and continually beset him. What had +happened to Breton during this last year? Something, or in surer +probability someone, had been behind him. Christopher might have +flattered himself that he had been the influence, but he knew that, if +that had been so, Breton's attitude to him would have implied it. Breton +was fond of him, but did not owe that to him. Who then was it? + +On one of these November days he invited a friend and Breton to luncheon +together. + +Christopher's geniality and the supreme importance of the war over +everything else helped amiability. Christopher's little house in Harley +Street showed, beyond its consulting-room, a cheerful Philistine +appreciation of comfort and love. There was old silver, there were old +prints, sofas, soft carpets, book-cases, whose glass coverings were +more important than their contents. Also a luncheon that was the most +artistic thing that the house contained, save only the wine. + +At the side of the round gleaming table Christopher sat smiling, and +soon Breton told the friend about India and the friend told Breton about +Africa. + +Meanwhile Christopher watched Breton. He knew Breton very well and, in +the old days, he would have said that that nervous excitement that the +man sometimes betrayed meant that he was on the edge of some most +foolish action. + +He knew that light in the eyes, that excited voice, that +restlessness--these things had meant that Breton's self-control was +about to break. + +To-day there were all these signs, and Christopher knew that after +luncheon Breton would escape him. + +Breton did escape him, went off somewhere in a hurry; no, Christopher +could not drive him--he was going in the opposite direction. + +Whilst Christopher drove, first down to Eaton Square, then back to 104 +Portland Place, he was wondering about Breton.... + + +II + +It seemed that, on this afternoon, he was unduly sensitive to +impression. The house struck him with a chill, deserted air. There +seemed to be no one about as Norris led him up to the Duchess's rooms, +the old portraits grinned at him, as though they would have him to know +that, very soon, the house would be once more in their possession and +Beaminsters dead and gone be of more importance than Beaminsters alive. + +At any rate it was a cold November day, and always now the streets +seemed to echo with newsboys crying out editions. + +Even through these stone walls, those cries could penetrate; he could +hear one as he climbed the stairs. + +The Duchess, looking peaked and shrivelled, received him with an +eagerness that showed that she was longing for company. The room was +close, but, in spite of that, now and again she shivered a little. + +As he sat opposite her the glance that she flung him was almost +pathetic--struggling to maintain her pride, but showing, too, that she +might now, in his company, a little relax that great effort. + +"I'm not so well," she said; "I've slept badly." + +"I'm sorry for that," he said; "what's the trouble?" + +"It's this war," she said, taking her eyes away from his face. "This +war--I don't think I've ever felt anything before, but this--Oh! I'm +old, old at last," she said almost savagely. + +"Everybody's feeling it just now," Christopher answered her quietly. "I +suppose I'm as level-headed as most people, but even I have been +imagining things to-day--Nerves, simply nerves----" + +"Nonsense," she answered him--"Don't tell _me_, Christopher. What have I +ever had to do with nerves?" + +"Wait a little. All we want is to get used to War: it's a new experience +for all of us----" + +She laughed sharply-- + +"It's ludicrous, but really you'd think if you studied my family that I +was responsible for the whole thing. It's positively as though I'd made +some huge blunder which they would do their best to excuse. Adela, +John--I'm now to them an old sick woman who's got to be kept quiet and +away from worry. They wouldn't have _dared_ let me see that six months +ago--" + +Her voice was trembling. + +She went on again, more quietly. "Every hour now one hears some horrible +thing. This morning that young Dick Staveling dead, shot in some +skirmish or another--Fine boy he was. They're all going out, one after +the other--Not useless idiots who aren't wanted here like John or +Vincent--but boys, boys like--like Roddy." + +Again her voice trembled. + +For the first time in his knowledge of her some pity for her stirred in +him, for the first time in her knowledge of him she definitely looked to +him with some appeal. + +"Roddy came to see me yesterday," she said. + +"Yes?" said Christopher. + +"He had not been so often as he used--I told him so; he made some feeble +apology, but I can see that he will not come again so often----" + +He would have interrupted her, but she went on--"He's not happy, but he +loves her madly--madly. He did not tell me so, but I could see that. +That was something I had never reckoned on." + +"You prefer," Christopher said sharply, "to imagine that he is not +happy. I know, unfortunately, what your feeling is about Rachel. Fond of +him though you are you'd prefer that he was unhappy with her." + +"I know that he is unhappy. He would not care for her so much if she +returned it. I know Roddy. But she's clever enough----" She broke off. + +"If Roddy were to go out to South Africa," she said, "I think I would +kill Rachel--then die happy----" + +"Forgive me," Christopher said, "but this is sheer melodrama. Rachel is +devoted to Roddy and Roddy to Rachel. I've the best means for +knowing----" + +Even as he spoke he saw her mouth curve with that smile that was always +the wickedest thing about her. He had seen it on many occasions and it +always meant that, then, in her heart there was something cruel or +remorseless. + +It gave her now an elfin look so that, amongst the absurd furniture of +the room, she took her place as some old witch might take hers amongst +the paraphernalia of her incantations--her cauldron, her bones, her +noxious herbs. + +"That shows, Christopher my friend, that you know very little. I've a +piece of news that will surprise you." + +He said nothing, but, in his heart, made ready for some blow. + +"What would you say if our Rachel--your Rachel and my Rachel--had found +a new friend in my worthy, most admirable nephew, Francis?" + +"Rachel--Rachel and Breton?" + +The Duchess watched him with amusement. "Exactly. I have the surest +information----" + +"What does your--information--say?" + +He hated her at that moment as he had never hated her before. + +"It says--and I know that it is true--that for more than a year now they +have been meeting and corresponding--The other day Rachel went to tea +with him--alone. Was with him alone for some time--I'm sure that Roddy +knows nothing of this----" + +"It's impossible--impossible! Rachel is the soul of honour----" + +"I know that you have always thought so. But what more likely? Their +feeling about myself would, alone, be enough...." + +But he would not let her see how hardly he was taking it. He deprived +her of her triumph, did not even question her as to what she would do +with it, turned the conversation into other channels, and left her at +last--seeming there, amongst her candles, with her nose and thin hands, +like some old bird of most evil omen. + + +III + +But for him there was to be no more peace. + +It was now about four o'clock and already the dusk was closing in about +the town. He decided that he would go and see whether Rachel were in. + +He was determined that he would ask Rachel nothing; if she wished to +speak to him he would help her, but it must be of her own free +will--that was the only way at present. + +For how much was the Duchess's malignity responsible? What exactly did +she know? What did she intend to do? + +Oddly enough, for a long time past some subconscious part of him had +linked Rachel and Breton together, perhaps because they were the two +persons in all the world for whom he most cared, perhaps because he had +always known in both of them that rebellious discontent so unlike that +Beaminster acquiescence. + +As he drove through the evening streets, he felt that never, until now, +had he known how dearly he loved Rachel. In his mind there was no +judgment of her, only a sense of her peril; if she would speak to +him!... + +When he asked at the door of the flat for Lady Seddon he was told that +she was out. + +"Sir Roderick is at home, sir." He would see Roddy. + +Roddy was sitting in the little box-like room known as the smoking-room, +poring over a war map. About the map little flags were dotted; he had +two in his hand and, with one hand lifted, was hesitating as to their +position. + +"That was a damned bad mess----" Christopher heard him say as he came +in. + +At the sound of the door Roddy looked up, straightened himself, and then +came forward. + +"Hallo! Christopher," he said. "Delighted. Splendid! Rachel's out, but +she said she'd be back to tea." + +He was not looking well--fat, his cheeks pale and puffy, lines beneath +his eyes. + +"I'm jolly glad you've come," he said. He drew two arm-chairs to the +fire and they sat down. + +Roddy then talked a great deal. He was always a little nervous with +Christopher because he was well aware that the doctor had disapproved of +his marriage. + +Christopher had lately shown him that he liked him, but still Roddy was +not at his ease. He talked of the war, then of golf, then polo, then +horses, Seddon Court--abruptly he stopped and sat there gazing moodily +into the fire. + +"You're not looking well, Seddon," Christopher said quietly. + +"I'm not very--Nobody's at their liveliest just now with fellers one +knows droppin' out any minute.... One feels a bit of a worm keepin' out +of it all--skunkin' rather----" + +Moodily he sat there, his head hanging, dejected as Christopher had +never seen him before. + +Suddenly he said--"That ain't quite the truth, Doctor. I _am_ a bit +worried----" + +"My dear boy," Christopher said, putting his hand on the other's +knee--"If there's anything in the world I can do for you, tell me." + +"Thank you. You're a brick. I'm damned unhappy, Christopher, and that's +the truth----" + +"Rachel----" said Christopher. + +"Yes--Rachel. I got to talk to somebody. I've been goin' along on my own +now for months and I know you're fond of her----" + +"I am," said Christopher, "more than of anyone in the world----" + +"I know. That's how I can talk to you. I wouldn't have you think I'm +complainin' of her. I'm gettin' nothin' but what I asked for, you know. +But it's just this. When she took me she never said she loved me, in +fact she said she didn't, but I thought that it wouldn't matter--all you +wanted in marriage was just to be pals and show up about the town +together and treat one another honourably. Well," said Roddy, taking now +a melancholy interest in his discoveries concerning himself, "damn it +all, if I haven't rotted the bargain by fallin' in love with her. Jove! +Why, I hadn't a ghost's guess at what Love meant before Rachel came +along. Of course it isn't her fault. You couldn't expect her to love an +ordinary sort of chap like me, just like a million other fellers +knockin' about--but she's so unusual there ain't another woman in the +world so surprisin' as Rachel-- + +"She's fond of me," he went on, "I know that, but what I want she just +can't give me and that's the long and short of it. + +"Lately it's been terrible hard. She's not happy and that makes me wild, +and every day that passes I seem to want her more. Nothin' else, no one +else matters now. I've been playin' golf, ridin', sittin' down to this +bridge they're all getting mad about, doin' every blessed thing--it +isn't any use. Do you know, Christopher," he said slowly, "I'd give my +soul to make her happy and I just can't----" + +"I know----" said Christopher. + +"But it's worse than that--" Roddy went on, taking up the poker and +knocking on the fire--"Lately she's been having a room of her own. +Started it a while ago as a temporary thing and now she sticks to it. Up +here, in this damned town, we hardly see one another; always a crowd +either here or outside. I know Rachel don't like it and I don't like it, +but there it is-- + +"Next week we're going down to Seddon and things may get better +there--But I can't stand it much more--not like this." + +"Wait a bit. It'll come all right." Christopher spoke confidently. "I've +know Rachel since she was a small child. She's half Russian, you +know--you must always remember that--and Russian and Beaminster make a +strange mixture--Wait----" + +"That's so easy to say--" Roddy answered, shaking his head. "It's so +easy to say, but I don't see just what's goin' to make things different +from what they are----" + +"No--one never sees," said Christopher. "And then Destiny comes along +and does something that we call coincidence and just settles it all. +Your trouble will be settled, Roddy, if you're patient----" + +"Perhaps," Roddy said slowly, "you could see her a bit--find out----" he +stopped. + +"Anything in the world I can do I will. We'll find a way. Meanwhile, +Seddon, there is a bit of advice I can give you----" + +"What's that?" asked Roddy. + +"Go and see the Duchess more than you've been doing. See her a lot--more +than you did ever----" + +"Oh! the Duchess!" Roddy sighed. "I don't know, but it all seems +different with her now. I've changed, I suppose. All her ideas are +old-fashioned and wrong; I used to think her rather splendid----" + +"Yes--but she's ill and old, and you're the only person in the world she +cares about." + +"Yes, I'll go," said Roddy slowly. "I've known I ought to go." + +Voices broke in upon them; the door opened and Rachel, followed by her +friend May Cremlin, once May Eversley, came in-- + +"Oh! Dr. Chris! You dear!" she cried, and came forward and flung her +arms about him and kissed him. + +Her cheeks were flushed, from her black furs her eyes shone at him. Some +thought caught him. He knew where he had seen that excited glitter +already to-day--Breton at luncheon-- + +They all talked. Then Christopher said that he must go. + +Rachel came with him to the door. In the hall she looked at him +defiantly, that flash he knew so well. + +"You never come now, Dr. Chris: you've given me up." + +"I don't care for you in a crowd very much. There's always a crowd +now----" + +"Ask me alone and I'll come," she said, but still her eyes were defiant. + +"No," he said gravely. "I'll do no asking, Rachel. When you want me I'm +there for you at any time--at _any_ time----" + +For answer she flung her arms again about him and hugged him. Her heart +was beating furiously. Then without another word she left him. + + +IV + +He could not go back to Harley Street yet. The sense of apprehension +that had been growing with him all day would give him a melancholy +evening, were he to spend it alone. He thought of Brun. Someone had told +him that the little man was in London. + +He found him in his rooms, reading, with a cynical expression on his +face, a French review. + +"I came to see--" said Christopher, "whether you happened to be free +to-night and would dine with me. I'm a pessimist for once this evening +and it doesn't suit me!" + +Brun was very, very sorry, but he was dining with a Russian princess; it +was most tiresome that he should have to waste his time with a Russian +princess when he'd come over to London on this occasion expressly to +study the English people at this interesting crisis of their affairs, +but there it was--he'd no idea how he'd let himself in for it, and how +much rather would he spend the evening with his friend, Christopher. + +Christopher said that he would smoke one cigarette and that then he must +go. + +"And so you feel pessimistic?" said Brun, looking at Christopher +curiously--"It's the war, _Je crois bien_--How alike you all are!" + +"No," said Christopher, "I don't think the war's much to do with it. I +dare say the war's a very good thing for all of us." + +"Didn't I tell you--?" said Brun, greatly excited--then pulled himself +up--"No, it wasn't you. It was Arkwright. More than a year ago we were +in a picture gallery looking at your Duchess's picture, and coming home +we talked. I said then that something would come, that something _must_ +come, and that then everything, _everything_ would crumple up. And +behold!" cried Brun, his eyes flashing--"See, it crumples!" + +"That's a little previous of you," said Christopher. "Nothing crumpled +yet. We're disturbed of course----" + +"It is most lucky," Brun said, "most lucky. Here we are, you and I, +ordinary people enough, with the end of a Period with its death and the +way it takes it, all for us to watch. _Most_ lucky...." + +"End of Victorian Age ... _Voilà!_" and with a little dramatic gesture +he waved his hand as though he were flinging the Age and its lumber +away, out of the window. + +"You know, Christopher," he went on, "I've seen things coming over here +for so long. All you people, you couldn't have gone on very much longer +so remote from life. And now this--it will finish your Duchess, your +Beaminsters, your queen in her bonnet, your Sundays and your religion +and your Whigs and Tories, and all your hypocrisies--No names any more +taken just because they've always been taken, but new names made by men +who're doing things. Nothing taken for granted any more. + +"Your Beaminsters will vanish, and then you'll have your Denisons and +Oaks and Ruddards on top. Then you'll see a time. You'll all be spinning +like a top, dancing, dancing like dervishes. Then while you're busy +dancing up the other people will quietly come--all the real people, the +Individualists--Women will have their justice--no man will skunk behind +his garden hedge because he doesn't want to be bothered. No more +superstition, no more inefficiency----" + +"You're a wonderful fellow, Brun," said Christopher, getting up and +flinging away the end of his cigarette. "You've always got any amount to +say--but do you never think of people as people, not as theories or +movements or developments----" + +"No, thank God, I don't. That's for the sentimentalists like you, +Christopher. People are all the same, fools or knaves." + +"Well, I'm glad I don't think so," said Christopher. + +"Tell me," Brun put his little hand on the other's elbow, "your +Beaminsters now, how are they?" + +"They're all right." + +"The Duchess? I hear she's not so well----" + +"Oh! nonsense--Well as she's been any time these last thirty years." + +"Yes? So--I'm glad. But the other Beaminsters? Ah! I must go quickly and +call--To see them burst asunder, that will be most amusing----" + +Christopher laughed. "You won't see the Duke or Richard Beaminster +burst," he said--"They're like you--no personal feeling." + +"And the girl?" + +"Lady Seddon?" + +"Yes. She'll stir things up. She's not a Beaminster, or only enough of +one to make her hate the family. And she does hate them, _hein_?" + +"Oh, my dear Brun, you've got an absurdly exaggerated view about +everything. You'd twist the Beaminsters into anything to make them fit +your theory." + +"Oh, they'll fit it right enough. But I must be in at the death. We'll +meet there together, Christopher. Things will occur before we're much +older, my sentimentalist." + +Christopher shook his head. "There's something sinister about your +appearances in the City, Brun. 'Where the carcases are, there will....'" + +Brun nodded. "It's true enough this time," he said. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE DARKEST HOUR + + "So God help us! and God knows what disorders we may fall + into.... Home and to bed with a heavy heart." + + _Diary of Samuel Pepys._ + + +I + +During that terrible December week in 1899, England suffered more +defeats to her arms than during any other week of the century. +Magersfontein, Stormberg, Colenso, their names leapt one after another +on to the screen. + +London was dismayed; London was impatient. Easy enough to declare that +the most criminal blunders had been perpetrated, easy enough to explain +how one would oneself have conducted this or that, manoeuvred hither +or thither some pawn in the game. + +Dismay remained--a wide active alarm at the things that Life, so +suddenly real and dominating and destructive, might in the future be +preparing. + +To Lord John this terrible week was simply the climax to a succession of +disturbing revelations of reality. All his days had he been denying +Life, wrapping it up in one covering after another, calling it finally a +box of chocolates or a racing card, a good cigar or a pretty woman, +knowing, at his heart, that somewhere in the dark forest the wild beast +was waiting for him, hoping that he might survive to the end without +facing it. + +Now it was before him and its glittering eyes were upon him. + +He had gone on the Friday of this week, to pay a week-end visit at a +country house near Newmarket. Many jolly, happy week-ends he had spent +at this same house on other occasions, now, from first to last, it was +nightmare. + +On the Monday morning at breakfast a sudden conviction of the impossible +horror of this world struck at his heart. It came as a revelation, life +was for him never to be the same again. His hostess, a large-bosomed +white-haired lady, planted at the end of the table like an enormous +artificial toy in the middle of whose back some key must be turned if +the affair is to amuse the crowd, suddenly horrified him; the women of +the party, their noses a little blue, their cheeks a touch too white, +their voices hard and sharp, the men, red and brown, boisterously hearty +about the animals they hoped to kill before the day was done, the cold +food in a glazed and greedy row, the hot food--kidneys, fish, bacon, +sausages, sizzling and scenting the air--: the table itself with its +racks of toast and marmalade and silver and fruit: the conversation that +sounded as though the speakers were afraid that the food would all +disappear were they spontaneous or natural--all these things suddenly +appeared to Lord John in a very horrible light, so that, in an instant, +racing and women and clothes and food were banished from a naked biting +world in which he was a naked solitary figure. + +He caught a train as one flies from some horrible plague: he arrived in +London, breathless, confused, miserable, the foundations of Life broken +from beneath him. + +Here he found Lady Adela in a like condition. + +He had never cared very greatly for his sister, he had not found her +sympathetic or amusing, she had never appealed to him for assistance, +nor challenged his violent opposition. He had never enquired very deeply +into her interests; she had much correspondence and many acquaintances. +She ran, he supposed, the house or, at least, directed Miss Rand to run +it for her. + +He thought her a rather stupid woman, but then all the Beaminsters +thought one another stupid because they believed so intensely in the +Duchess and she had always made a point of seeing that, individually, +they despised one another, although collectively they faced the world. + +Finally, Adela had always seemed to him unsympathetic towards Rachel and +that he found it very hard to forgive--but then, he often reflected they +were all, with the exception of himself, a most unsentimental family. He +wondered sometimes why he was so different. + +On the afternoon of his return from Newmarket, however, he began to +wonder whether, after all, Adela had not more in common with him than he +had ever expected. He had lunched at the club, had plunged down into the +City to enquire about some investments, it had begun to rain, and he had +returned with the weight of that gloomy day full heavily upon him. + +He did not, as a rule, have tea, but to-day he needed company, and he +found Adela in the little sitting-room next to the library, a little +room with faded wall-paper, faded pictures (groups, some of them, of +himself and Vincent and Richard at Eton and Oxford), faded arm-chairs +and faded chintzes--a nice, cosy, friendly room, full of old +associations and old hopes and despairs. + +This room did not often see either Lady Adela or John, but to-day +Norris, for reasons best known to himself, had put tea there and, to +both of them, as they sat over the fire with the great house so still +and quiet about them, the shabby intimacy of the little place was +grateful. + +John, disturbed, himself, out of his normal easy geniality, noticed that +Adela also was disturbed. + +That dry and rather gritty assurance that had all her life protected her +from both the praise and abuse of her fellow-men and women was, to-day, +absent. She seemed really grateful to John for coming to have tea with +her to-day. He wondered whether she felt as he did that this war, with +all its horrors, foreboded, in some manner, special disasters upon the +Beaminster family, as though it were a portent, to be read of all men, +of the destruction and ruin of that family. + +"Poor Adela," he thought, "she's very plain. If she asks me to help her +I will. She's got something on her mind." + +"Rachel's here," Lady Adela said, looking at her brother nervously. + +"Now?" + +"Yes, she's with mother. She came to say good-bye to her. She and Roddy +are going down to Seddon to-morrow." + +"Yes, I know----" said John. + +"She's very queer--very odd. I don't pretend to understand her." + +"We're all queer just now," said John. "Down at the club to-day it was +too awful. No other subject--fellows killed, fellows going out to be +killed. Blunder, blame, disgrace--all the time. But what's Rachel been +doing odd?" + +"You understand her better than I do," said his sister. "She always +liked you better. I did my best with her, but she never cared about me. +But now I understand her less than ever. She's so excited and hard and +unnatural. Something's happened to her that we don't know about, I'm +sure." + +John said nothing. He was unhappy enough about Rachel, but he did not +intend to talk to Adela about it. He would rather not talk to anyone +about it because talking only brought it more actually in front of him. +Besides, he did not know what to say. He knew that he had been cowardly +about Rachel. He had tried to pretend to himself that she was happy when +he had known that she was not and so, for the sake of his comfort, he +had stifled the most genuine emotion in his life; that indeed was the +Beaminster habit. + +"She's not happy," continued Adela. "I'm sure I don't know why--Roddy's +very good to her--very good. She's so queer. She wants to have Miss Rand +down with her at Seddon for Christmas." + +"Miss Rand?" + +"Yes--she asked me whether I'd let her go. She's got to give a dance and +a dinner-party or two and asked me whether she might have her help. Of +course I said 'Yes.' Miss Rand hasn't been looking at all well for some +time now. A change will do her good." + +"What did Miss Rand say when you told her?" + +"Oh, she was odd. She has been odd lately. At first she thought she +wouldn't go. Then she said she would. I told her it would do her good." + +"How's mother been the last two days?" + +"Oh! the same. She won't say anything--she confides in nobody." + +John looked at his sister and wondered why it was that he had never, +during all these years, considered her as a personality or as anything +actively happy or miserable. She had had, he suddenly supposed, a life +of her own that was, in a way, as acute and sensitive as his and yet he +had never realized this. + +He had always taken his mother's word for it that Adela was a dried-up +stick who resented interference; now he was sure that that judgment was +short-sighted, and then, upon this, came criticism of his mother; +therefore, to banish such disloyalty, he said hurriedly: + +"I didn't enjoy the Massiters a bit--longed to get away--Sunday was +miserable----" + +Adela said--"I never could bear them--John----" she stopped. + +"Yes," he said, looking across at her. His large good-tempered eyes met +hers and then the colour mounted very slowly into her cheeks. He had +never seen her agitated before-- + +"John--" she began again. "I must do something. I can't sit here--just +quietly--going on as though nothing were happening. I know--all one's +life one's stood aside rather, I've never wanted to interfere with +anyone. But now, this war has made one feel differently, I think." + +"Well?" said her brother. + +"Well--an organization is being formed--women, you know--to help in some +way. They're going to do everything, make clothes, have sales and +concerts and get money together. It's to be a big thing--Nelly Ponsonby, +Clara Raddleton, lots of others.... They've asked me to be on the +committee----" + +"Well?" said John, "why not?" + +She looked at him appealingly. "Mrs. Bronson's on it too--one of the +originators of it." + +"Oh!" John was silent. Here was, indeed, a question. Mrs. Bronson, the +Beaminster arch-enemy. Mrs. Bronson, who had snapped her bejewelled +American fingers at the Duchess--Mrs. Bronson, who called the +Beaminsters the most insulting names. Why, a fortnight ago any alliance +with such a woman was unthinkable, incredible-- + +"I believe," went on Lady Adela, "that she herself proposed that I +should be asked...." + +A fortnight ago ... and now-- + +John knew that he was glad that Adela wished to join the committee, he +knew that he was closer to Adela now than he had ever been at any moment +during their lives together. + +He looked across at her and their eyes met and in that glance exchanged +between them barriers were broken down, curtains turned aside--they +would never be strangers again. + +"Mother isn't well." Adela said quite firmly. "Hasn't been well for a +long time--we've all known it. She has felt this war and--and other +things very much. She will feel my going on to the same committee as +Mrs. Bronson--she will certainly feel it. But I think it's my duty to do +so. After all, on an occasion like this family feeling must give way +before national ones." Why did not the walls and foundations of No. 104 +Portland Place rock and quiver before the horrid sacrilege of such +words? John, himself, almost expected them to do so and yet he was of +his sister's opinion. + +"I think you are perfectly right, Adela," he said. + +"Oh! I'm so glad that you do. I don't want to worry mother, just now. +I'm frankly rather nervous about telling her--but it must be done." + +"It's odd, Adela," said John, leaning back in his chair and crossing +his fat legs. "But something real like this war, a ghastly day with boys +shouting horrors at you followed by another ghastly day with more boys +shouting more horrors, it does shake one's life up. I've been very +cowardly, Adela, about a number of things. I see that now. I've never +really wanted to see it before. It makes one uncomfortable." + +"I don't think one ought to give way," said Adela with a slight return +to her gritty manner, "to one's feelings too much. But certainly one is +beginning to see things differently, which is a dangerous thing for +people of our age, John." + +"Yes," said John, "I suppose it is." He paused and then brought +out--"There's Francis, Adela. We've all been very wrong about +Francis. I've felt it for a long time, but hadn't the courage.... +He's been behaving very well all this time--One oughtn't to hold +aloof--altogether----" + +"Mother refuses to have his name mentioned----" + +"We must take into account," John said very slowly and now without +meeting his sister's eye--"that mother is not so well--scarcely so sure +in her judgment----" + +He broke off. There was a long pause and they looked away from one +another, as though they had been guilty conspirators. Norris came in to +take the tea away. + +"Has Lady Seddon gone?" + +"Yes, my lady. She was with Her Grace a very short time----" + +Adela turned impatiently to John. "So like Rachel. She might at least +have come to say good-bye to us." + +When Norris had gone John got up and walked a little about the room. + +He stopped beside his sister and put his hand on her shoulder: + +"If there's anything I can ever do to help you, Adela, tell me----!" he +said. + +"Thank you, John," she answered. + + +II + +Rachel had never understood why it was that she was driven so constantly +into her grandmother's presence. The impulse that drove her had in it, +perhaps, something of defiance and something of challenge as though she +cried to some weakness in her that it should not master her and that she +would just show it how little those visits mattered to her. It had all +begun from some reason of that kind, and lately, when she grew older, +she discovered that her grandmother was more terrible through +imagination than she was through actual vision. + +There was never absent from Rachel a lurking presentiment of what her +grandmother might one day do, and she went to see her now to discover +what she might be at, to prove to her that, whatever she be doing, +Rachel was "up" to her. + +On this particular occasion the visit was a very brief one, but there +was one moment in it that after events always produced for Rachel as a +most definite and (on the part of the Duchess) omniscient omen. + +Rachel had said that she had come in only for a moment to say good-bye. +She had talked a little and then, rising, stood by the fire. + +As she stood there her grandmother suddenly looked at her--a glance that +Rachel had not been intended to catch. There was there a malicious +humour, a consciousness of some power, of some disaster that could be +delivered, triumphantly, at an instant's notice. + +Very swiftly Rachel gathered her control, but she had felt what that +look conveyed. + +"Francis ... she knows ... what is she going to do?" + +She strung her slim, tall figure to its finest restraint and without a +quiver in her voice (her heart was beating wildly), "Good-bye, +grandmamma. I promised Roddy to be back." + +But the old lady looked at her-- + +"How you do hate me, my dear," she said almost complacently. + +Rachel compelled the other's eyes. "Would I come to see you so often if +I did?" she said. + +"Yes, my dear, you would. You've got a sense of humour hidden somewhere +although, God knows, we've seen little enough of it lately. Oh! yes, +you'd come all right--if it were only to see me growing older and +older." + +Rachel turned flaming. "There, at any rate, you're unjust. It's you that +have always hated me from the beginning--since I was small. Hated me, +been unjust to me----" + +Her body trembled with agitation--she was not far from one of her old +tempests of passion. + +But the Duchess smiled. "You exaggerate, Rachel, your old fault. At any +rate, I'll be gone soon, I suppose--it will seem trivial enough one +day...." Then as Rachel, turning to the door, left her--"But hurt a hair +of Roddy's head, my dear, and--well, you'll hate me more than ever----" + + +III + +When Rachel had gone the Duchess felt very ill indeed. She had only to +touch a bell and Dorchester would be with her, but she did not intend to +summon Dorchester before she need. + +She felt now, at this minute, that her spirit of resistance had almost +snapped. Again and again, throughout the last months, the temptation to +lie down and surrender had swept up, beaten about her walls and then +sunk, defeated, back again. + +But this last week of disaster had tried her severely. Her pride in life +had been largely her pride in the arrangement of it and now all that +arrangement was tumbling to pieces and she powerless to prevent it. For +the first time in all her days she felt that she would like to have +someone with her who would reassure her--someone less acid than +Dorchester. + +Why had she never had a companion--a woman like Miss Rand who would +understand without being sentimental? + +There was pain in every muscle and nerve of her body: it swept up and +down her old limbs in hot waves.... She clutched the arms of her chair. + +Even her brain, that had always been so sharp and clear, was now +confused a little and passed strange unusual pictures before her eyes. +That girl ... yes ... Dorchester had been very clever about that: +Dorchester had been in communication with Breton's man-servant for a +long time past. To go to tea there ... to be alone with him ... Roddy-- + +And at that dearly loved name all was sharp and accurate. Night and day +she was terrified lest she should suddenly hear that he was off to South +Africa. She believed that that would really kill her. Roddy--her +Roddy--to go and make another of those ghastly tragedies with which the +newspapers were now full. But let Rachel disdain him and he would go +merely to show her how fine a fellow he was--what idiots men were! + +Or let this other thing become a scandal, then surely he would go. + +She shook there in her chair and then with her eyes fixed on the fire +prayed to whatever gods or devils were hers that he might not go. +Anything, anything so that he might not go. Break him up, hurt +him--only, only he must not go. + +She prayed, thrusting her whole soul and spirit into her urgency-- + +Then, even as she sat there, her darkest hour was suddenly upon her. It +leapt upon her, as it were a beast out of some sudden darknesses--leapt +upon her, seized her, tore her, crushed her little dried withered soul +in its claws and tossed it to the fire. + +She was held by the sudden absolute realization of Death. She had never +seen it or known it before. Others had died and she had not cared; many +were dying now and it did not concern her. + +But this beast crouching in front of her, with its burning eyes on her +face, said to her: "All your life I've been beside you, waiting for this +moment. I knew that it would come. I have waited a long time--you have +played and thought yourself important and have cared for meddling in the +affairs of the world, but Reality has never touched you. You have +gathered things about you to pretend that I was not there. You have +mocked at others when they have seen me--you have enjoyed their +terror--now your own terror has come." + +Death.... She had never--until this instant--given it a thought. +Everything was gone before its presence. In a week or two, a month or +two, silence-- + +Rachel--she saw her standing there by the fire, full of life and energy, +so young, so strong. + +She, the Duchess of Wrexe, the great figure, courted by kings, princes, +artists, all the men and women of her time, now must crumble into the +veriest dust, be forgotten, be followed by others, banished by this new +world. + +She and her Times were slipping, slipping into disuse. Who cared now for +those other glories? What minds now were fit to tackle those minds that +she had known? What beauty now could stand beside that beauty that had +shone when she was young? + +The beast crouched nearer. The room darkened. She could feel the hot +breath, could be dazed by the shining of those eyes. Behind her, around +her, the trumpery toys that she had gathered faded. + +Darkness rose; a great space and desolation was about her--She tried to +summon all her energy. + +She cried out and Dorchester, coming in, found that her mistress had, +for the first time in her life, fainted, bending, an old, broken woman, +forward in her chair. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +LIZZIE'S JOURNEY--II + + +I + +The world, during all these months, had seemed to Lizzie Rand a very +silent place. Before that July night it had been loud with incident, +coloured with possibilities, strange and varied and thrilling. Now she +was only conscious of the duties that must be fulfilled between daybreak +and darkness; she was unconscious of all life and movement, only she was +aware of the demands on her deliberate activity--these demands she +obeyed. + +Slowly, as the dreary autumn dragged its days past her, she accustomed +herself to forestall the horrid moments that would leap from some hidden +darkness upon her. There was the moment when a something said: "Fancy +caring for someone who had never asked nor shown any sign...." Another +moment when something said: "Remember how here you stood, with your +heart beating, waiting for him to come--There you caught some light in +his eyes and fancied it a sign...." + +Burning shame was in those moments did she indulge them--a realization, +too, of the bare grey desolation of a world without movement or vision. +She could not see the people about her, her mother, her sister, Lady +Adela, Dr. Christopher (always kind to her), other friends--they were +not there for her at all. + +Only two things were there--that she must cling, at all possible costs, +to her pride and that she hated Rachel. Her pride had been called to her +defence before, but to hate anyone was new to her. She had never hated +any human being and now the restlessness that this new emotion brought +confused her. + +Night after night stretched ironically before her, banishing sleep. All +her life she had slept from the moment that her head was upon the +pillow; now, at that instant, her brain sprang to fire, thought after +thought, memory after memory, passed in dancing procession before her. + +She saw him as little as possible, she supposed that in time she would +not care, would be indifferent to him; she hoped so. + +Meanwhile she went out when he came in; saw his kind distress because +he thought that she was not well, and shuddered at it. + +Then Lady Adela told her that Rachel had asked whether she were free for +Christmas. + +She received a letter: + + "DEAR MISS RAND, + + I wonder whether by any chance you would care to come to us + here for three weeks at Christmas time? I should be so grateful + if you would come and help me a little with some tiresome + social things here. May I add that I have for a long time + wanted to know you better than the London rush ever gives time + for? My aunt says that you have been overworking lately, she + thinks. If you come here you shall have all the rest and quiet + possible. + + Yours sincerely, + + RACHEL SEDDON." + +A funny little letter--stiff and then suddenly impulsive and friendly. + +Of course she would go--she had never doubted that. Here at last was +some food for the burning restlessness that was always at her +breast--Through these months she had longed for some step that would +help to kill the pain. + +Now she would watch Rachel and discover her heart and perhaps find from +that discovery some way for her own release. For her shame, night and +day, was that she still cared, cared, yes, as deeply as she had ever +done--that caring must die. + +Perhaps the sight and knowledge of this other woman would kill it. + +At least here at last was action after the terrible silence and +remoteness of those many months. + +She would go to Seddon and she would not leave it without finding some +way by which she might still make some use of life. + + +II + +She had really stayed at very few houses before. The anticipation at any +other time would have excited her, now nothing mattered except that she +would meet Rachel. + +Her mother and sister had watched her during these past months with a +dismay stirred by the sudden absence of her genial friendliness. + +They had taken so much of her kindliness for granted and now when she +refused them the sympathy that they had always demanded for a thousand +unimportant incidents they, clamorously, missed it. + +At first it was easy to say that Lizzie was callous and selfish, +afterwards that she was ill and overworked, finally they hailed with +relief the promise of a three-weeks' holiday. "She'll come back," said +Mrs. Rand, "as fresh as paint, and taken out of herself." + +Meanwhile no solution of Lizzie's trouble occurred to them; that she +should ever feel the tyranny of love, like more sentimental mortals, +was, at this time of day, impossible. "We know Lizzie, thank you," said +Mrs. Rand. + +They watched her, on the afternoon of the 23rd of December, depart in a +cab for Seddon Court. She was grave and pale and beautifully neat. "I do +admire Lizzie, you know," said Daisy, returning with her mother into the +house. "I can't get that kind of tidiness. Her things go on for years, +looking as good as new." + +"Men like a bit of disorder," said Mrs. Rand. "It seems more agitated. +All the same I'd like to know what is worrying Lizzie." + +It was a wet and gusty day and the wind blew the rain with hard +impatient spurts against the windows of the cab. Few people were about: +Hyde Park Corner was grey and deserted, umbrellas like black mushrooms +started here and there from the shining ground. + +Victoria Station also had, on this afternoon, nothing beautiful to +offer. She found her way to her train, chose an empty carriage, sat in +her corner with her hands upon her lap, waited for the train to move. + +People, grey people with white faces, hurried past her carriage. She +wondered whether they too had something in their hearts that made every +thought, every movement a danger. + +Because the train would not move and because for the first time in all +these months she found herself without any occupation, she could not +hold thought at bay. She resisted, she tried to sweep her brain empty, +she surrendered. She, Lizzie Rand, always so fond of her self-discipline +and restraint, found control now slipping from her. Before she had met +Breton her duties, the skilful manipulation and arrangement of detail, +her work and her place as a worker, these had supplied her needs. Now +all those things were dust and ashes; high and lofty above them shone +that bright fire whose warmth and colour she had, for an instant, felt +and seen. What was life going to be, through all the years to come, if +she were never to recapture her tranquillity? + +The train moved off and she sat there, her eyes bright and shining, her +little body stiff and resolute. Somewhere, a long way away, like a +rounded coloured cloud, hovered emotion--emotion that would break her +heart, would tear her to pieces and then perhaps build up for her a new +life. But her eyes now were dry and her heart was cold. + +The train went whir-whack--whack-whir and the telegraph wires flew up, +hung, hesitated, were coming down, flew higher, then with a rush were +buried below the window, and with the noise and movement there danced +before her eyes the questions, "Does she love him?" "Does she love him? +Has she told him that she loves him? What will her husband do? Does she +love her husband?" And then, beyond that, "Why did she come and take +from me all that I had, she who had already so much?" + +And then, most bitter of all, "Ah, but you never had him. She took +nothing from you. He never thought of you except as someone to whom he +could talk----" + +She had no doubt that these weeks were intended for a crisis. Something +was going to happen at Seddon.... Something in which she was to have her +share. She felt as though she had known that she would be sent to meet +Rachel--It had to be.... + +Then her thoughts left, for a time, her own miserable little history. +She wondered how Lady Adela would manage without her. Lady Adela had +never been alone before and now that the Duchess had had, a fortnight +ago, that fainting fit, they were all unsettled and alarmed. What would +happen if the Duchess died? Then all the dignity and splendour of 104 +Portland Place would pass away! other people might inhabit it, but the +soul of that house would be dead. + +Everything on every side of her seemed to be hastening to a climax and +Lizzie could see that old woman fighting, behind her closed doors, for +Life, beaten at last, dead, swept away, others laughing in her place--a +new world to whom she was only a portrait cleverly painted by some young +artist. + +Yes, there were other histories developing now besides Lizzie's and she +felt as though she had been whirled, during the last months, into a +wild, tossing medley of contacts and revelations--all this after a life +so grey and quiet and steadily busy. + +As the train plunged into Sussex the rain stayed for a little and the +shining earth steamed upwards to a grey sky broken here and there to +saffron. Little towns quietly rested under the hills and many streams +ran through the woods and the roads drove white like steel through the +crust of the soil. White lights spread in the upper air and the heaving +grey was pushed, as though by some hand, back into the distant horizon. +For a moment it seemed that the sun was bursting through; trees were +suddenly green where they had been black and fields red where they had +been sombre dark--Light was on all the hills. + +But the hand was stayed. Back the grey rolled again, heavily like +chariots the clouds wheeled round and drove down upon the earth--The +rain fell. + +The carriage was very cold. Lizzie's hand and feet were so chill that +they seemed not to belong to her at all. Pictures of houses at Brighton +and the dining-car of some train and two public-houses at the bottom of +a hill stared at her. + +The sense of some coming disaster grew with her. It was as though +someone were telling her that she must prepare to be very brave and +controlled and wise because, very soon, all her restraint and wisdom +would be needed. She summoned now, as she had learnt to do, a stern +armoured resolution that sat always a little oddly upon her. Any +observer who had seen her sitting there would have noticed the mild +softness of her eyes, the tenderness of some curve at the corners of her +mouth, and would have smiled at the lines of resolution as though he had +known that the sternness was all assumed. + +But she was saying that nothing should touch or move her down here at +Seddon; her heart should be closed. She must grow into a woman who had +no need of emotion--and even as she determined that some vision swept +her by, revealing to her the happy dear uses that she could have made of +love and sympathy had life been set that way for her. How she could have +cared!... A dry little sob was at her throat and burning pain behind her +tearless eyes. God, the things that other people had and did not value! + +The train stopped at a wind-swept deserted station and a man and woman +with a little child, the three of them tired, wet, bedraggled, entered +the carriage. + +The man was gaunt with a beard and large helpless eyes, the woman +shapeless, loose-breasted, little eyes sunk in her cheeks, an old black +straw hat tilted back on her head. These two did not glance at Lizzie, +nor was there any curiosity of interest in their eyes, but the small +child, yellow wisps of hair falling about her dirty face, detached +herself from them, crept into the furthest corner of the carriage and +from there stared at Lizzie. + +The train droned on through a country now shrinking beneath a deluge of +rain. The child moved a little, looked at the woman, looked again at +Lizzie, crept to Lizzie's side of the carriage, at last, still without a +word, came close and, finally, stole fingers towards Lizzie's dress. + +Lizzie turned and smiled at the child, who stared back at her, now with +wide terrified eyes. Lizzie looked away, out of the window, and after a +long time, felt the grimy hand upon her knee. + +Once the woman said, "Come away, Cissie. You're worrying the lady." + +"No. Please," said Lizzie. She took the hand in her own and smiled again +at the wide baby face. The child was very, very young and very, very +dirty-- + +No child had ever come near her before. She wondered why it had come +now. + + +III + +At Lewes a carriage was waiting for her and, in a moment, it seemed that +she was driving through a dark village street and in front of her, like +a great wall topping the skies, the Downs rose. + +When the carriage entered the courtyard and stopped before the broad +stone door Lizzie was seized with terror. She wished, oh! she wished +that she had not come. The sense of descending trouble was so strong +with her that she felt for the first time in her life that she was going +to prove unequal to her task. + +Her life was over and done with! Why had she allowed herself to be +pushed back again into all these affairs of other people? + +She was ushered into a square lighted hall where they were all having +tea round a wide open fireplace. She was conscious of Rachel rising, +slim and tall, to greet her, of the square ruddy-faced country-looking +man who gripped her hand, jolly hard, and was, of course, Sir Roderick; +of a handsome, athletic-looking girl in a riding-habit, of a man or two +and an elderly smartly dressed woman. + +They were all immensely cheerful and friendly and to Lizzie, white and +tired, noisy and horribly robust. She would have liked to have slipped +up to her room and stayed there alone until dinner, but Rachel said: + +"Oh! you must be perished after that wet journey. Tea's just at its +hottest and its freshest. Quick, Roddy--the toast--Never mind the rest +of us, Miss Rand--just drink that tea and get warm." + +They allowed her to sink back into an easy chair somewhere in the shadow +and the tea was very comforting and the stern hall with its crackling +fire and its cosy solid shape most friendly. She listened to them all +noisily discussing people and dances and horses and dinners. She watched +Rachel Seddon, sitting a little gravely, straight in her chair, throwing +in a word now and again. + +This was the woman.... This was the woman.... + +She felt a warm tongue that licked her hand. She looked down and saw at +her side the oddest dog, a dog like a mat, shapeless with two brown eyes +behind its hair and a black wet nose. + +There was something about the eyes and the way that the warm body was +pressed against her dress that won her instant affection. + +"What an adorable animal!" she said to Roddy, who was sitting next to +her. + +"Oh! Jacob!" he said, laughing. "He really oughtn't to be in here at +all--servants' hall's his proper place--If you care for dogs, Miss Rand, +I'll show you some----" + +As he spoke she caught the dog's eyes and saw in the depths of them +shame. He had been sitting, very square and upright, with his eyes +gravely fixed, with great interest, upon the company. Then, at the sound +of Roddy's voice his head had dropped, instantly he became furtive, his +eyes searching for some place of escape. + +Her hand caught his rough coat and she drew him to her side and stroked +his ears. + +"I think he's perfectly delightful," she said. "I'm afraid I prefer +mongrels to better dogs." + +"Do you really?" said Roddy, looking kindly at her. "'Pon my word, Miss +Rand, I must show you my little lot. I don't think you'll have much use +for that animal there afterwards." + +At last the girl in the riding-habit and the other woman and the young +man noisily departed. + +Rachel took Lizzie upstairs. "Are you sure," she said, "you'd like to +come down to dinner? Wouldn't you rather, to-night, go early to bed and +have it there?" + +"No, thank you, Lady Seddon." Lizzie looked about the room. "This is all +splendid, thank you. I'm not a bit tired." + +"I'm so glad you've come," said Rachel, searching for Lizzie's eyes. But +Lizzie had turned away. + +At last she was alone. + +Her room was splendid--so wide, and high, and such a fire! + +She flung up her window. There the Downs were, black, huge before her; +the rain came down hissing from the sky and a smell of wet earth and +grass stole up to her. + +"That's the woman ..." she said again to herself--"What shall we say to +one another?" + +Then as she stared into the fire she thought, "She wants me to help +her." + +Afterwards she heard a scratching at the door. A maid had been sent to +her, but she had dismissed her, saying that she would manage for +herself. + +She went to the door and found outside it the shaggy, square dog. + +He walked into her room, sniffed for a time at the bed, pricked up his +ears at the noise that the fire made, listened to the sound of the rain, +at last sat down in a distant corner with one leg stretched at right +angles to his body and watched her. + +She was indignant with herself for the softness in her heart that his +company brought to her. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +RODDY IS MASTER + + "I and my mistress, side by side, + Shall be together, breathe and ride, + So, one day more am I deified, + Who knows but the world may end to-night?" + + ROBERT BROWNING. + + +I + +Introspection had been always to Roddy a thing unknown. He had never +regarded himself as in any way different from the other men whom he met, +and he would have been greatly distressed had he thought that he _was_ +different.--"What you writin' fellers," he had once said to Garden, "can +find amusin' in inventin' people for I can't think; you've got to make +'em odd for people to be interested in 'em and then they aren't like +anyone." + +Now, however, for the first time in his life he would have been glad of +help from someone who knew a little about the motive of human beings. He +was worried, distressed, perplexed; slowly his temper was rising--a +temper roused by his irritation at not being able to deal with the +situation. + +It was not his way to ask for help from anyone and he always had all the +inarticulate self-confidence of the healthy Englishman, but now, as the +days crept towards Christmas he was increasingly aware that something +must soon happen to prevent his patience giving away. + +He might as well not be married to Rachel at all--and that was an +intolerable position for him as husband, as lover, as master of his +house. Beyond doubt, he knew Rachel less now than he had known her when +he married her. Her very kindness to him, her strange alternations of +silence and affection perplexed him; for a long time he had told +himself that he knew that she did not love him and that he must make +companionship do, but ever since that quarrel about Nita Raseley the +division between them had grown wider and wider. + +Because he loved her he had been very patient with her--very patient for +Roddy, who had always had what he wanted and shown temper if he were +refused. + +But Roddy's character was of a very real simplicity. The men and women +and animals whom he had known had also been, for the most part, of a +simple character and, in all his life, there had only been one horse and +two women who had been too much for him, and even these, at the last, he +had beaten by temper and dogged determination. + +Rachel was utterly beyond him. The strange way that she had of suddenly +becoming quite another woman baffled him; had he only not loved her he +was sure that it would have been easier, much easier. + +But now, as the days passed at Seddon, his irritation thrived. Women +were all the same. They _seemed_ obstinate enough, but there was nothing +like brute force to bring them to heel. He was growing surly--cross with +the servants and the animals. He didn't sleep. His discontent made him +silent so that, when they were alone, instead of talking to her and +interesting her and winning her, perhaps, in that way, he would sit and +look at her and answer her in monosyllables, and, afterwards, would be +furious with himself for behaving so absurdly. + +This trouble sent him out of doors and away over the Downs on his horse. +Fiercely he hurled himself into his fields and lanes and farms, getting +up sometimes very early and riding out to some distant place, thinking +always, as he rode, of Rachel and what he was to do. + +His devotion for the country round Seddon, a devotion that had stirred +his heart since his first conscious sight of the outside world, nobly +now rewarded him. The land seemed to understand that he was suffering, +and drew closer to him and watched him with gentle and loving eyes, and +soothed his soul. + +Before Christmas there came some sharp, frosty mornings; he would go out +very early and would see, first, the garden, the lawn crisp and white, +the grey jagged wall that divided his land from the sweeping Downs, the +grey house behind him so square and solid and comfortable. At the end of +the garden away from the road there was an old iron gate with stone +pillars, and upon these pillars sat old stone gryphons. These gryphons +had been there since long ago and he liked the friendliness of their +faces, the strength of their crouching bodies and the way that they +would look out so patiently, over a great expanse of fields and hedges, +until their gaze rested on the white chalk hollows in the rising hills +away behind Lewes. + +Roddy, standing with the Downs so immediately behind him and this green +spread of land in front of him, was always conscious of happiness. Here +he was at home. He knew those fields, the streams that ran through them, +the farmers, the labourers, the horses and dogs that lived upon them. No +fear here that "one of those clever fellers" would wonder at his +stupidity, no sudden "letting you down" or "showing you up." Behind him +was his house, before him the land that he had always known; here he was +safe. + +He had, too, beyond this, some unformulated recognition of a service and +a worship that here he was called on to pay. He had always declared that +he could understand those Johnnies who worshipped the sun and the earth. +"Damn it all--there's something to catch on to there."--He did not, in +his heart, believe in all this civilization, this preserving of the sick +and tending of the maimed and halt. "You've got to clear out if you're +broken up" was his opinion. "If you can't do your bit, can't see or +smell or anything, you're just in the way."--What he meant was that the +halt and maimed were simply insults to the vigour and vitality of his +fields and sky. + +But indeed, what _would_ he have done during these days had he not had +his riding, farms to visit, shepherds and farmers for company? At first +Rachel had ridden with him and they had been closer together during +those rides than at any other time, but lately she had refused, on one +excuse or another, to come with him. + +He went a good deal now to other houses, but it was awkward because +Rachel would not come with him. She asked people to Seddon and was +charming when they came, but she would not often go out with him when +the country people invited them. + +Since the Nita Raseley episode he had thought that she might show +jealousy did he ride and drive with some girl in the country. He hoped +that she would be jealous, that would have filled him with tingling +happiness--but no, she seemed to be glad that he should find someone who +could take her place. + +Over all these things he brooded and brooded. He would look at his old +friendly gryphons and feel, in some dumb confused way, that they were +being insulted.--"Poor old beggars--I bet she doesn't know they're +there"--And through all of this, he loved her more and more, and was, +daily, more wretched and unhappy. + + +II + +The coming of Miss Rand puzzled him. He had, of course, known of her for +a long time--"Adela Beaminster's secretary, most capable woman, simply +runs the whole place."--As a human being she simply did not occur to +him. + +Now she seemed to be the one person whom Rachel wished to know. Another +instance of Rachel's unexpectedness. When Lizzie came he was still more +astonished. This tidy, trim little woman looked as though she ought +always to have a typewriter by her side; her sharp eyes were always +restlessly discovering things that were out of order. Roddy found +himself fingering his tie and patting his hair when she was with +him--not, he would have supposed, the sort of woman for whom Rachel +would have cared. + +Then after a while he discovered another astonishing thing. Miss Rand +did not like his wife, did not like her at all. He watched and fancied +that Rachel soon discovered this and was doing her utmost to force Miss +Rand to like her. + +Miss Rand was always pleasant and polite; she was an immense help about +dinners and this dance that was to be given early in the New Year, but +she yielded to none of Rachel's advances, was always reserved, +unresponsive. + +Roddy was afraid of her but believed in her. She liked animals and loved +the house and the Downs and the country.--"She's all clean and bright +and hard," he thought; "no emotion about her, no sentiment _there_. A +man 'ud have a stiff time love-making with her." + +But it gradually appeared that, whatever her feelings might be towards +Rachel, she was ready to like Roddy. She walked with him, asked him +sensible questions, listened attentively to his rather lumbering +explanations. After a time, he almost forgot that she was a woman at +all--"Damn sensible and yet she never makes you feel a fool." + +He liked her very much, though she obviously preferred Jacob, the +mongrel, to all other dogs in the place. He wondered as the days passed +whether she might not help him with Rachel. He would not speak to anyone +living about his own feelings for Rachel and his unhappiness, but he +thought that, perhaps, in a roundabout way, he might obtain from Miss +Rand some general wisdom that he could apply to his especial case. + +The afternoon of Christmas Eve was cold and foggy and Roddy and Lizzie +sat over the fire in the hall waiting for Rachel, who had gone out for a +solitary walk. Roddy looking at his companion approved of the sharp +delicate little face with the firelight touching it to colour and +shadow; her dress was grey with a tiny brooch of old gold at her throat, +and she wore one ring of small pearls; the look of her gave him +pleasure. + +"I wonder," Miss Rand said, "that you don't go where you'll get better +hunting--you don't hunt round here at all, do you?" + +"A bit"--Roddy looked gravely at the fire--"I go very little though. You +see, Miss Rand, it's a case of bein' born down here and likin' the +place, don't you know. _Of course_ I'd love to have been born in a +huntin' country, but bein' here I've got fond of it, you see, and +wouldn't leave it for any huntin' anywhere." + +She looked at him sharply: "You do love the place very much--I envy you +that." + +Even as she spoke her consciousness of "the place" faced her; she had +always known that she was more acutely aware of the personality of her +surroundings than were most of her friends, but her experience here was +different from anything that she had ever known before. + +She remembered that in the train she had been warned of some coming +event and now, sitting opposite to Roddy beside the blazing fire, she +was sharply and definitely frightened. + +Rachel had already appealed to her; Roddy was appealing to her now, but +stronger than either of these demands was some force in herself, warning +her and raising in her the most conflicting, disturbing emotions. + +The very silence of the house about them, the long green stretches of +the level fields, came almost personally and presented themselves to +her, and in her heart, growing with every moment of passing time, was +her hatred of Rachel and, from that, tenderness for Roddy, who could +thus be left, so pathetically unhappy, so eloquently without words that +might express his unhappiness. + +Something she knew was soon to occur that would involve all three of +them in a common crisis. + +It was almost as though she must leap to her feet and cry to the +startled and innocent Roddy, "Look out!" her finger pointing at the +closed door behind him. + +Meanwhile Roddy had been considering her. She said that she envied him +the place. That was pleasant of her, and he warmed to the urgency with +which she had said it. If she felt in that way about such things, why +then, all the more, he thought, he could speak to her about his trouble +with Rachel. Perhaps, too, although this he would not admit to +himself--his conviction that Lizzie disliked Rachel gave him more +courage. + +Everyone thought Rachel so wonderful--wonderful of course she was, but a +complete sense of that wonder must blind the looker-on to Roddy's point +of view. + +"Places," he said moodily, "ain't everythin'--course _I_ love this old +bit o' ground, but when you love anything a lot you're disappointed +because every feller don't see it exactly as you do." + +Lizzie looked at him. + +"I should have thought, though, Sir Roderick, that you were a very, very +happy person." + +Roddy considered, then slowly shook his head--"No, Miss Rand, not +exactly--no, you know, I shouldn't say that exactly--but then, I +suppose, no man on this earth is absolutely happy." + +"Well," said Lizzie, "a great many people would envy you--your health, +your home, your wife, you've got a good deal, Sir Roderick." + +As she spoke her anxiety to help him seized and held her. He wanted +advice so badly, advice that she could give him, and this English strain +in him prevented him from speaking. Had she gone more deeply into her +motives she would have known that her anger with Rachel, even more +actively prompted, it seemed, by the stones and the fields and the hills +around her, was urging her interference. + +"People envy me," said Roddy, "but then, Miss Rand, people don't know. +It's all my own fault, mind you, that I'm not perfectly happy. It's all +because I'm such a fool, not able to see what people are gettin' at, +always blunderin' in at the wrong moment and blunderin' out again when I +ought to be stayin' in, and that sort o' thing. I used to think," he +concluded, "that all the talk about people's feelin's, studying them and +so on, was rot, but now I'm not so sure. I'd give anythin'--" he stopped +abruptly. + +"It _is_ all rot," Lizzie said sharply--"I can only speak as a woman, of +course, but I know that what every woman ever born into this world has +wanted is just to be taken by someone stronger than herself and be +beaten or kissed, loved or strangled as the case may be. Believe me, it +is so." + +Roddy looked at her, some new thought, perhaps a prologue to some new +determination, shining from his eyes. + +"By Jove!" he said. "I believe you're right, Miss Rand--I do indeed. +_Every_ woman, would you say?" + +"Every woman," said Lizzie firmly. + +Their eyes met. The sure steadiness of her gaze, the way that she sat +there, her little body so sure and resolute, her very neat composure an +argument against lightheaded reasoning, encouraged him beyond any help +that he had yet found. + +Their gaze seemed long and intimate; the colour rose and flushed his +brown cheeks and into his eyes there crept that consciousness of a +victory about to be won, although the odds were hard against him. The +door opened behind him and he turned at the sound and saw that Rachel +had come in. + +Her entry gave him now, as it always did, a conviction that during her +absence he hadn't had the least idea as to how splendid she really was. +She brought into that little stone hall a wild colour, a strong, fine +challenge to anything small, or shackled or conventional. + +Her walk had given her cheeks a flame, the black furs round her throat, +the black coat falling below her knees, a red feather in her round +black fur cap, all these things set off and accentuated the brilliant +fire and energy of her eyes. + +As she came towards them then so splendid was she that Lizzie was +herself for an instant lost in admiration--She lit the hall, she lit the +house, she lit the country and the evening sky. + +To Roddy, as he looked at her, there stole the spirit of some pagan +ancestor telling him that here was his capture, that this fine creature +was his to bind, to burden, to chastise, as his lordly pleasure might +be. + +Rachel, meanwhile, had come in from her walk, unappeased, unsated; the +exertion had only succeeded in stirring in her a deeper, more urgent +uneasiness. During these last weeks she had known no moment of peace. +She had come down to Seddon determined to do her duty to Roddy; she had +found that at every turn her duty to Roddy involved more than any +determination could force her to give. + +She had not known what that last interview with Breton would do to every +situation that followed it. It seemed to her then that those last words +with him would make her duty plain, they had only made her duty harder. + +She could not now act, think, sleep, move but that last kiss, those last +words of his, that last vision of him standing, struggling so finely for +control--these things pursued her, caught her eyes and held them. + +All her duty to Roddy could not hide from her now that she had, at one +flaming instant, known what life at its most intense could be. She had +felt the fire--how cold to her now these antechambers, these passages so +chill, so far from that inner room. Lizzie had then occurred to her as +the strongest person she knew. She sent for Lizzie, found instantly that +Lizzie disliked her, suspected then that Lizzie knew about Breton. + +She knew Lizzie for her enemy.... During the last week also she had +detected a new attitude in Roddy; she had felt in him some active +growing impatience that quite definitely threatened her safety. That +wild lawlessness in Roddy that she had always known, that had produced +the Nita episode and others, was now turning towards herself. + +But most of all did she fear her thoughts of Breton. She drove him again +and again and again from her mind, she called all her strength, mental, +moral, and physical, to her aid--always, with a smile, with one glance +from his eyes he defeated her. + +Day and night he was with her, and yet at her heart she did not even now +know whether it were Francis Breton whom she loved, or the life with +Roddy, the whole Beaminster scheme of things that she hated. Every day +it seemed to her that Lizzie was more watchful, Roddy more impatient, +Breton more insistent--but afraid of them all as she was, fear of +herself gave her the sharpest terror. + +She rang for tea, reproached them because they had waited for her. Then +they were--all three of them--silent. + +One of the footmen brought in the five o'clock post with the tea and +laid Rachel's letters on the table at her side. + +Lizzie had leant across the table for something and saw, as though +flashed to her by some special designing Providence, that the letter on +the top of the pile was in Francis Breton's handwriting. + +Rachel, busied with tea, had not looked down. Now she did so; the +handwriting rose, as though she had at that instant heard his step +beyond the room, and filled first her eyes, then her cheeks, then her +heart. + +Her eyes met Lizzie's and for the barest moment of time their challenges +met. Rachel seemed to hesitate, then, gathering up her letters, looked +round at Roddy and said, "I think I'll just go up and take my things +off, this fire's hotter than I expected--I'll be back in a moment." + +She walked slowly across the room and up the broad staircase. + + +III + +She did not switch on the light. The evening dusk left the room cool and +dim, but by the window, standing so that green shadows met the grey and +through them both a pale light trembled before it vanished, she took the +letter in her hand, allowing the others to drop and be scattered, white, +on the floor at her feet. + +She held the envelope; he had written and he had sworn to her that he +would not do so--she should have been furious at his broken word, +scornful of him for his weakness, indignant at his treating her so +lightly. + +But she could not think of that now, she could only think of the letter. +The envelope was so precious to her that it seemed to return the caress +that his fingers gave it and to have of itself some especial +individuality. She traced his hand on the address, treasured every line +and mark, and then at last tore it open. It was not a very long letter. +He had written to her: + + "You will despise me for breaking my word. Perhaps you won't + read this--but I _can't_ help it, I _can't_ help it, and even + if I could I don't think that I would. I know that my writing + to you is just another of the rash, foolish, silly weak things + that I've gone on doing all my life, but let it be so. I don't + pretend to be fine or brave and I have tried all these weeks, + tried harder than you can know. I've written to you every day + letter after letter, and torn them up--torn them all up. I've + fancied that perhaps you've forgotten by now and then I've + known that you've not and then I've known that it were better + if you did. + + I love you so madly that--(here he had scratched some words + out)--I must tell you that I love you so that _you_ can hear me + and not only my walls and furniture and my own self. I'm trying + not to be selfish. I know that I'm doing something now that is + hard on you, but my silence is eating me, thrusting, killing--I + shall be better soon--I will be sensible--soon--I will be---- + + But now, oh, my darling! for a moment at least I have caught + you and held you throbbing against me, and put my hands in your + hair and stroked your cheeks and kissed your eyes. + + Don't write to me if you must not, don't be angry with me for + this. + + I will try not to break my word again." + +As the letter ended so silence came back into the room that had been +beating and throbbing with sound. + +The pale light had gone, only the Downs were dim grey shapes against a +darker sky--the ripple of some water slipping and falling came from the +garden. + +The letter fell from her hands and lay white with the others on the +floor. + +She tumbled on to her knees by the window and her heart was the +strangest confusion of triumph and fear, exultation and shame. + +For a little time she lay there and felt that she was in his arms and +that his lips were on her mouth and that her hand pressed his cheek. + +She got up, turned on the lights, took off her walking things, brushed +her hair and washed her hands, picked up the other letters, but put his +in the inside of her dress--then went down to the others. + + +IV + +She found Lizzie sitting alone--"Where's Roddy?" + +Lizzie looked up at her. "He had to go and see about a horse or +something." + +Rachel came down to the table and poured out some tea and then sat +smiling at Lizzie; Lizzie smiled back. + +"I hope you liked your walk." + +"Yes, there's a storm coming up. You've no idea how deeply one gets to +care for these Downs--their quiet and their size." + +They were silent for a little and then Rachel said: + +"Miss Rand--I do hope--that this really has been something of a holiday +for you, being here, away from all your London work!" + +Lizzie's eyes were sharp--"Yes--It's delightful for me. The first +holiday I've had for years...." + +"Don't think it impulsive of me--but I've asked you here hoping that +we'd get to know one another better. I've wanted to know you, to have +you for a friend--for a long time. I've always admired so immensely the +way that you've helped Aunt Adela--done things that I could never +possibly have done----" + +She stopped, but Lizzie said nothing--Then she went on more +uncertainly-- + +"You see, I hoped that perhaps you'd teach me a little order and method. +I've married so young--I've hoped...." Then almost desperately--"But you +know, Miss Rand, I don't feel as though your coming here has helped us +to know one another any better." + +The storm had come up and the sky beyond the house was black. Lizzie's +face, lighted by the fire, was white, sharp and set--there was no +kindness in her eyes. + +"Perhaps, Lady Rachel," she said slowly, "I'm not a very emotional kind +of woman. If one's worked, as I have, since one was small--had to earn +one's living and fight for one's place--it makes one perhaps rather +self-reliant and independent of other people--Our lives have been so +different, I'm afraid," she added with a little laugh, "that I'm a +dried-up, unsatisfactory kind of person--I know that my mother and +sister have always found me so." + +"Yes," Rachel said, "our lives _have_ been different. Perhaps if mine +had been a little more like yours--perhaps if _I_ had had to work for my +living--I...." + +She broke off--a little catch was in her voice--she rose from her chair +and went to the window and stood there, with her back to Lizzie, gazing +into the darkening garden. + +She knew that Lizzie had repulsed her; she was hardly aware why she had +made her appeal, but she was now frightened of Lizzie and to her +overstrung brain it seemed that she could now see Lizzie and Roddy in +league against her. + +She heard a step and turning round found Peters, the butler, large, +square, of an immense impassivity. + +"Please, my lady, might I speak to you a moment?" + +She went out. + + * * * * * + +Lizzie, left in the darkening room, could think now only of the letter. +The sight of that handwriting had stirred in her passions that she had +never before imagined as hers--that first pathetic appeal of Roddy and +then the sight of that letter! + +Her brain, working feverishly, showed her the words that that letter +would contain--the passion, the passion! There in the very face of her +husband, Rachel was receiving letters from her lover, letters that she +could not wait a moment to read, but must go instantly and open _them_. + +This hour brought to a crisis Lizzie's agony. Had such a letter been +written to her! + +She tortured herself now with the picture of him as he sat there in his +room in Saxton Square writing it! It appeared to her now as though they +two--there in the very throne of their triumphant love--had plotted this +insult, this snap of the fingers, to show her, Lizzie Rand, how +desolate, how lonely, how neglected and unwanted she was! + +That then, after this, Rachel should appeal to her for friendship! The +cruel insult of it. + +She felt as she heard the fast drops of rain lash the window-frames, +that no revenge that she could secure would satisfy her thirst for it. + + +V + +Roddy, meanwhile, had gone out to the stables. That little talk with +Lizzie had determined a resolution that had been growing now within him +for many weeks. + +That little woman, with her assured air and neat little ways, knew what +she was about--knew moreover what others were about. She had watched and +had given him the tip--He would take it. + +Roddy's mind was of far too simple an order to admit of more than one +point of view at a time. He saw Rachel now as a dog or horse, of whom he +was very fond, who needed, nevertheless, stern discipline. He wondered +now how it was that he had allowed himself for so long to remain +indecisive. + +"London muddles a feller," he concluded; "the country's the place for +clear thinkin'." + +He looked at his horses with great satisfaction, they were in splendid +condition--he had never known them better. He also was in splendid +condition--never been better. + +As he walked away from the stables and turned towards the end of the +garden bounded by the gryphons and the stone gate, he felt his body at +its most supreme perfection. He thought, on that afternoon, that he was +strong enough for anything, and perhaps never before in his life had he +been so conscious of the glories of physical things; of all that it +meant to have fine muscles and a strong heart and lungs of the best and +thews and sinews as good as "any feller's." + +"I'm strong enough for anythin'----" He turned back his arm and felt his +muscle. He cocked his head with a little conceited gesture of +satisfaction--"I was gettin' a bit fat in London--got rid of all that." + +To walk, to ride, to fight, to swim, to eat and sleep, to love women and +drink strong drink! God! what a world! + +And then, beyond it all, Rachel, Rachel, Rachel! He had her now--she +should be under his hand, she should be his as she had never been since +the first week of their marriage. + +"No more nonsense, by God!" he said triumphantly to himself--"no more +nonsense." + +He leaned on the stone gate and looked out over the fields--The gryphons +regarded him benevolently. + +He was conscious, as he stood there, of the Duchess--what was the old +lady doing? He'd like to see her. He felt more in sympathy with her than +he had been for a long time past. "She's right after all. You've got to +stand up and run people. No use just lettin' them handle you." + +There was a storm coming up. The white lights of the higher sky were +being closed down by black blocks of cloud that spread, from one to +another, merging far on the horizon above the hills into driving lines +of rain. The white chalk hollows above Lewes stood out sharp and clear; +the dark green of the fields was now a dull grey, the hedges were dark +and a thin stream that cut the flat surface of the plain was black like +ink. + +Roddy welcomed the storm. Had he been superstitious the physical energy +that now pervaded him might have frightened him. He felt as though with +one raising of his arm he could hold up those black clouds and keep them +off. The rain and the wind had not more force than he-- + +Life was a vast pæan of strength--"The weak must go"--He was, at this +hour, Lord of Creation. + +As he went back to the house the rain met him and whipped his cheek. + +"By Gad, I'd like to find the old lady sittin' in the house, waitin' for +a chat," he thought. + +When he came down to dinner, he came as one who rules the world. That +simple clear light was in his eyes that was always there when he had +found the solution to something that perplexed him. His expression too +was one that belonged to Rachel's earlier experience of him, one that +she had not seen on his face for a long time past. His strong but +rather stupid mouth had somewhere in its corners the suspicion of a +smile. His chin stuck out rather obstinately--the light in the eyes, the +smile, the set lips, these things revealed the old Roddy. + +After dinner Lizzie went off to her room. + +For a while Roddy and Rachel sat there--She read some book, her eyes +often leaving the page and staring into the fire. + +Then she got up and said good night. She came over and bent down and +kissed him. He caught her arm and held her. + +"I say, old girl, it's time we had the same room again--much more +convenient." He heard her catch her breath and felt her tremble. She +tried to draw her arm away, but he held her. + +"Oh! but soon, Roddy--Yes--but not just now--I----" + +"Yes--now. I'll see about it to-morrow." She stepped back from him, +dragging herself away, and then put her hand to her forehead with a +desperate gesture. + +"No, no--not----" + +He got up and smiling, swaying a little, faced her-- + +"Yes--I've made up my mind--all this business has got to come to an +end--Been goin' long enough." + +"What business?" + +"Seein' nothing of you--nothing from mornin' till night. You know, old +girl, it isn't fair--if we didn't care about one another----" + +"Yes, I know--but don't let's discuss it to-night. I'm tired, +headachy--this storm----" + +He said nothing--She looked at him and at the steady stare in his eyes +and the smile at his mouth turned away. + +She moved towards the door--He said nothing, but his eyes followed her. + +"Good night," she said, turning round to him--but he still said nothing, +only stood there very square and set. + +For a long time he sat, looking into the fire--Then he went up to his +room and very slowly undressed. Afterwards he came out, carefully +closing the door behind him, then, in dressing-gown and pyjamas, went +down the passage to Rachel's door. + +The house was very still, but the storm was raging and the boughs of +some tree hit, with fierce protesting taps, a window at the passage-end. + +He knocked at her door, waited, then heard her ask who was there. + +"It's I, Roddy," he said. There was a pause, then the door was opened. +He came in and stood in the doorway. Rachel was sitting up in bed, her +face very white, her eyes fixed on him. + +"I'm sleepin' here to-night, Rachel," he said. + +Her voice was a whisper--"No, Roddy--no--not--not----" + +"Yes," he said firmly. + +"No, not to-night." + +"Yes--to-night--now." + +He walked carefully across the room, took off his dressing-gown, and +hung it over a chair. He looked about the room. + +"Too much light"--he said and, going to the door, switched off all the +lights save the one above the bed. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +LIZZIE'S JOURNEY--III + + "Exile of immortality, strongly wise, + Strain through the dark with undesirous eyes, + To what may be beyond it. Sets your star, + O heart, for ever? Yet behind the night, + Waits for the great unborn, somewhere afar, + Some white tremendous daybreak." + + RUPERT BROOKE. + + +I + +That night Lizzie had a dream and, waking in the early hours of the grey +dim morning, saw before her every detail of it. She had dreamt that she +was lost in the house. No human being was there. Every room was closed +and she knew that every room was empty. + +It was full day, but only a dull yellow light lit the passages.--She +could not find her way to the central staircase. A passage would be +familiar to her and then suddenly would be dark and vague and menacing. +She opened doors and found wide dusty empty rooms with windows thick in +cobwebs and beyond them a garden green, tangled, deserted. + +She knew that if she did not escape soon some disaster would overtake +her, some disaster in which both Roddy and Rachel would be involved. She +knew also that, in some way, Rachel's safety absolutely depended upon +her--She felt, within herself, a struggle as to whether she should save +Rachel. She did not wish to save Rachel.... But some impulse drove +her.... + +She ran down the passage, stumbling in the strange indistinct yellow +light--She knew that, could she only reach the garden, Rachel would be +saved. + +She reached a window, looked down, and saw below her, like a green pond, +the lawn overgrown now with weeds and bristling with strange twisted +plants. + +She flung open the window and tried to jump, but a cold blast of some +storm met her and drove her back. The storm screamed about her, the dust +rose in the room, the plants in the garden waved their heads ... the +wind rushed through the house and she heard doors banging and windows +creaking. + +She knew suddenly that she was too late--Rachel was dead. + +She stood there thinking, "I thought that I hated her--I know now that I +loved her all the time." + +The storm died down--died away. A voice quite close to her said, "You +made a mistake, Miss Rand. People have souls, you know--having a soul of +your own is more important than criticizing other people's.... People +have souls, you know." + +She woke and heard a clock strike seven. As she lay there a sense of +uneasiness was with her so strongly that she repeated to herself, half +sleeping, half waking, "I wish to-day were over, quite over, quite over. +I want to-day to be over." + +She was completely wakened by a sound. She lay there for a little time +wondering what it was. Then she realized that something was scratching +on the door. + +She got out of bed, opened the door and found the dog, Jacob, sitting in +the long dark passage, looking through his tangled hair into space as +though the very last thing that he had been doing had been trying to +attract her attention. Jacob was nearer to a human being than any animal +that she had ever known. He had attached himself to Miss Rand and she +had decided, after watching him, that he knew more about the situation +in the house than anyone else. To catch him, as he watched, with his +grave brown eyes, Roddy or Rachel as they spoke or moved was to have no +kind of doubt as to his wisdom, his deep philosophy, his penetration +into motives. + +He liked Miss Rand, but she knew well that his feeling for her had +nothing of the passionate urgency with which he regarded Roddy or +Rachel. All tragedy--the depths and the heights of it--she had seen in +that dog's eyes, fixed with the deepest devotion upon Roddy.--"He +knows," she had often thought during the last week, "exactly what's the +matter with all of us." + +He always slept, she knew, in a basket in Rachel's room, and she +wondered why he had been ejected. He sat now in the middle of the floor +and seemed deeply unhappy. He sat square with his legs spread out, his +hair hanging in melancholy locks over his eyes, his small beard giving a +last wistful touch to his expression. He did not look at Lizzie or show +any interest in her, he only stared before him at the pattern on the +wall. + +Lizzie did not attempt to pat him--she went back to bed, and, lying +there, saw the light gather about the room. + +Once Jacob sighed. Otherwise he made no movement until the maid came in +with Lizzie's tea--Then he crawled under the bed. + + +II + +When she came down to breakfast she felt that she could not endure +another day of this place. She wished now for no revenge upon Rachel, +she had no longer any curiosity as to the particular feelings of any one +of these people for any other ... she felt detached from them all, and +utterly, absolutely weary. + +She was weighed down with a sense of disaster and she felt that she +must, instantly, escape from it all, fling herself again into her London +work, deal with the tiresome commonplaces of her mother and sister--she +must escape. + +Roddy was sitting alone at breakfast and she saw at once that he was +uneasy. He seemed to avoid her eyes and he coloured as she came towards +him. + +"Mornin', Miss Rand," he said, "Rachel's not comin' down. Bit of +headache--rotten night." + +"I didn't have a very good night either. That storm made me sleep +badly." + +"Yes, wasn't it a corker? It's all right to-day though." + +She looked through the wide high windows and saw out over a country +painted as in a delicate water-colour--The softest green and dark brown +lay beneath a pale blue sky, very still, very gentle. Tiny white puffs +of cloud were blown, like soap bubbles across the sun, so that bright +gleams floated and passed and flashed again. + +She drew a deep breath--"Nothing terrifying in such a day as this." + +"Yes, it's beautiful--beautiful! I'm off for the day," Roddy said, +"ridin'----" + +She helped herself to some breakfast and sat down. + +Roddy said, "Well, no one would ever believe _you'd_ had a bad night, +Miss Rand."--"You're fresh as a pin." + +"Thank you," she said, laughing. "But, all the same, I _did_ sleep +badly." + +"I'm not feeling princely myself," he confessed, "that's why I'm goin' +off for a ride, nothin' like a ride to take you out of yourself. Don't +you ever feel, Miss Rand, that you want to get right away from yourself +and be someone else?" + +She looked at him. Roddy was in real trouble. His very physical strength +showed the more clearly that he was unhappy. His fingers moved +restlessly, his eyes were never still. She looked at her letters. There +was one from Lady Adela. + +"Oh! I'm sorry--I'm afraid I shall have to go back almost +immediately--The Duchess is much less well--They're worried about her." + +"The Duchess!" Roddy started up and then sat down again. "I'm sorry--I +was thinking about her only yesterday. What's the matter?" + +"Lady Adela doesn't say, but she asks about you--the Duchess, I mean. +Got it into her head, Lady Adela says, that you're not well or +something." + +"I'll write to her." Roddy spoke slowly as though to himself--"I've not +treated her very well lately and she's always been such a brick to me." +He left his breakfast, walked backwards and forwards once or +twice--"Always been such a brick to me, the old lady has," he repeated. + +Lady Adela really did want Lizzie to return. This horrid war was getting +on her nerves, the house was all in disorder and nobody seemed either +well or happy. + +"Somebody really does want me," thought Lizzie with a certain grim +satisfaction. + +But she was terribly restless that morning. She could settle down to +nothing and ended by walking up and down the garden paths, watching the +pale winter light cross the Downs in sweeping shadow, seeing the bare +branches, all black and sharp against the blue distance. + +How she loved life and how, at every turn, life was thrust from her! For +that other woman, there inside the house, two men were ready, eager to +die--for herself, in all the world, no one cared. + +There came up to her again, borne as it were on the sharp winter air, a +determination to drive down Rachel's defences. The very sense that now, +after Lady Adela's letter, she must shortly return to London, hardened +her resolution. + +Before breakfast she had felt that she did not care, now, quite suddenly +she was determined that she would confront Rachel and drag the truth +from her. How much did Rachel care? Was Rachel already involved in a +liaison with Breton? + +And, at that thought, a pain so fierce clutched her heart that for a +moment she could not see and the garden and the sky mingled like +coloured smoke before her eyes. + +Suddenly, coming to the end of the garden by the stone gate she saw that +a strange thing had happened--one of the gryphons, perched there for +many centuries, had tumbled to the ground and lay in the path, beyond +the garden, broken into two pieces. + +The storm of last night must have driven it down. But what had broken +it? + +She was sorry. She knew how deeply attached Roddy was to those gryphons; +she remembered his pride when he had pointed them out to her. + +The other gryphon looked very lonely. + +"He _will_ be distressed." The dead leaves on the path were trembling +over the broken pieces of stone and whistling, in little excited groups, +above it--"Just as though they are glad," she thought. + +She and Rachel had a very amiable conversation at luncheon. Rachel +confessed to a bad night. + +Lizzie told her about Jacob. + +"How tiresome of him to come and bother you--yes, I couldn't sleep and +he was very restless too, so I put him into the passage. It was after +six--I meant him to go down to the servants' hall. I'm so sorry, Miss +Rand." + +"Oh, he didn't worry me at all. I _was_ awake." That appeal was in +Rachel's eyes to-day more than ever. Lizzie saw it and steeled her +heart. "I must know," she thought. "I _must_ know." + +"I'm afraid," she said, "that I'll have to go back to London to-morrow. +I heard from Lady Adela this morning--The Duchess is not so well." + +"Oh!" Rachel caught her breath--"oh, Miss Rand, no, no, oh! I hope not! +You _must_ stay! I----!" her colour came and went. "There's the dance. I +don't know what I shall do without you." And she went on more +desperately, catching Lizzie's eyes and evading them. "We are just +beginning to be so happy here. My husband likes you so much. I do +hope----" + +She stopped and the colour left her again; her hands were trembling on +the white tablecloth. + +The strangest impulse flooded Lizzie's breast, an impulse to go to her +and put her arms about her and kiss her and let her, there and then, +unburden her heart-- + +Lizzie drove the impulse down, buried it. Her eyes were cold and her +voice hard as she answered-- + +"I'm so sorry, but I think I _must_ go. I can't leave Lady Adela if +things are really difficult. I'll come this afternoon, shall I? and we +might go over the dance----" + +Rachel had been thinking; she looked up sharply and stared at Lizzie, +staring as though she had been some stranger whom she saw for the first +time. + +"Yes--Come to the Chinese room at four, will you? We'll have tea up +there." + +"Yes," said Lizzie, "at four." + +They were both of them aware that something, now quite irrevocable, had +been settled by these words. + +There was a little old library up in one of the towers, and there Lizzie +went. She had a desperate need of some place where, during the next +hour, she might think and decide upon some plan. The room had little +diamond-paned windows that looked down, on one side, over the courtyard, +and on the other over the garden and the Downs. The shelves went from +ceiling to floor and were filled with books that dimly shone with their +old gold and were dusky in their rich, faded bindings. + +It was very seldom that anyone came here; Lizzie was quite alone as, +perched up in one of the deep-seated windows, she looked down at the +garden, saw the stone gate with the solitary gryphon, watched the +swiftly fading afternoon light fill the green lawn as a pot is filled +with water. + +Even now, early though it was, the little room was growing dark. + +She strove now, resolutely, to discipline her mind. Although the very +thought of Francis Breton now shamed her, it was for him that she must +care. "Poor dear," he was even now, in her heart. "Foolish, +indiscreet--must plunge from one mess into another, needs someone--Oh, +so dreadfully--to help him out." + +Her hostility to Rachel did not prevent her from feeling that here was +someone very young, terribly inexperienced, most unhappily +impulsive--the very last in the world to prevent Breton from having +another catastrophe as bad as the early ones. + +She must know absolutely what it was that he and Rachel were doing, and +only Rachel could tell her that--And here her feeling about Rachel was +compounded of the strangest mixture of anger and suspicion, of +tenderness and compassion, of sympathy and hard callous indifference. + +"Oh!" Lizzie thought, "why has all this come to me? Why wasn't I allowed +just to go on with my life as it was--My life that was so safe and sure +and dull?"-- + +She was conscious, as she sat there, that she was listening for +something. She felt, in an odd way, that the day had been a direct +continuance of the dream that she had had in the night; all the morning +she had been aware that her ears, in spite of herself, had been waiting +for some sound, a message, or an arrival. + +She sat now in the swiftly darkening room, as though she had been told +that someone was coming at such and such an hour and she had heard the +clock strike and was listening for the grating of the wheels on the +cobbles of the courtyard. + +The calm winter's day passed now into a purple twilight--lights were +coming in the windows-- + +She thought she heard a step in the passage and was startled as though +someone had been suddenly, unexpectedly within the room. + +She opened the window and listened--"Someone--several people--will come +down that garden path in a minute--I know they will." + +But the air was very cold and she closed the window; even as she did so +a clock struck four. + +She got up and went to Rachel. + + +III + +The Chinese room was so called because its walls were covered with a +stiff golden Chinese paper. It had wide windows looking on to the +garden; Rachel used it a great deal. + +Lizzie fixed upon her mind, very deliberately, all the details of her +surroundings. Rachel was dressed in black with red round her throat and +her waist, and this brilliant colour made her face seem white and there +were deep, heavy black marks under her eyes. + +She looked up when Lizzie came in, seemed, with a violent effort, to +compel control. + +They sat there for some time and discussed the dance; the dusk filled +the room, then tea was brought. There was a light in their corner; +slowly the rest of the room grew dark. + +They finished tea, it was taken away, and Lizzie, sitting quite close to +Rachel, on a little sofa that had a window just behind it, was aware +that again, in spite of herself, her ears were straining for some sound. +The house and all the world were profoundly still. + +When the servant had at last left them alone, Rachel said--"Miss Rand, +you mustn't go away to-morrow--Aunt Adela can manage for another week. +After all, she did promise that you should stay for me over the ball." + +"Why did you ask me here, Lady Rachel?" Lizzie said. Her speech was a +direct challenge and, instantly, when she had spoken she knew that they +had entered upon those personal relations that they had, during all +these weeks, feared. + +"I asked you because I wanted you for a friend--I've no friend--no woman +friend--whom I can trust. I knew that I could trust you--I hoped that +you could help me----" + +"I've been here for some time now and you have told me nothing." + +"No--because you have held me off, have shown me so plainly that you +disliked and distrusted me. You didn't always dislike me--what have I +done?" + +"That's only my way. As I told you this morning, Lady Seddon, I'm not an +emotional person. But I feel more than I show. I would like to help you, +if you will let me." + +Rachel leaned forward and caught first Lizzie's arm, then her hand. Then +she spoke, her voice quivering as though she were forcing upon herself +the most intense control. + +"Oh! you're so strange, so odd I don't know what you feel, whether you +care, but these last months have been so hard for me that even though +you hate me, despise me, it doesn't matter--nothing matters if only I +can get away from myself, you're so different--so dry, so hard, but you +are, you are!--just as hard----" she stopped--Lizzie drew her hand away. + +"Please--don't tell me things if you feel about me like that. It hasn't +been my fault, has it, that we don't get on? _I_ didn't ask to come +here, to know you--let me go--let me go back. Don't bother about +me--leave me alone," she at last brought out. + +But Rachel said more urgently--"No, don't go now. Even though you don't +care, even though you hate me, help me. I've no one else. If only you +knew the things I've suffered these past weeks, how I've hated myself +for my indecision, for my weakness and shame. I don't know why I feel as +though you were the only person to whom I could talk. I'm being driven, +I suppose, by this long silence--and then you're so absolutely to be +trusted--even though you dislike me--you're straight all through--I've +always known that." + +At Lizzie's heart again now that strange confusion of sensation, and +with it a sure conviction that fate had this scene between them in hand, +and that events now, whatever the hours might bring forth, were beyond +her control. + +"Yes, you may trust me," she said drily--"I'm useful, at any rate for +that." + +Lizzie watched her as, in the little pause that followed, Rachel +struggled for concentration and for the point of view that would make +the strongest appeal. _That_, Lizzie grimly knew, was the thing for +which the girl was struggling and it yielded her the pleasanter irony +because she was, herself, so surely aware of that one fact that all +Rachel's confessions contained-- + +For herself she had only confidently to sit and wait.... Then Rachel +plunged-- + +"I'm unhappy," she said, "in my married life, miserably unhappy, and +entirely, utterly by my own fault. I've tried, or fancied that I've +tried. I've done what I've thought was my best--Things have happened +now, at last, that have made it impossible--I can't go on any longer." + +She spoke as though she were, very urgently, endeavouring to deliver a +fair honest statement. There was in her voice a note that showed that +life had truly, of late, been very hard for her-- + +"I married, in the beginning, for a wrong reason. I knew then that I +didn't love my husband. I married because I wanted to escape. I had +always hated my grandmother and she had always hated me--you knew that, +Miss Rand; everyone who had anything to do with us knew it. She had done +more than hate me, she had made me frightened--frightened of life and +people. Someone came along who was kind and easy and comfortable, and +everyone said it would be a good thing, and so I, not because I loved +him, but because I wanted to escape from my grandmother, married him. +Because I had to silence everything that was honest in me I'm paying +now." + +"It was all quite natural," Lizzie said. "Most women would have done the +same." + +"It was horrible from the beginning; I found that I had not escaped from +my grandmother at all. She had arranged the marriage and now was +always, and in some curious way, influencing it. + +"I soon saw what I had done--that I had been false to myself and +therefore false to everything else. My husband was in love with me--He +was very patient and good to me, but I found that everything that I did +or thought or said in connection with my husband was false. What made it +so hard was that I was, and I am, very fond of him. My training--the +training of all our family had always been--to learn how to be sham, so +that one's real self never appeared all one's life. It ought to have +been easy enough--but I've never been like one of my family--I'd always +been different. + +"I had determined that this year I would do my duty to Roddy--But it's +harder than any determination can govern. It's bad for Roddy, it's +deadly for me ... at last things have happened that have made it +impossible for me--I've made up my mind this morning. I must leave +Roddy, let him divorce me, give him a better chance with someone else." + +She spoke with the desperate immediate determination of youth, staring +in front of her, her hands clenched. Like flame at Lizzie's heart leapt +this knowledge. + +"She and Breton are going--only you can stop them--she and Breton." + +"Don't you think," said Lizzie, "a little of your husband?" + +"I'm thinking of him all the time--It's for his sake--that he should +have a better chance with someone who cared----" + +"No, that isn't true," said Lizzie--"It's because you love someone +else----" + +Rachel, with her head down, whispered, "Yes--it's because ... someone +else." + +"Francis Breton." + +"Yes, Francis Breton." + +That whisper of his name had in it confidence, worship, defiance ... all +these things were torture to Lizzie sitting there, very composed, very +stern, very quiet. _She_ should have been able to say that name with +just that precious intimacy, and she saw, in Rachel's eyes, beyond her +trouble the glad pride that the pronouncing of the name had given her. + +"You know?" Rachel asked at length. + +"Yes----" + +"You've known a long time." + +"Yes--a long time." + +"Oh! If you'd only spoken to me!--All this time I've been wanting you +to--You _must_ have known." + +"Yes--I knew." Then Lizzie brought out slowly, letting her grave eyes +wander over Rachel's face-- + +"You yourself insisted on telling me. You have brought it upon yourself +if I say what I must...." + +Rachel caught the hostility. + +"Yes?" she said sharply. + +"I'm older than you--older in every way. You know so little yet, the +harm that you can do.... You must leave Francis Breton alone, Lady +Seddon." + +Rachel laughed--"Of course I knew that you--that it was the kind of way +that you must look at it. But don't you see, we've got past all that +first stage--It isn't, in the very least, any good looking at it from +any general point of view. It's simply the individual happiness of the +three of us, my husband, Francis Breton, myself--It's better for all of +us that I should go." + +"No ... not better for Francis Breton." + +Rachel moved impatiently--"He--he and I--can judge that, Miss Rand----" + +"No--You can't--you're too young. You don't know--I have a right to +speak here, I know him--I have known him all this time----" + +Lizzie broke off. Rachel, suddenly looking up, gazed at her--Lizzie, +fiercely, also proudly as though she were guarding something very +precious that they were trying to take from her, returned her gaze. + +"All this time," Rachel said slowly. "You've known him--of course ... at +Saxton Square...." + +Then, as though the revelation had suddenly broken upon her, "Why +you--you----!" + +"Yes," said Lizzie, now fiercely indeed, hurling back at the girl the +_naïveté_ of her surprise. "Yes--it's odd, isn't it? I'm not the kind of +woman, am I, ever to care for a man, or to have a man care for me?--To +have any feeling or desire or affection. But it is not so strange as it +may seem--I love him every bit as well as you do--I've cared more +patiently perhaps, more unselfishly even. But there it is ... it gives +me the right." + +Nothing more surprising than that on this special circumstance Rachel +had never reckoned. Feeling it now, blazing there before her, the way +that she was to deal with it was beyond her experience. In an instant +Lizzie Rand was, to her, a new creature. Always she had seen Lizzie +patiently, with method, with discipline, putting things in order--that +was her world and dominion. Lizzie had appeared, to Rachel, to stand for +all the things that she herself was not. Rachel had often envied that +absence of emotion, that security from impulse and passion, and it was +upon that very security that Rachel had wished to depend. It was that +that had driven her to seek Lizzie's friendship. She herself so unsure, +so caught and destroyed by powers too potent for her resistance, had +looked with wonder and desire upon Lizzie's safety-- + +Now Lizzie Rand was no longer Lizzie Rand. She was of Rachel's number, +she might, as easily as Rachel, be swept, whirled away,--after death and +destruction. + +But there was more than that. There was the realization that Lizzie must +hate her, that Lizzie was the last person in the world to whom she +should have given her confidence, that Lizzie would fight now to the +last breath in her body to keep Francis Breton from her. + +During a long silence they sat facing one another--the little room was +now nearly dark and it was only by the faint pale shadow from the sky +beyond the window that they could catch, each from each, their +consciousness of their new relationship. + +It was during that silence that Lizzie was again aware that her ears +were straining to catch some sound.... + +"I didn't know," Rachel said at last very softly; "it must seem brutal +to you now that I should have told you all this. I wouldn't of course +have spoken." + +"Ah! you needn't mind," Lizzie said grimly. "He's never seen anything of +it. You must never give him any reason to suspect--I trust you for that. +No one in this world knows but you, and you should never have known if +it had not been that I _had_ to prove my right to interfere. Perhaps +even now, you don't see that I _have_ a right, but whether I have one or +no, you've got to reckon with me now----" + +"And _you've_ got to reckon," Rachel answered, with some of Lizzie's own +fierceness, "with a power that's beyond your power or mine or anyone's. +Don't you imagine that we, all of us, haven't tried hard enough. Why! +all these last two years we've done nothing but try. Now it's simply +stronger than we are. If Roddy," she went on, speaking now more slowly, +"hadn't forced it.... If he'd not been impatient--but now--after what's +just happened, it's right--it isn't fair to him, to myself, to any of +us, that things should go on as they are----" + +"I'm thinking," Lizzie answered quietly, "simply of Francis Breton." + +"Well! isn't it fairer too for him? He's been living, as we have, all +this time, a life that's denying all his own _real_ self. Anything's +better than being false to that--life may be hard for us if we go away +together, but at any rate it will be honest----" + +"Ah! that just shows how young you are! Don't I know that pursuit of +truth and honesty as well as you? Don't I know that when life's +beginning for us, the one thing that seems to matter is exposing +ourselves, showing ourselves to the world just as we are! At first it +seems such an easy thing--Just round that corner the moment's coming +when the real person in us is going to stand up and proclaim itself just +as it is, fine and splendid? but always something just comes in the way +and stops it--the years go on and we're further off from truth than +ever. + +"You think that if you go off with Francis Breton now, you'll, both +of you, be leading, suddenly, honest brave lives before the world. +I tell you it isn't so. Things will be just as crooked, just as +shadowed--issues just as confused--it will be worse than it was." + +"But you don't know----" + +"I know Francis Breton. Don't you know too the kind of man that he is? +Don't you know that he's as weak as a man can be, weaker than any woman +ever _could_ be? He's the kind of man who must have society to bolster +him up. If the men of his world are supporting him then he's as good as +gold, as fine as you like. Let them leave him and down he goes. All his +life the world's been down on him and that's why he's been down. Lately +he's been quiet--he's been winning his place back. Soon, if he's +patient, they'll all come round him again. But let him go off with you +and he's done, finished--absolutely, utterly. 'Ah!' everyone will say, +'that's what we expected. That's what we always knew would happen.' +Don't you know what kind of effect _that_ will have upon him? Don't you +know?... Of course you do. It will break him up. His old life abroad, +creeping from place to place, will begin again, only now he'll have the +additional knowledge that he's done for you as well as for himself. It +will be the end, utterly the end of him. And I, who love him, will not +let it be." + +Lizzie's speech had roused in Rachel one of those old storms of anger. +She was exerting now her utmost self-control, but her heart seemed bound +tight with some cord so slender that one movement, one impulse, would +snap it--Then.... She saw in Lizzie now, only moved by a sense of +jealous injury--"She sits there, knowing that I've taken him from her. +That's it.... That's what she's feeling--she's lost him. She can't +forgive me for that." + +But when she spoke her voice was quiet and controlled. + +"That isn't so," Rachel said; "it won't, I think, be like that. There's +so much more between us than you can understand. There's all our early +life--not that we were together, but we seem to have it all in common, +to have known it all together. We're unlike our family--all the +Beaminsters--we're together in that--we are together in everything." + +But Lizzie's voice went on, so coldly, with such assurance that, with +every word, the flame of Rachel's anger climbed a little higher, grew +stronger and steadier. + +"There's another thing too. I watched you, more than you know. No, no +man--no man in the world--will ever keep you altogether--there's +something--I can't tell you what it is--there's something in you that +demands more than just a personal relationship like that--Perhaps it's +maternity--it is, with many women,--perhaps it's a great cause, a +movement of a country-- + +"But I know, with certainty, that you will never love Breton as you +should love a man. Realization will never be the thing to you that +anticipation and retrospection are. I believe if you were to lose your +husband now, you'd find that you loved him--All thoughts of Francis +Breton, would go----" + +At that, because at the very heart of her determination burnt +the knowledge that Lizzie's words were true, Rachel's control +was abandoned, her anger leapt: "You think you know--you +think ... why ... why ... you don't know me at all!--you can't know +me--we're strangers, Miss Rand--now--always.... + +"Nothing, _nothing_ can ever make us friends again--I'll never forgive +you for what you've said--the poor creature that you take me for--no +doubt you'd have done better had the chance been yours, but you go too +far----" + +"That was unfair of you," Lizzie said very low--"You may say to me what +you please--That's of no importance to anybody. But Francis Breton's +happiness, his success, that is more to me than anything or anyone.--You +_shall_ not break his life into pieces for your own pleasure. There are +more important things than your personal happiness, Lady Seddon----" + +They were both standing, but they could not see one another, save, very +faintly, their hands and faces-- + +"It's too late, Miss Rand," Rachel laughed. "I shall write to him +to-morrow. I myself shall tell my husband--there is nothing that you can +do----" + +They stood there, conscious that a word, a movement on either side might +produce an absurd, a tragic scene. Lizzie had never known such anger as +the passion that now held her. Rachel was taunting her with the thing +that she had missed; she stood there, before the world, as the woman for +whom no man cared--she stood there with the one human being who mattered +to her on the edge of complete disaster--nothing that she could do could +prevent it--and the woman at her side was the cause. + +A sudden sweeping consciousness of the things that it would mean if +Rachel were dead flowed over her. Her heart stopped--that way--at +least--Francis Breton might be saved.... + +The room, dark as pitch before her, was filled now with a red glow--Her +hands, clenched, were ice in a world that was all of an overpowering +heat. + +Lizzie never afterwards could remember what then exactly happened. + +She was worked to a pitch of anger, she was thinking to herself, "What +would be a way? ... anything to save him...." + +"She shouldn't have taunted me with that"--when, suddenly, exactly as +though someone had taken her brain and emptied it, she had forgotten +Rachel, had forgotten her own personal injury, forgotten her anger, was +only aware that, with every nerve in her body on edge, she was waiting +for some sound-- + +Like an answer to an invocation, the sound, through the closed window, +came-- + + +IV + +She must have made some startled noise, because she heard Rachel say, +"What is it?" + +She fled to the window and opened it. She could see nothing, but she +could hear, as she had known all day that she would hear, steps, +stumbling, falling heavily, upon the heavy gravel path. + +She felt Rachel's hand upon her sleeve: "What is it?" Rachel said +again--"Lizzie, what is it?" + +Both women were seized and held by fear. Their feelings for one another +were lost, sunk in the cold, shattering sense of disaster that had come, +through the open window, into the room. + +They could see lights now and figures--There were murmuring voices-- + +"Oh, Lizzie, what is it?" Rachel said for the third time, and then after +a moment--"Roddy!" + +Lizzie said--"Wait there. It may be nothing. I'll see--Don't you come +for a moment." + +She crossed the dark room, and opening the door saw Peters hurrying down +the passage towards her. His face was in complete disorder--the face of +someone who, throughout his life, has had only one kind of face that +has served most admirably for every kind of occasion--suddenly a +situation has arisen for which that face will _not_ serve-- + +His body was shaking-- + +"Oh! Miss Rand, the master!" + +Lizzie felt Rachel follow her, brush past both of them, down the passage +and out of sight-- + +"An accident--flung from his horse and dragged along--been hours on the +hill--a shepherd found him." + +"Is he dead?" + +"No, miss, not dead--not yet, thank God!" + +"The doctor?" + +"Dr. Crane from Lewes--we caught him, miss, most fortunately, on the way +from another patient--he's downstairs now." + +"Quick, Peters, things will be wanted." + +Lizzie passed to the head of the stairs, Peters behind her said, +"They've taken Sir Roderick into the green drawing-room, miss, so as not +to have to go upstairs." + +She came down the stairs and then stood, waiting in the hall. That was, +for the moment, deserted, but the house wore an air of dismay, surprised +alarm, so that every sound was of momentous import. Somewhere, a long +way away, someone--perhaps a frightened kitchen-maid--was sobbing--the +hall door was still open and little gusts of cold wind came in and +stirred and rustled the pages of some illustrated papers on one of the +tables. + +Lizzie went to the door and closed it--what should she do? To go into +the room and ask whether she could be of use? Her quarrel with Rachel +had made any movement now on her part difficult--Rachel might resent her +presence-- + +Someone came into the hall: she saw that it was the doctor. He stood, +looking about him, as though he were searching for someone, and Lizzie +went up to him-- + +"Doctor, please tell me--I'm staying in the house--is there +anything--anything at all--that I can do?" + +The doctor was tall, thin, black, like an elongated crow. + +"Ah yes--no, I think there is nothing for the moment--there are two of +us here--we instantly wired to London and the London men should be here +if they catch the seven o'clock in an hour and a half. Lady Seddon is +with her husband." + +"There's hope?" + +"Oh yes--I think Sir Roderick will live--It's the spine that's damaged." + +He seemed to realize Miss Rand's efficiency. This was no ordinary +country-house visitor. He went to the hall door and opened it. "I'm +waiting for the things from Lewes. I just came on with what I'd got. +Yes, the spine ... afraid will never be able to get about again--such a +strong fellow too." + +"There's nothing I can do?" + +"Nothing anyone can do for the moment. Lady Seddon's taking it +wonderfully, but she'll want you later. I advise you to get some quiet +in the next hour--it's afterwards that they'll need your help----" + +Lizzie went up to her room and lay down on her bed. She did not light +the candles, but lay there in the darkness striving to compel some order +out of the turmoil that rioted in her brain--her first thought was of +Roddy. Roddy had always been to her the supreme type of animal spirits +and vigour--_that_ had been, above everything else, what he stood for. +That _he_ should have been struck down like this! + +The cruelty, the irony of it! Much better that he should die than be +compelled to lie on his back for the rest of his life--anything better +for him than that-- + +If he died Rachel would be free. Lizzie faced that thought quite calmly! +her quarrel with Rachel seemed to be now very, very long ago, something +distant and remote, something whose very conditions had been torn +asunder and flung aside-- + +As she lay there tenderness for Rachel came sweeping about her--"She +must want someone now--she's so young and so ignorant--never had any +crisis like this to deal with--hard for this to happen to him just after +she'd thought those things ... that must be terrible for her.... Oh! +she'll need someone now." + +Something reminded Lizzie of other things, of Francis Breton, of +Rachel's words, of Lizzie's anger, then-- + +"Ah, but that's all so long ago. It doesn't seem to count. There are +things more important than all of that. What will she do now? Perhaps +she still hates me--won't let me come near her--it's my own fault after +all; I kept away for so long, wouldn't let _her_ come near _me_. Oh! but +she must have someone to help her!" + +After a while Lizzie thought--"She won't be practical--she won't know +the things that ought to be done--I'll wait a little and then I'll go." + +Then she slept. She awoke with a clear active brain; she felt as though +she could be awake now for weeks--a tremendous energy filled her.... + +She left her room and at the turn of the passage met a thick-set +clean-shaven man whom she knew for Cramp--one of the most famous of the +London doctors, a man whom she had sometimes seen with Christopher at +the Portland Place house. + +She stopped him--"I'm Miss Rand, Doctor--Lady Adela's secretary--we've +met in London--I want you to tell me how I can help." + +He shook hands with her, eyeing her with approval-- + +"Why, yes, of course--How do you do, Miss Rand? Yes, you're just the +sort we want. For the moment Lady Seddon's my chief anxiety--she's borne +up splendidly so far, but now I am a little afraid. I've got her to go +and lie down--would you go to her, Miss Rand? Just be with her a little +and let me know if anything happens----" + +"Sir Roderick?" + +"Pretty bad, I'm afraid--He'll live, I think--afraid will never run +about, though, again." + +Lizzie made her way to Rachel's bedroom. She paused outside the door. +This was the very hardest thing that she had ever, in all her life, had +to do. If Rachel were to repulse her now it would surely be the final +absolute proof that she was of no use, no use to anyone in this whole +wide world. + +She knocked on the door and went in. "Who's that?" + +"It's I--Lizzie." + +The room was dark, but she saw that Rachel was lying on the bed--she +went up to her--Rachel did not move. + +"I came," Lizzie said, "to see whether I could help--if I could do +anything----" + +Rachel said nothing-- + +"If you'd rather--if you don't want to see me, of course just say...." + +Rachel turned over and Lizzie heard her say--"I did it--I wanted him--it +was my fault--it was my fault." + +Lizzie knelt down beside the bed. "Rachel dear, you mustn't think that. +It was nothing to do with anyone. But you can help him now, +Rachel--He'll want you, he'll need you now as he's never wanted anyone." + +Rachel gave a bitter cry--Her hand touched Lizzie's, then she flung up +her arm, caught Lizzie's neck, drew her towards her, put both her arms +around her and held her, held her as though she would never let her go. + + + + +BOOK III + +RODDY + + + + +CHAPTER I + +REGENT'S PARK--BRETON AND LIZZIE + + "Yes," said Mrs. Bright, "he missed it all the time." + + "Missed what?" asked Miss Rankin. + + "'Is good luck," sighed Mrs. Bright.--HENRY GALLEON. + + +I + +Francis Breton had known, during the weeks that preceded his letter to +Rachel, torture that became to him at last so personal that he felt +deliberate malignant agency behind its ingenious devices. + +At first it had seemed that that wonderful hour with Rachel would +satisfy his needs for a long time to come; he had only, when life was +hard, dull, colourless, monotonous, to recall it--to see again her +movements, to hear her voice, to remember to the last and tiniest detail +the things that she had said, to feel that clutch of her hand upon his +coat, and instantly he was inflamed, exultant. + +So, for a time, it was. Into every moment of his daily life he worked +this scene--Rachel was always with him, never, for a single instant, did +he doubt that, in some fashion or another, she was coming to him. He had +purchased an interest in some little business that had to do, for the +most part, with candles, and down to the City now every morning he went. +The candles prospered in a small but steady fashion and he found them of +a more thrilling and romantic interest than he would once have believed +possible. He had always known that he had a business head and now that +his life was equable and regular he was astonished at the useful man +that he was becoming. + +He liked the men with whom he worked, he found that some of his friends +of the old days sought him out ... he was assured that he had only to +wait for the death of his grandmother for his restoration to the +Beaminster bosom. + +He was, during these first weeks, tranquil, almost happy, feeling that +Mrs. Pont and the rest were, with every hour, passing more surely from +his world, nourishing always, like hoarded treasure, his consciousness +of Rachel.... + +Then a faint, a very faint restlessness crept upon him. The repetition +of those precious moments was growing dry; from the very frequency of +their recounting came impatience. His assurance that she would, +ultimately, come to him grew chill. + +He needed now something more tangible, and gradually there grew with him +the conviction that she would write. She had said, very clearly and +distinctly, that she would not--but, if she cared as he knew that she +did, then this silence must be as impossible for her as for himself. + +His state of mind now was that he expected a letter. When he came back +from the City at half-past six or seven he expected to find lying there +on the green tablecloth, the letter--In the morning his man appeared +with a jug of hot water in one hand and the letters in the other--There, +one of those tantalizing, mysterious envelopes, must be the letter. + +At first disappointment was reassured with "Oh! it will be there +to-morrow." But as the days passed and the silence grew the torture +developed. Now after that first search in the morning, after that swift +sharp glance to the green tablecloth came physical pain--sickened heavy +drooping of the spirits when the world looked one vast deserted plain of +monotonous dullness, when the hours and hours and days and days that yet +remained to life seemed intolerable in their dreary multitude. + +He would go to bed early in order that the morning letters might come +the sooner; he fled home from the City, his heart beating like a drum, +as he mounted his stairs. + +Only one line, one line, would have been sufficient. It needed only the +reassurance that she thought of him, that she still cared ... _such_ a +short letter would have given him all the comfort he needed. + +The need for some sign came as much from his impatience with the whole +situation as from his love for Rachel, but this, because he always saw +himself as a fine coloured centre of some passionate crisis, he +naturally did not perceive. His whole idea of Rachel was, as the days +passed, increasingly a picture that was far enough from reality--On the +one side Rachel--on the other side his restoration to his family ... now +as he waited it seemed to him that he was in danger of losing both the +one thing and the other. + +There was nothing that so speedily drove Breton to frenzy as enforced +inaction. + +After all, they had been together so little-- + +Breton was cursed with his imagination. All his instability of character +came from his imagination. He looked ahead and saw such wonderful +events, he knew why people did this or that; he could see so clearly +what would happen did he act in such and such a way.... He traced future +action through many hazardous windings into a safe, fair Haven, and for +the sake of the Haven embarked on the preliminary dangers--discovered, +of course, too late, that the Haven was a dream. He saw Rachel now, +sitting alone, thinking of him, loving him, forcing herself to be fair +to her blockhead of a husband, feeling at last that she could endure it +no longer, and so writing! or he saw her falling in love with that same +blockhead, forgetting everyone and everything else. + +In all of this his grandmother played her part. He was aware that behind +all the attraction that he had had for Rachel was the consciousness that +he was a rebel against the Duchess--they were rebels together--that, he +knew, was the way that she thought of it. + +He was aware, however, that he was a rebel only because he was forced to +be one. Let his grandmother hold out her old arms to him and into them +he would run! He would be restored to the family--horribly he wanted it! +The spirit with which he had returned to England was one of hot +vengeance that would, indeed, have suited the finest of Rachel's moods, +but that spirit had, he knew, subtly changed--Here then, with regard to +Rachel, he felt a traitor--Would she come to him, why then he would do +anything for her even to pulling the Duchess's nose--but if she would +not come to him, why then he would rather that the Beaminsters should +take him to themselves and make him one of them. + +But he felt--although he had no tangible arguments to support his +feeling--that the old lady was "round the corner"--"she knows, you bet, +all about things--what I'd give for just one talk with her.... I believe +we'd be friends----" + +His weakness of character came, as he himself knew, from his inability +to allow life to stay at a good safe dull level. "To-day's +dull--Something _must_ happen before evening; I must _make_ it happen," +and then he would go and do something foolish-- + +London excited him--the lighted shops, the smell of food and flowers and +women and leather and tobacco, the sky--signs flashing from space to +space, the carts and omnibuses, the shouts and cries and sudden +silences, the confused life of the place so that you could never say, +"_This_ is London," but could only, in retrospect say, "Ah, _that_ must +have been London," and still know that you had failed to grasp its +secret. + +The dirt and shabbiness and lack of plan and good humour and crime and +indecency and priggishness--its life! + +Many things out of all this glory called him--racing, women, drink, the +gutter one minute, the stars the next--from them all he held himself +aloof because of Rachel ... and Rachel meanwhile perhaps did not care. + +As Christmas approached he became utterly obsessed by this one +thought--that he must have a letter. His obsession had been able, during +these weeks, to clutch the tighter in that he had seen nothing of +Lizzie Rand. Throughout the autumn he had encountered her very seldom-- + +Ever since that night in the summer when he had taken her to the theatre +she had avoided him, and he decided that she had been shocked at his +confession about Rachel--"You never know about women--I shouldn't have +thought that would have shocked her--But there it is; you never can +tell." Lizzie had been very good for him; he missed her now. He would +tackle her, he said, one day. + +Then not only with every day, but with every hour the torture grew. He +avoided Christopher, because Christopher might see things. His work +faded like mist from before him--He could not sleep, but lay on his back +thinking of what she would say if she _did_ write, whether she were +thinking of him--how she found his own silence and what she felt about +it. + +Then he heard the astonishing news that Lizzie Rand had gone down to +Seddon to stay.... At first he thought that he would write to her and +beg her to find out for him all that she could as to Rachel's mind. + +But Lizzie's avoidance of him checked him there--if she had been shocked +at his just telling her, why then she would not be likely to help him +now--No, that would not be fair to Rachel.... + +It occurred to him then that Rachel had asked Lizzie in order that she +might speak of him, have with her someone who could tell her about his +daily life, and so, without breaking her word, yet be in some kind of +communication with him-- + +Soon this became with him a certainty. It assured him that her patience +was exhausted and that she would forgive, and more than forgive, a +letter from him. + +He wrote--then in an agony would have snatched it back again, and yet +was glad that the post had taken it from him. He had broken his word, +and shown himself for the miserable poor creature that he was. She would +never trust him again, but surely now she would write were it only to +dismiss him for ever. + +He waited and the agony once again grew phantasmal in its terrors; then +swiftly came word first that Roddy Seddon had been flung from his horse +and was hovering between life and death, then that he would not die, +but--"Paralysis of the spine--always have to lie on his back, I'm +afraid" (this from Christopher)--then, finally this note: + + "SEDDON COURT, + + NEAR LEWES, + + SUSSEX. + + DEAR MR. BRETON, + + I have to come up to London next Tuesday for the day--I shall + return here that same evening. I have a message for you. Could + we have tea together that afternoon--or what do you say to a + walk in Regent's Park? Perhaps we could talk there more + easily--I'll meet you at the entrance to the Botanical Gardens + about 3.30 unless I hear from you. + + Yours sincerely, + + E. RAND." + + +II + +The effect upon him of Roddy's accident was indescribable. He was sorry, +terribly sorry--dreadful for a man whose whole interests are in physical +things to be laid on his back, like this, for ever. Surely it would be +better for him to die, and then, at that, sober thought would forsake +him--He did not wish Seddon to die, but around the possibility of it, +always turning, wheeling, his mind fluttered. + +He did not know what Lizzie would have to say to him, but, at his heart, +he expected triumph--with so little encouragement, he would wait so +faithfully-- + +It was a cold windy afternoon of early spring and up to the gates of the +Botanical Gardens little eddies came sweeping: twigs and dust and pieces +of paper tossing, under a grey sky, beneath branches that creaked and +strained; Breton stood there impatiently; he was ten minutes before his +time; this biting windy world took from him his confidence ... a dirty +little brown dog walked round and round, wagging, now and again, a +pessimistic tail. + +There at last she was, coming, as orderly and neat as ever, up the road; +her grey dress, her little shining shoes, her hair that no breeze could +disturb, her expression as though she were ready for anything and would +be surprised at nothing--these all, to-day, irritated him. Good heavens! +was she so surely tied to her typewriter that she could understand +nothing of the emotions that an ordinary human being might be feeling? +Had she no imagination? Because she had never herself known sentiment +about anyone alive was it beyond her to consider what others might +encounter? + +Breton would have preferred any other ambassador in this affair than the +neat, efficient Miss Rand, forgetting that there had been a time when he +had chosen her as his one and only confidante. + +"How do you do, Mr. Breton?" she said, giving him her little gloved +hand. + +"It's just struck--I was a little early," he answered, feeling confused +and hating himself for his confusion-- + +"Let's go round to the left here and turn over the bridge and then out +past the Zoo and back--That makes quite a good round." + +"Yes"--he said. + +"I chose the Park because I thought that we could talk better--We might +have been interrupted at home." + +He caught then a little tremor in her voice and was grateful for it. She +_did_ feel a little that this was important for him; she sympathized +perhaps more than he should have expected. + +"Let's come straight to the point, Miss Rand," he said, "you have a +message for me." + +She nodded, felt in the pocket of her dress and produced an envelope, +which she gave him. + +"She thought it better that I should give it you like this because then +I could say something as well--something she had asked me to say----" + +His hand trembled as he saw the writing on the envelope--"Francis +Breton, Esq., 24 Saxton Square"--During what months and months he had +longed for that handwriting and how often had he imagined that letter +lying, just as it lay now, in his hand-- + +He read it, Lizzie walking gravely at his side-- + + "This letter is not easy to write and you must realize that and + forgive me if I have not put things properly. These last weeks + have all made such a demand on me that I'm tired out.... + + "I said once, Francis dear, that I would not write to you until + I meant to come to you. Now I have broken my word--This is to + tell you that everything, anything, that we have felt for one + another must be ended, now and for ever. + + "Don't think that I am angry with you for writing to me. Perhaps + I should have been, but I understood--Only now all my life must + be always, entirely, devoted to my husband. That is now all + that I live for. I feel as though in some way I had been + responsible for the disaster; at any rate his bravery and pluck + are wonderful and it is a small thing that I can do to make his + life as easy as I can, but it will take the whole of me. + + "Perhaps after a time we shall meet--one day be friends--I can't + look ahead or look back; I only know that I am now absolutely, + entirely, my husband's-- + + "Don't hate me for this--it was taken out of our hands. I've + asked Lizzie Rand to give you this. She knows everything and it + would make me happy to think that you two had become great + friends." + +They had crossed the little bridge, left behind them the strange birds +that chattered beneath it, and had passed into the wide green spaces, +often given up to cricket or football, now empty of any human being--the +Zoological Gardens, a deserted bandstand, a fringe of trees on which the +first tiny leaves were showing; above them the grey sky had broken into +blue and white, the cloud shaped with ribs and fleecy softness like a +huge wing stretching above them from horizon to horizon. + +Over the two of them, so tiny on that broad expanse, this wing brooded +tenderly, gravely-- + +Breton had crushed the letter in his hand and stood looking in front of +him, but seeing nothing. His one thought was that he had been brutally +treated,--she had simply, without a thought, without a care, flung him +aside. + +He had, of course, known that this accident to her husband must, for a +time, hold her, but now, in this fashion, she had passed on without +hesitation--leaving him anywhere, anyhow; was it so long ago that she +had said to him that, whether she came to him or no she would always +love him? Had she already forgotten that kiss, that moment when she had +clung to him, held to him? + +He stood there, filled with self-pity. This restraint, this +self-discipline all done for her and now all useless. It was not wanted; +_he_ was not wanted.... + +Had she only preserved some relationship, told him to wait, assured him +that he meant something to her, anything but this-- + +But there was greater pain at Breton's heart than thought of Rachel +brought him. To every man comes in due time the instant of revelation; +it had flashed before Breton now. + +He saw that his relationship with Rachel was at an end, utterly--However +he might delude himself that, in his soul, he knew. There had been a +moment when they had met and the moment had passed. But he saw more than +this. He saw that he was a man to whom life had always been a succession +of moments--moments flashing, stinging, flying, gone--he, always, +helpless to grasp and hold. + +Had he, on that day, been strong, held Rachel, conquered her, made her +his.... He was weak through the fine things in him as surely as through +the base--His ideals forced his purpose to tremble as often as his +regrets.... + +Standing there, he faced himself and saw that, whether for good or evil, +Life for him had always been evasive, fluid, a thing grasped at but +never caught. + +Rachel was not for such as he-- + +Lizzie had watched him and her face had grown very tender--"I know I'm a +nuisance just now," she said--"it hasn't, naturally, been a very +pleasant thing for me to have to do--but I thought that I could tell you +a little about her--I've seen her through all of this." + +He strode along fiercely, his eyes staring in front of him; he looked, +she thought, like a boy who had been forbidden some longed-for pleasure; +she found it difficult to keep pace with him. + +"She's so very, very young," Lizzie went on, "I expect you forget +that--she's filled, above everything else, with a determination to +express her own individuality, a protest, you know, against its having +been squashed by her family. + +"Anything that helps her to express it she seizes on. You helped +her--she seized on you. Now all her heart is stirred by this disaster to +her husband, the most active person she's ever known absolutely +helpless, so now that has seized her. She can't have two things in her +mind at once--that's where her troubles come from--she cares for you. +You'll always be something to her that no one else can ever be, and oh! +it's so much better, so much, much better, than if you'd gone off, made +a mess of it all, spoilt all your beautiful ideas of one another." + +The thrill in her voice made him, even though he was intensely concerned +with his own wrongs and losses, consider her. What Lizzie Rand was this? +It flung him back, almost against his will, as though he hated to throw +over all the ideas he had formed of her, to that first meeting when they +had stood at the window and looked out on the grey square and he had +called it the Pool. Then he had suspected her of emotion and sentiment; +it was afterwards, when he had made her his wise Counsellor and +common-sense Adviser, that he had thought of her as unemotional. + +He felt now that he had been treating her rather badly. He stopped +abruptly and looked down at her; there was something in her earnest gaze +at him, something rather nervous and hesitating that did not belong at +all to the efficient Miss Rand. + +"It _is_ good of you, Miss Rand, to have come and given me this note. +I'm finding it all rather difficult at the moment, as I'm sure you'll +understand. I'd better go off somewhere by myself a bit, I think, but it +was good of you." He broke off and stared desolately about him. He was +not very far from tears, she thought. + +She too remembered their first meeting. She had found him melodramatic +then, a little insincere--Now she knew that she had been wrong. He was +sincere as a child is sincere; the world was utterly black, was +transcendently bright as it was for a child. + +She understood him so well--so much better than Rachel. She knew that +neither he nor Rachel would ever have had the wisdom to endure that +romantic impatience that was in both of them--"They would have been +fighting in a week--But I--should know how to deal with him----" + +The green park and the brooding sky seemed to join in her +tenderness--She had never loved him so surely, so unselfishly as she +loved him now. + +"Tell me," he said gruffly. "I wrote to her ... did she tell you +anything about that?" + +"Yes," Lizzie answered--"I don't know what might have happened if he +hadn't had the accident.... But as it is, I know she's glad you +wrote--She likes to look back on it, but it's on something that +died--gone altogether. And it's much, much better so." + +"To you," he said, "it may be so." + +"Only because through these weeks I've got to know her so well. She's +strange--unlike any other woman I've known. Her great charm is that +she's so unattainable. Men will always love her for that and sometimes +she may think she loves them in return, but no man will ever call the +_real_ woman out of her. If she were to have a child, perhaps that +would ... but we--all of us--you, I, Dr. Christopher, her husband--all of +us who love her will always love her without quite knowing why and +without, in the end, her belonging to any one of us. + +"I've grown to love her during these last weeks and I've thought it was +because I was sorry for her and admired her pluck--but it isn't that +really--It's simply because--well, because--there's something wonderful +in her that isn't for any of us." + +"Well, you've been very kind, Miss Rand, I shan't forget it. You've said +just the thing to put it all straight and clear. I wouldn't do anything +now to disturb her or hurt her husband, poor devil ... it must be hell +for him ... and it don't anyway matter much what happens to me--it never +has done. + +"You've been a brick. If you really care to bother about a rotten waster +like myself I'll be proud.... Good-bye and thank you----" + +He took her hand and shook it and then was gone, striding off, +furiously, towards the trees. + +She walked slowly back to Saxton Square. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE DUCHESS MOVES + + "Fear of the loss of power has more to do with disasters in the + history of nations than any other motive." + + JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE. + + +I + +Trouble invaded the strongholds of 104 Portland Place that winter: The +Duchess was not so well ... no evasions, whether above or below stairs, +could conceal the harsh truth. The Duchess was not so well.... + +To the bewildered mind of Lady Adela the horrid succession of disasters +that the winter had provided no other years could equal. It had all +begun, she often fancied, from the day of Rachel's coming out, from the +ball, or even, although for this she could not find a real excuse, from +that visit to the Bond Street Picture Gallery. It was on that afternoon, +Lady Adela well remembered, that there had first come to her those +strange, treacherous thoughts about her mother that had, afterwards, as +they had grown stronger and more formidable, changed life for her. Yes, +it had seemed that, with Rachel's appearance before the world, disaster +to the Beamister house had appeared also. Her mother's illness, the War, +perpetual rumours of Rachel's unsatisfactory marriage, the uncomfortable +presence of Frank Breton, the horrible disaster to poor Roddy--how they +trooped before Lady Adela's eyes! Finally, more terrible than all of +them, was the complete destruction of the old fiction, the old terror, +the old submission. Lady Adela did not now dare to look into her mind +because of the horrible things that she found there. + +Roddy's accident had had the most terrible effect upon the Duchess. Only +Christopher could really tell how Her Grace had taken it, but throughout +the house, it was understood that the effect of it had been serious. +"Wouldn't give her long now," said Mr. Norris. "What with this War and +what not she was goin' as it was, and now Sir Roderick, as was always, +as you might say, her pet, having this awful disaster--no, _I_ don't +give her long." + +Adela of course saw nothing of her mother's feelings; she never had been +allowed to see anything of them and she was not allowed now. + +The old lady was outwardly as she had ever been, although she spoke less +and, if you watched her, you could see sometimes that her hands were +shaking. She used paint for her cheeks and she rouged her lips. Her love +of fantastic things had grown very much, and, on the little table behind +her chair, there was a row of strange china animals and some Indian +dolls with wooden limbs that jangled when you touched them. + +But Adela was no longer afraid of her mother. Stimulate it as she would, +force upon herself her sensations of the days when she had been afraid, +as she did, still the terror would not now confront her. There had been +a dreadful scene when the Duchess had been told that her daughter was +acting on the same committee as Mrs. Bronson, the dazzling +American ... a terrible scene ... but Adela had come through it without +a tremor--it had not affected her at all. "It isn't that I've changed +much either. I'm just as nervous of other things--I'm just the same +coward...." + +Perhaps it was, a little, that the war had altered one's values--So many +Beaminster necessities were not quite so necessary-- + +Certainly John felt the same, and the one consolation to Adela, through +all this horrible time, was that she had grown nearer to John than she +had ever been to anyone--John and she had been attacked by the Real +World, both of them at the same moment, and they did find comfort, at +this terrifying crisis, in being together. + +But all Adela's energy was directed towards concealing from her mother +that there was any change at all--"She must think that things are just +the same, exactly the same. She mustn't ever know that ... well, +that ..." + +She could not put it into words. Her Grace's illness was never alluded +to by any member of the household. + +There came word, at the beginning of March, that Roddy had been moved up +to London, that Rachel had taken a little house in York Terrace +overlooking Regent's Park, that Roddy was wonderfully cheerful, suffered +pain at times, but was, on the whole marvellous-- + +Two or three days after this news when Christopher arrived at 104 on his +usual morning visit Lord John met him in the hall. + +"I say, come in here a minute," he said, leading the way into his own +little smoking-room--Lord John was fatter, scarcely now as rubicund, as +shining as he had been--as neat and clean as ever, but there were lines +on his forehead, and in his eye, that glance of surprise that had always +been there had advanced into one of alarm-- + +"What the devil is life going to do, what horrible trick is it up to +next?" he seemed to say-- + +"Look here, Christopher," he brought out, when the door was closed. +"There's the devil and all to pay. My mother declares this morning that +she's going to pay a visit to Roddy!" + +"Well?" Christopher seemed amused. + +"But ... Good heavens!" John was aghast--"She hasn't stirred out of her +room for thirty years! She ... she ... it'll kill her!" + +"Oh! no, it won't--" Christopher answered, "not if she really means to +do it. Of course she can't walk much--she won't have to--We can get her +downstairs, and Roddy's room in York Terrace is on the ground +floor--We'll have to see she doesn't catch cold--She'll have to choose a +warm day." + +"She says she's going this afternoon!" said Lord John, still overwhelmed +by this amazing development. + +"Well, to-day won't do any harm----" + +"Are you sure?" + +"Quite sure. The danger with your mother has always been to stop her +inclinations. Indulge 'em all the time if you can, let her say what she +wishes, do what she wishes. If you were to carry her out of doors +against her will, why it would do a great deal of harm indeed--but if +she wants to go she'll see that she's up to it. It may be the best thing +for her. She could have gone out heaps of times in the last thirty years +if she'd wished to!" + +Lord John rubbed his forehead-- + +"It's a great relief to hear you say that, Christopher. I didn't know +how we were going to get out of it. She was so determined this +morning----" + +He broke off--"You're _sure_ it won't do any harm?" he said again. + +"I'm sure," said Christopher. + +"There's something," Lord John went on again, "dreadfully on my mother's +mind--She seems to feel that, in some way or other, she was responsible +for his accident. I can't get at the bottom of it all and of course she +won't tell me--she never tells me things. Perhaps you can get at it. I +saw Rachel yesterday." + +"Yes?" + +"She's very fair about it all. Must be having a very hard time. She was +glad to see me, I think, but--" he added a little wistfully--"I've never +been anything to her since her marriage. + +"She just seemed not to want me after that, and I'd been a good deal to +her before. When one's getting old, Christopher, we old bachelors, we +begin to notice that nobody wants us very much." + +Christopher looked at him--Yes, John Beaminster had changed in the last +year. Had he himself, he wondered, also changed? + +"Yes," he said, smiling. "But I've been an old bachelor, Beaminster, +for years and years and I see no likelihood of your ever being one. You +get younger with every year, I believe." + +"This accident to Roddy," John said slowly, as though he were thinking +it all out, "has upset us all. It seems so terrible, happening to +him ... much worse for him ... and then Rachel--But look here, I know +you've got to go up to my mother, I won't keep you a minute--But there's +a thing I've got to talk to you about--It's been on my conscience now for +ages.... I've not known what to do ... at last I've made up my mind." + +John Beaminster had made up his mind to do something that he hated! To +Christopher perhaps more than to anyone else in the world this was a +revelation of the most vital, the most moving interest--He had known +John for so long, seen him struggling behind screens and curtains, +hugging to himself the happy knowledge that to the very end he would be +able to keep life from getting at him, and now behold! Life _had_ got at +him, wag clutching him by the throat. + +"It's about Frank"--at last he desperately brought out "I've made up my +mind. I must go and see him--now, perhaps whilst mother is--is still +suffering from the effects of Roddy's accident it wouldn't be wise +perhaps to have him here actually in the house--But something must be +done.... Adela agrees." + +Adela agrees! Well, if the old woman upstairs.... Christopher was moved, +as he had lately been often moved, by a swift stirring of pathos. + +"You see, this War has upset us all so, has made one feel +differently--And then he really does seem to have changed, been as quiet +as anything all this time, and I hear that he's working at something +sensible down in the City. I must go and see him----" + +Then they hadn't heard, Christopher knew, of any rumours about Rachel +and Francis. + +Perhaps there _were_ no rumours, perhaps only in the mind of the old +lady.... But then let John say a word to her about this visit to Breton +and out she would come with it all. + +"Yes, Beaminster," Christopher said. "Of course I'm delighted. It's just +what I hoped would happen, but perhaps, as your mother has been rather +upset lately it would be just as well to say nothing to her...." + +"Quite so...." John looked away, out of the window--Poor John! + +Christopher held out his hand, and John took it and for a moment they +stood there, then Christopher went upstairs. + + +II + +Dorchester no longer asserted that her mistress was "better than she had +ever been"--Since that terrible morning when Dr. Christopher had broken +the news of Sir Roderick's accident Dorchester had made no pretence +about anything. This was the time that must, she had always known, one +day arrive, but what she had not known was that it would be quite like +this. + +She was a woman of some imagination; moreover, were there one person in +the world who touched her heart, then was it her mistress; she had +penetrated, she thought, some of the strange secrets and fantasies of +that old woman's soul, and it seemed that now, in these later days, she +was at last in touch with every motive and grim artifice that her +mistress adopted-- + +But no--since that terrible day at the beginning of the year Dorchester +had lost touch, was left, bewildered, at a loss, as though she were +suddenly in the service of some stranger. + +She had known that nothing more terrible could happen to her mistress +than this--When she heard it she said to herself, "This will kill +her--bound to--" She had known too that her mistress would not flinch, +outwardly, and that to the ordinary observer there would be no sign, but +the thing for which she had not been prepared was this silence, a +silence so profound and yet so eloquent that one could obtain from it no +clue, could discern no visible wound, but daily, almost hourly, as she +sat there, change was at work ... she was dying before their eyes-- + +What Dorchester did not know was that the Duchess had been aware, for a +long time, that this was to occur, if not exactly this, why, then, +something like it. + +All through that autumn she had sat there waiting--the War, the +rebellion of her children--it only needed that disaster should overtake +Roddy and the circle was complete. + +She did not doubt that it was because he had married Rachel that this +had happened to him, and she might have prevented his marriage to Rachel +had she wished. + +The girl had now for her sitting there in her room the fatal +inevitability of some hostile spirit. She saw all her past years as a +duel with this girl, the one soul in rebellion against hers. Rachel +had taken everything from her; she had first stirred Adela and John +into rebellion, she had encouraged Francis Breton, she had destroyed +Roddy ... she rose, before the old woman's eyes, black, titanic, +sweeping, with great dark wings, across the horizon. + +The Duchess did not in so many words state that Rachel had flung her +husband from his horse and then watched whilst his body was dragged +along the stones, but, in some way, the girl had plotted it. + +The old woman had indeed during these last months suffered from visions. +There were days when her brain was as clear as it had ever been and on +these days she thought more of Roddy than of Rachel, ached to be with +him, longed to comfort him and make life bearable for him, cursed +whatever fate it was that had ordained that upon him of all people such +a burden should have fallen. Then there were other days when the old +china dragons seemed more real than Dorchester, when shapes and sizes +altered in an instant, when the cushion at her feet was swollen like a +mountain, when she seemed floating through space, looking down upon +houses, cities, mountains, when only like a jangling chain upon which +everything hung, ran her hatred of her granddaughter. + +On such a day if Rachel had come to her and she had been alone with her, +she would have wished the dragons to devour her, would have urged the +silver Indian snake on the little black table to have strangled her. On +such a day she would sit hour after hour and wonder what she could do to +her granddaughter.... + +It was upon one of her clear days that it flashed upon her that she +would go and see Roddy. Beyond the actual excitement of visiting Roddy +there was the determination to show the world what she still could do. +Doubtless they were saying out there that she was bedridden now, ill, +helpless, dying even ... well, she would show them. + +For thirty years she had not been outside her door--now, because she +wished it, she would go. + +She said nothing to Adela about this--she saw Adela now as seldom as +possible. She told John on the morning of the day itself--on that same +morning she told Christopher. + +She told him sitting in her chair, with her cheeks painted and her white +fingers covered with rings-- + +"I'm going to pay a visit--this afternoon, Christopher." She had +expected opposition--she was a little disappointed when he said-- + +"Yes, so I've already heard this morning. I think it's an excellent +thing--the day's warm. You'll have to be carried downstairs, you +know----" + +"You and Norris can do that. I won't have anyone else." + +"Very well, I shall have to come with you----" + +"Yes--You can talk to my granddaughter." + +"It's thirty years...." + +"Yes--The last time was Old Judy Bonnings's reception. They're all +dead--all of 'em--D'you remember, Dorchester?" + +"Yes--Your Grace--Very well." + +Dorchester expressed no surprise--Anything was better than that silence +of the last months. Moreover she had trusted Christopher. She had often +been amazed at the knowledge that he showed of her mistress's +temperament, would allow her temper, her imperious self-will indulgence +one day and on another would control them absolutely. He knew what he +was doing.... + +The picture that she presented, however, when helped downstairs by the +pontifical Norris and Christopher! the house, with the decorous +watchfulness of some large, solemn, and immensely authoritative +policeman, surveying her descent, her own little bird-like face, showing +nothing but a fine assumption of her splendid appearance before the +public, after thirty years, she thus, once again, was saluted by +Portland Place! Black furs of Lady Adela's surrounded, enfolded her, and +from out of them her eyes haughtily but triumphantly surveyed a +crossing-sweeper, two small children with their nurse, a messenger boy, +and Roller the coachman. To Roller this must have been _the_ dramatic +moment of a somewhat undramatic career, but stout and imperial upon his +box his body was held, rigid, motionless, and his large stupid eyes +gazed in front of him at the trees and the light cloud-flecked March +sky, and moved neither to the right nor to the left. + +She was placed in the carriage--Christopher got in beside her and they +moved off. He was interested to see the effect that this breaking into +the world would have upon her. He felt himself a little in the position +of showman and was glad that he had a spring afternoon of gleaming +sunshine and a suggestion of budding trees and shrubs in the Portland +Crescent garden to provide for her. They were held up by traffic as they +crossed the Marylebone Road; drays, hansoms, bicycles passed--there was +a stir of voices and wheels, somewhere in the park a band was playing. + +He looked at her and saw that she paid no heed, but sat back in the dim +shadow, her eyes, he thought, closed. She was, at that instant, more +remote from him and all that he represented than she had ever +been--Curiously he was moved, just then, by a consciousness of her +personality that exceeded anything that he had ever felt in her before. + +"Yes, she must have been tremendous," he thought. And then he wondered +of what she was thinking, so quiet, and yet, from her very silence, +sinister, and then--how could he have not considered this before? What +was she going to say to Roddy? + +At this, the dark carriage was suddenly, for him, as flashing with life +and circumstance as though it had been the florid circle of some popular +music-hall--_What_ would she say to Roddy? + +He knew her for the most selfish of all possible old women: unselfish +only perhaps if Roddy were concerned, but there also, if some question +of her power moved her, ruthless. He had traced the windings of her +queer intertwisted brain with some accuracy--He knew also that the +coloured unreal state that her closed, fantastic life (resembling, you +might say, life inside a Chinese puzzle) had brought upon her led her +now to see Rachel as arch-antagonist in every step and movement of her +day. + +She would not wish to make Roddy unhappy, she might persuade herself +that to hint to him of Rachel's infidelity would be to put him on his +guard--she might say that it was not fair that Rachel should not be +pulled up.... + +Christopher himself could not tell how far this affair with Breton had +gone.... + +During that short time it seemed to him that a crisis, that had been +building up around him, here, there, for months, for years perhaps, had +leapt upon him and that in some way he must deal with it. + +Even whilst he struggled with the thoughts that were sweeping upon him +now from every side, they were at the house--As he stepped out of the +carriage he felt that he was before a locked door, that the safety of +many persons depended upon his opening it, that he could not find the +key. + +"Lady Seddon was out. Sir Roderick was alone----" The Duchess was half +assisted, half carried into the house. + + +III + +The Duchess's feelings were indeed confused as she was helped into +Roddy's room, placed in a large easy chair opposite to him and at last +left alone with him. + +Enough of itself to disturb her was the fact that now for the first time +for thirty years she was able to examine some room different from her +own--A large, high white-walled room with wide windows that displayed +the park, sporting prints on the walls, antlers over the fireplace, a +piano in one corner, a large bowl of primroses on the piano, some +boxing-gloves and two old swords over the door, a wooden case with thin +rosewood drawers and "Birds' Eggs" in gold letters upon it, a round +table near the sofa upon which Roddy was lying and on the table a +photograph of Rachel-- + +All these things her sharp old eyes noticed before she allowed them to +settle upon Roddy-- + +His quiet, almost humorous "Well, Duchess," set, quite concisely, the +note for this conversation. Not for either of them was it to betray any +consciousness that this meeting of theirs was in any way out of the +ordinary. Formerly it had been the ebullient, vigorous Roddy who had +brought his vigour to renew her fierce old age; now that old age must be +brought to him-- + +The Beaminsters did not show surprise at anything at all; had she come +from her grave to visit him he would have greeted her with his quiet +"Well, Duchess"--his life was broken in pieces, but she was not to offer +any comment on that either. + +She was exhausted even by that little drive, and that little passage +from door to door, so she just lay back in her chair for a little while +and looked at him. + +His body was covered with a rug; his hands, still brown and large and +clumsy, were folded on his lap; he was wonderfully tidy, brushed and +cleaned, it seemed to her, as though he were always expecting a doctor +or a visitor or were performed upon by some valet or other, simply, poor +dear, that the time might be filled. His cheeks were paler of course and +his face thinner, but it was in his eyes--his large, simple, singularly +ungrown-up eyes she had always considered them--that the great change +lay-- + +They smiled across at her with the same genial good temper that they had +always presented to her. But indeed she could never call them +"ungrown-up" again. Roddy Seddon had grown up indeed since she had seen +him last; she knew now, as she faced the experience and, above all, the +strength that those eyes now presented for her, that she had a new +spirit to encounter. + +Yes--he "had had a horrible time," but she was wise enough, at that +instant, to realise that the "horrible time" had drawn character out of +him that she, at least, had never, for an instant, suspected. + +The old woman was moved so that she would have liked to have tottered to +his sofa, to have caught his hands in her old dry ones, to have kissed +him, to have smoothed his hair--but she sat quietly in her chair, +recovered her breath and, grimly, almost saturninely, smiled at him. + +"Well, Roddy," she said, "how are you?" + +"I'm quite splendid. Play patience like a professor, can knit five +mufflers in a week and am learning two foreign languages--But indeed +how rippin' to see you here. I've spent a lot o' time on this old sofa +wonderin' how you and I were goin' to see one another." + +"Have you?" She was pleased at that--"Well, you see, I _have_ managed it +and quite easily too, not so bad after thirty years. My _good_ Roddy, +you of all people to tumble off a horse! What _were_ you about?" + +"Oh! it was simple enough." Roddy's eyes worked swiftly to the park and +then back again. "I was worried, you see--my thoughts were wandering, +and the old mare just tripped into a hole, pitched and flung me--I fell +on a heap o' stones, _they_ knocked the sense out of me, the horse was +frightened and went dashin' along with me tangled up in her. All came of +my thoughts wanderin'--But you know, Duchess, I've had heaps of +accidents, heaps and heaps, every kind of thing has happened to me, but +it's never been serious--always the most wonderful luck. Well, for once +it left me." + +"Poor old Roddy." + +"Yes, it _was_ 'poor old Roddy,' I can tell you, for the first six +weeks--thought I simply _couldn't_ stand it, had serious thoughts of +kickin' out altogether, seemed to me everythin' had gone ... it's +wonderful, though, the way you pick up. And then everyone's been so +tremendous, and as for Rachel!" + +He heaved a great sigh--Her eyes half closed, then she looked very +carefully at the photograph on the little round table. "That's a good +photograph of her you've got." + +"Yes--it's my favourite. But you, Duchess, tell me about yourself. You +must be in magnificent form to have planned this great adventure." + +She told him about herself--only a little, all very carefully +chosen--She was fancying, as she sat there, that she was again playing +the great diplomatist before the world. + +This expedition had greatly excited her, it had fired her blood, and +just now she felt that she was equal to taking up her old life of thirty +years ago, playing once more a tremendous part, beating Mrs. Bronson and +others of her kind straight off the field. + +She had a great plan now of coming often to see Roddy and of gaining a +very great influence over him; she did not say to herself in so many +words that she could not bear to think of him lying there helpless and +therefore completely in Rachel's power, but that is what in reality +stirred her. + +Roddy's helplessness--the sight and sound of it--drove higher that flame +that had burnt now for so long before the altar at which Rachel was, one +day, to be sacrificed. "She may come and go as she pleases. He lies +here--He can do nothing. He can know nothing of her movements--He's in +her hands--after what I know...." + +What did she know? The acquaintanceship of Breton's man-servant and +Dorchester had produced the fact of Rachel's visit, of letters--but +wasn't that all? Amongst the strange mingled visions that now crossed +and recrossed her brain it were hard to say what were real and what +phantasmal. But granted that the two of them had come together at all, +why then it was plain enough to anyone who knew them that only one +result was possible--Poor Roddy ... _her_ poor Roddy! + +But she did not know even now that she intended to tell him anything; +her sense of the pain that that revelation would give to him held her, +but as the minutes passed her delight at being back once more in this +gay, bustling world (yes, she liked its new invigorating noises) the +sense of power that she had, and youth, and strength, spun her brain to +finest cobwebs of entanglements. + +She was glad to be with her Roddy again, it was only fair that, helpless +as he was, there should still be someone to guard and protect him ... to +protect him, yes! + +Her eyes flashed at the photograph. + +But for a long time they talked in precisely their old fashion. The War, +friends and enemies, victories and defeats, marriages and deaths; Roddy +seemed, for a time, the old Roddy. + +And then gradually through it all there pushed towards her the +consciousness that he was doing it now to please her; more than that, +again and again she was aware that some bitter jest, some sharp +distraction, some fierce criticism had been turned by him deftly +aside--simply rejected with a deftness and a strength that the old Roddy +could never have summoned. + +Here again then--and it stabbed her there in the midst of her new pride +and confidence--was a reminder that her power, her sovereignty had +vanished! Was Roddy also to be beyond her influence, Roddy whom she had +had at her feet since he was a boy of sixteen? + +The photograph smiled across at her--She bent forward, her hand raised a +little as though to lend emphasis to her words--"And then you know, +Roddy, I'm still troubled with my abominable relation----" + +"What! Breton? Why, how's he been behaving?" Roddy's voice was scornful. + +"Oh! he's not _done_ anything that I know of--But he's always there--so +tiresome to have him so close, and John and Adela have grown so peculiar +lately that there's no knowing--They may ask him in to tea one day----" + +"Oh no, they won't," said Roddy. "He must be the most awful outsider." + +"I wanted to speak about him to you because I thought you might give a +word of warning to Rachel----" + +"To Rachel?" Roddy's voice was amazed. + +"Yes--She's become such a friend of his! Surely you know? That's what +makes it so difficult for me--When one's own granddaughter----" + +"Rachel! A friend of Breton's! But I didn't know she'd ever spoken to +him--Look here, Duchess, you must explain----" + +"I thought you must have known. I've often wished to speak to you about +it, only Rachel is so difficult and I didn't want to worry you, and it +seems especially hard just now----" + +"But it doesn't worry me--not a bit. Only tell me--How do you mean that +she's a friend of his?" + +"Only that she goes to see him, writes to him----" + +"Goes to _see_ him----" + +"Oh yes--is in complete sympathy----" + +"Are you sure?" + +"Absolutely. You must ask her." + +"I will of course----" + +He lay back on his sofa. For a little time there was silence between +them. She was filled now with wild regrets. She wished that she had said +nothing. His face was hard and old--She wished ... she scarcely knew +what she wished; she only knew that suddenly she was tired and would +like to go home. + +A bell was rung and Christopher was sent for. She would like to have +kissed Roddy, but only wagged her bony finger at him-- + +"Now be a good patient boy and I'll soon come again." + + +IV + +Meanwhile, five minutes before this, Rachel had come in. She was told of +the visits, and going swiftly to the little drawing-room upstairs had +found Christopher. + +She flung her arms around him and kissed him. + +"Oh, dear Dr. Chris!" + +But he stopped her. + +"Quick, Rachel. I may only have a minute.... I've got to speak to you." + +Instantly she drew back, her grave eyes watching him and her hands, as +of old, nervously moving against her dress. + +"What is it?" + +"It's just this. The Duchess may ring at any moment--she's been with him +a long while. Look here, Rachel, she knows about Breton--that you've +been to see him, that you've written to him----" + +"She told you?" + +"Yes--long ago--But never mind that now, although I'd have spoken to you +of it before if you'd let me--But the only thing that matters is that I +believe--I can't of course be sure--but I believe that she's come now to +tell Roddy." + +Rachel drew a long breath. "Oh!" she said and, stiffly standing there, +showed in her eyes the pitch of feeling to which now her grandmother had +brought her. + +Christopher went on urgently--"I've been praying for you to come in. I +hoped you'd have come half an hour ago. There's no time now, but--it's +simply this, Rachel dear--tell Roddy everything----" + +She broke in passionately. "You know it's all right, Dr. Chris--you've +trusted me?" + +"Absolutely," he said gravely. "But it simply is that Roddy mustn't be +there imagining things, waiting, wondering.... Perhaps he won't ask +you--Perhaps he will--But, anyway, tell him--tell him at once +everything...." + +The bell rang, he went across to her, kissed her, and then went +downstairs. + +She stood there waiting, without moving except to strip off, very +slowly, her black gloves. Her eyes were fixed upon the door. + +She heard the door downstairs open, the stumbling steps; once she caught +the Duchess's voice and at that she drew in her breath. Then the hall +door closed, but, for a long time afterwards, she stood there without +moving. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +RODDY MOVES + + "... But the Red Dwarf, although as malevolent as possible, + found that his ill-temper had no effect against true love, + which always won in the end, even with quite stupid people." + + _Grimm's Fairy Tales._ + + +I + +It would have been quite impossible for Roddy to have given any clear +description of his experiences since the event of his accident. There, +surely, like a gleaming sword, that cut his life into two pieces, the +fact itself was visible enough, and there floated before him, again and +again, the casual canter, the especial view that was before him just +then, a view of undulating Downs, somewhere to his left white chalk +hollows in grey hills and to his right a blue strip of sea, the wonder +that was in his mind about Rachel, his thoughts chasing back over all +the incidents of their life together, then suddenly the jerk, his +consciousness of falling with the ground rising in a high wall to oppose +him, and then darkness. + +After that there was nightmare in which pain and Rachel, Rachel and +pain, mingled and parted, were confused and then separate, and with them +danced shapes and figures, sometimes in a turmoil that was horrible, +sometimes in silence that was the most terrible of all. Clear after that +first period of misty confusion was the day when he was told his fate. + +He had come out from the heart of the more terrible pain--No longer had +he to lie, knowing that soon, after another minute's peace, agony would +rise before him like a creature with a wet pale malignant face, and then +after looking upon him for a moment, would bend down and, with its +horrible damp fingers, would twist and turn his bones one against +another until the supreme moment came when nothing mattered and no +agony, however bad, could touch his indifferent soul. + +He was now simply weak, weak, weak--nothing mattered. In his dream he +fancied that someone had said that he would never rise from his back +again. For days after that it lingered far away from his actual +consciousness. Really it had not mattered; something, this dream, that +concerned him, but what could concern him except that people should keep +quiet and not fuss? + +For instance he loved to have Rachel with him, he was miserable were she +not there, but at the same time he was conscious that she _did_ fuss, +was not quite like Miss Rand. + +But of this thing that he had heard he thought nothing. "There's +_something_ that I ought to think about. I don't know _what_ it is--One +day when I'm stronger I'll look into it." + +There came a day when he _was_ stronger, a day, late in January, of a +pale wintry sun and watery gleams. They had placed his bed so that he +could see his beloved Downs and the little road that ran from their foot +out into the village. + +On this morning he was wonderfully better--he had slept well, breezes +and pleasant scents came through the open window, geese were cackling, a +donkey's braying made him laugh "Silly old donkey," he said aloud to no +one in particular. Then he was aware of Jacob, sitting bunched into a +heap in the middle of the floor, his brown eyes peering anxiously +through his hair. At every sound his ears would rise for a moment, but +his eyes were fixed upon Roddy. + +The dog had been in Roddy's room a good deal during these last weeks, +had been wrenched away from it. Roddy found that he was touched by this +devotion; Jacob apparently cared more for him than did the other +dogs--"Not a bad old thing--Often these mongrels are more human--But, +Lord! he _is_ a sight!" + +The nurse was sitting sewing by the window. Roddy lay, happily, thinking +that now at last that jolly bad pain really _did_ seem to have been left +behind. He was immensely, wonderfully better; it would not be long, +surely, before he was quite fit again, before he.... + +Then down it swung, swung like an iron door shutting all the world away +from him, inexorable--"Always on your back ... never get up again!" + +His hand gripped the bed-clothes. + +"Nurse." + +"Yes?" + +"Tell me--am I dreaming or did someone say something the other day +about--about my never being able, well, to toddle again, you know?" + +"I'm afraid----" + +"Thanks." + +He closed his eyes and then summoned all the grit and determination that +there was in him to face this fact. He could not face it. It was as +though he were struggling up the side of a high slippery rock--up he +would struggle, up and up, now he was at the top, down he would slip +again--it could not, oh! it could not be true! + +It _was_ true. As the days passed grimly in silence, he accepted it. It +had always been his creed that in this world there was no place for the +maimed and the halt. He was sorry for them, of course, but it was better +that they should go; they only occupied room that was intended for +lustier creatures. + +Well, now he was himself of the halt and maimed--that was ironical, +wasn't it? Indeed he would much rather that he had pegged out +altogether--better for everybody--but, as things were, he would square +things out and see what he could make of it all. Then he saw as, every +day, he grew stronger, that he had no resources; everything in his other +life, as he now had come to think of it, had depended upon his physical +strength, every pleasure, every desire, every ambition had had to do +with his body--everything except Rachel. + +In his other life half his happiness arose simply from the sense of his +physical movement, his consciousness that, as the rivers flowed and the +winds blew and the sun blazed, so did he also live and have his +being--And with all this, most intimately was his house mingled. That +grey building and he grew and moved and developed together; life could +never be very terrible for him so long as he had his place to come back +to, his place to care for, his fields and his gardens, his horses and +his dogs to look after. Now he could do nothing more for it--perhaps one +day he would be wheeled about its courts and paths, but oh! with what +pitying eyes would it look down upon him, how sorrowfully his gryphons +would greet him, with what memories they would confront him! + +He could not bear now to look out upon the Downs on the little village +path--His bed was moved. A day arrived when he felt that it was all, +really, more than he could endure. He was in wild, furious rebellion, +surly, sometimes in raging tempers, sometimes sulking from day to day. +He cursed all the world. Even Christopher could do nothing with him-- + +Then upon this there followed a period of silence. He lay there and +beyond "Yes" and "No" would answer no one. His eyes stared at the wall. +Christopher feared at this time for his sanity. + +Suddenly the silence was broken. He must go to London because he could +not endure the memories that this place thronged upon him--At the +beginning of March he was moved to the house in York Terrace. + + +II + +The little house by the park helped him to construct his new life. The +normality that there was in Roddy, the same balance of common sense, +fostered his recovery. He was not going to die--Life would be an +infernal trouble were he always to be in rebellion against it--he must +simply make the best of the conditions. And then, after all, he had +Rachel. Rachel had been a heroine during this time, and to his love for +her he now clung, passionately, tenaciously, the one thing left to him +out of his great catastrophe. + +She seemed, during these months, to have thought for nothing else in all +the world. She was not so useful in a sick room as Miss Rand--Miss Rand +was wonderful--but there were certain moments when she would bend down +and kiss him or would look at him or would take his hand, when he +wondered whether love for him had not crept into her heart after all. + +Funny when he had gone out for his ride on that eventful morning +expecting that he had offended her for ever! Well, if his accident had +won Rachel for him, it had been worth while! + +But there were other days when he knew for a certainty that it was not +so, knew that it was pity that moved her; affection too perhaps, but +nothing more than affection.... + +Nevertheless he hoped that this might be the beginning of something +else; he would lie for hours looking out at the park and creating +visions. + +He made now something tolerable of his life. People showed a wonderful +kindness and there was always someone to entertain him, some new present +that someone had sent him; people could not be kind enough. He was +grateful for all of this, but he spent many, many hours in thinking. He +found that he had never thought before; he found that he would have gone +to his grave without thinking had not the great catastrophe occurred. He +thought of a great many things, but especially of what other people's +lives were like. There were, he supposed, a great number of people who +had had misfortunes as overwhelming at his--How had they behaved? And +what, after all, were all the other people, in all their different +circumstances, doing? Before this it had only occurred to him to be +interested in the people who were leading lives like his, now he +wondered about everybody. + +Little things became of the greatest importance. Every day he read the +paper with absorbed care from the first line to the last. The +arrangement of the room interested him and he would give its details, +minutely, his consideration. + +He was greatly interested in gossip and he would chatter, happily, all +the afternoon did someone come and visit him. To everyone it was an +amazing thing that he should take it all so easily. No one had ever +given Roddy credit for the strength of character that was in him and +they did not perhaps recognize that his earlier impatient condemnation +of other people--"Why the devil don't the feller stand up to it like a +man?"--made him now conscious that he was himself at last faced with a +similar test to which he himself must stand up. + +But, beyond question, he could not have held the position as he did had +it not been for Rachel; he seemed to see that here was a chance of +seizing her and making her really his own, a chance that would never be +his again. He was making an appeal to her--she was closer to him, he +thought, with every day. + +So his natural humour and spirits returned--At present life was +tolerable; he suffered very little pain and he was aware that a number +of people to whom he had never meant anything whatever now cared for him +very much indeed. + +He was ashamed when he heard of the men who were dying and suffering for +their country--"He would have had to have gone to Africa," he told +himself, "if he'd not had his accident. Then enteric or a bullet and +good-bye to Rachel altogether!" + + +III + +He had often, during those long hours, thought of the Duchess. He had, +always, in his heart, considered her affection for him strange; he knew +that it was difficult for her to be patient with fools and he knew that +his own intellectual gifts were on no very high level. He based her +friendship for him on the naive transparency with which he displayed his +frankly pagan indulgences. His love for Rachel and this accident had +changed all that. He was still pagan enough at heart, but there were +other things in his world. Principally it occurred to him now that one +couldn't judge about the way things looked to other people, and the +Duchess, of course, always _did_ judge; if they didn't look her way, why +then wipe them out! + +He had, in fact, much less now to say to the Duchess; he was afraid that +he would no longer agree with her about things--"Of course she knows the +world and is a damn clever woman, but she's jolly well too hard on +people who aren't quite her style--She'd put my back up, I believe, if +she talked." He had, indeed, always been uncomfortable at the old lady's +approaches to sentiment. She was never sentimental with other people--He +_hated_ sentiment in anyone except, of course, Rachel and she never +_was_ sentimental. + +He looked out now upon the road that ran through the park beyond his +window, watched the nursemaids and the children, the old gentlemen, the +girls, the smart women and the pale young men with books and the smart +young men with shiny hats, and he wondered about them all. + +Sometimes when the grass, was very green, when high white clouds piled +one upon another hung above the pond whose corner he could just see, +thoughts of his little grey house, his gardens, the Downs, his horses +and dogs would come to him-- + +"Come out! Come out!" a sparrow would dance on his window ledge-- + +"Damn you, I can't!" he would cry and then his eyes would fly to +Rachel's photograph--"If I get her it will be worth it, won't it, Jacob, +my son?" + +He talked continually to Jacob and found great comfort in the stolid +assurance with which the dog would wag his stump of a tail--"He's more +than human, that dog," he would tell Rachel; "funny how I never used to +see anything in him." + +Of course there were many days when life was utterly impossible; then he +would snap at everyone, lie scowling at the park, curse his impotence, +his miserable degraded infirmities. "Curse it, to die in a ditch like +this--to be broken up, to be smashed...." + +His majestic butler--now the tenderest and most devoted of +attendants--stood these evil days with great equanimity. + +"Bless you, of course he's bound to be wild now and again--wonder is it +don't happen more often--It does him good to curse a bit." + +So things were with him until the day of the Duchess's visit. His +surprise at seeing her was confused with an assurance that "she had come +for something." After her departure what she had come for was plain +enough to see. + +He had not taken her words about Breton at first with any credulity. His +principal emotion at the time had been anger with the old woman, a great +desire that she should go before he should forget himself and be +disgraced by showing temper to anyone so old and feeble--But when she +had gone, he found that peace had left him now once and for all. + +He knew that the Duchess hated Rachel and he was ready to allow for the +bias and exaggeration that spite would lend, but, when that was taken +away, much remained. + +Rachel knew Breton, that was certain; she had never told him. Breton's +name had occurred sometimes in conversation and she had always spoken of +him as though he were a complete stranger. Rachel knew Breton and she +had never told him.... + +He might tell himself that she had not told him because she knew that he +would instantly stop the acquaintance--It was, of course, simply a +friendship that had sprung up because Rachel was sorry for his +ostracism. Roddy thought that that was just like Rachel, part of her +warm-hearted interest in anyone who seemed to be unfairly +treated--yet--she had never told him. + +Then, lying there all alone with no one in whom he could confide, there +sprang before him suspicions. If she had known this scoundrel of a +cousin of hers, if she had been so careful to keep from her husband all +cognizance of her friendship, did not that very silence and deceit imply +more than friendship? Was Breton the kind of man to abstain from +snatching every advantage that was open to him? Did not this explain +Rachel's avoidance of Roddy during the last year, her moods of +restraint, repentance, her sudden silences? + +Then upon this came the thought, how much of all this did the world +know? Perhaps it was true once again that the husband was the last to be +informed, perhaps during the last year all London Society had mocked at +Roddy's blindness. + +The Duchess, he might be sure, had not spared her tongue--The +Duchess ... he cursed her as he lay there and then wondered whether he +should not rather thank her for opening his eyes, then cursed himself for +daring to allow such suspicions of Rachel to gain their hold upon him. + +In Roddy there was, strong beyond almost any other principle, a sturdy +hereditary pride. He was proud of his stock, proud of his ancestors and +all their doings, worthy and unworthy, proud of his own pluck and +standing--"Different from all these half-baked fellers with only their +own grandmothers to go back to." It had been this arrogance, with other +things somewhat closely allied, that had endeared him to the Duchess. +Now it was that same pride that suffered most terribly. Here was some +disaster hanging over his head that threatened most nearly the honour of +his family--Let Breton touch that.... + +He was alone on that evening after the Duchess's visit; Rachel had gone +out to a party; she went, he had noticed, reluctantly, protested again +and again that she wished she could stay with him, seemed to hang about +him as though she would speak to him, looked, oh! too adorably, too +adorably beautiful! + +Whilst she was with him he saw behind her the dark shadow of Breton, +that fellow kicked out of the country for cheating at cards or +something as bad, disowned by his family, and she, she, Rachel so +proudly apart, could have gone to him--He was glad when, at last, she +had left him. + +Then, lying there, he endured three of the most awful hours of agony +that he was ever, in, all his life, to know. Nothing that had come to +him through his accident was so bad as this. At one moment it was +fury--wild, raging, unreasoning fury--that wished that Rachel and Breton +and the Duchess, all of them together might suffer the torments of +hell--And then swiftly following it came his love of Rachel, nearer now +to burning heights, so that he swore that, whatever she had done, he did +not care, he would forgive her everything, but all that mattered was +that she should be spared, that her honour should be vindicated. Then, +more quietly, he reflected that he was uncertain of everything as yet, +he had only that malicious old woman's word, and until he had something +more solid than that he must trust Rachel. + +Oh! if only she would, of her own accord, speak! If she would only sit +there by his sofa and, with her hand in his, tell him, quite simply, in +what exactly her friendship with Breton consisted--Ah! then how he would +forgive her! How together they would be revenged upon the Duchess! + +If she did not speak he did not know what he would do. That old woman's +mouth must be stopped; he must find out exactly how far the danger had +spread--he must deal with Breton--Now indeed he cursed so that he should +be tied to this sofa; there had swept down upon him the hardest trial of +his life. + +Rachel returned from her party--she sat by his sofa and he lay there +looking at her. + +Had it been a nice party? Not very--One of those war parties that +everyone had now. That silly Lady Meikleham recited "The Absent-minded +Beggar," and they had that French tenor from Covent Garden to sing +patriotic songs, and of course they got money out of everybody. + +There'd been nothing for supper--She'd seen nobody amusing-- + +She broke out: "Roddy dear, what have you been doing with yourself? You +look as white and tired as anything--Has that pain in your back----?" + +"No, dear,--thank you." + +"I _wish_ I hadn't gone, and the dinner at Lady Massiter's was so +stupid--Monty Carfax whom I loathe and Lord Massiter so dull and +stupid--says he's coming to see you to-morrow afternoon." + +"Well, he can, I'm at anybody's mercy!" + +She got up, stood over him for a moment looking so tall and slender, so +dark with diamonds in her black hair, so lovely to-night! + +She looked down upon him, then suddenly bent and kissed him. + +"Roddy----" + +"What is it, dear?" He caught her hand so fiercely that she cried: + +"Roddy dear, I----" + +"Yes." + +"Oh, nothing, only you look so tired, I wish _I_ could take some of the +pain----" + +"There isn't any, dear, I'm wonderfully lucky." + +Peters came in to take him to bed. + +She kissed him again and left him. + +"Looking done up to-night, sir," said Peters. + +"I am," said Roddy. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MARCH 13th: BRETON'S TIGER + + "If I'd had the power not to be born, I would certainly not + have accepted existence upon conditions that are such a + mockery. But I still have the power to die, though the days I + give back are numbered. It's no great power, it's no great + mutiny."--DOSTOEVSKY. + + +I + +Christopher's knowledge of Rachel, long and intimate though it had been, +had never made him sure of her. In his relations with his fellow-men he +proceeded on the broad lines that best suited, he felt, any +investigation of his own character. Broad lines, however, did not catch +that subtle spirit that was Rachel; he had been baffled again and again +by some fierceness or sudden wildness in her, and had often been held +from approaching her lest by something too impetuous or ill-considered +he should drive her from him altogether. He had been aware that, since +her marriage, she had been gradually slipping from him, and this had +made him, during the last year, the more careful how he approached her. +He loved her the more in that something that was part of her was strange +and mysterious to him; the idealist and the poet concealed in him behind +his frank worldliness cherished her aloofness. She was precious to him +because nothing else in this life had quite her unexpected beauty. + +Since that afternoon when the Duchess had paid her visit to Roddy he +wished many times that he were a cleverer man. He felt that something +must instantly be done, but he felt, too, that one false step on his +part would plunge them all into the most tragical catastrophe. + +He was baffled by his own ignorance as to the real truth; neither Breton +nor Rachel had taken him into their confidence. He could not say how any +of them could be expected to act, and yet he knew that something must +be done at once. He saw Rachel through it all, like a strange dark +flower, mysterious, shining, with her colour, beyond his grasp, but so +beautiful, so poignant! She had never appealed to him as now, in the +heart of some danger that he could not define she eluded him and yet +demanded his help. + +After much puzzled thinking he decided that it must be Breton whom he +had best approach, and so he wrote and asked him to come and dine +quietly with him in Harley Street on the evening of March 13th. Breton +accepted if he might be released at nine-thirty, as he had then another +appointment. + +"Can't stand a whole evening," thought Christopher, "thinks I want to +bully him. Well, perhaps I do!" + +He was detained to a late hour on that afternoon by a patient in Halkin +Street and it was after seven when he started home, driving through +Piccadilly and Bond Street. + +It had been an afternoon of intense closeness, and now as evening came +down upon the town the thick curtain of grey that had been hanging all +day overhead seemed, with a clanking and jolting, one might imagine, so +heavy and brazen was its aspect, to fall lower above the dim grey +streets. The lights were out, swinging pale and distended down the +length of Piccadilly, and already the carriages were pressing in a long +row towards the restaurants; boys were crying the latest editions with +the war news and upon all those ears their cries now fell drearily, +monotonously, for so long had the town been filled with details of +escape, folly, death, ignominy, that it was tired and weary of any voice +or cry that concerned itself with War.... + +Christopher, waiting impatiently for his carriage to move on, thought of +Brun; this oppressive, stifling evening seemed to call, in some manner +too subtle for Christopher's powers of expression, the houses, the +streets, the lamps, the very railings into some life of their own. Under +the iron sky that surely with every minute dropped lower upon the +oppressed town the clubs opposite the Green Park raised their hooded +eyes and stirred ever so little above the people, and the twisted +chimneys watched and whispered, as the trail of carriages wound, +drearily, into the misty distance. Christopher was not an imaginative +man, but he thought that he had never known London so evilly perceptive. + +It grew hotter and hotter, but with a heat that made the body perspire +and yet left it cold. A dim yellow colour, that seemed to herald a fog +that had not made up its mind whether it would appear or no, hung at +street corners. Figures seemed furtive in the half-light and, +instinctively, voices were lowered as though some sudden sound would +explode the air like a match in a gas-filled room. A bell began to ring +and startled everyone.... + +"There'll be an awful thunderstorm soon," thought Christopher. "I've +never known things so heavy. Everyone's nerves will be on the stretch +to-night. Why, one might fancy anything." His own brain would not work. +He had just left a case that had needed all his sharpest attention, but +he had found that it was only with the utmost difficulty that he could +keep his mind alert, and now when he wanted to think about Breton he was +continually arrested by some sense of apprehension, so that he had to +stop himself from crying out to his driver, "Look out! Take care! +There's someone there." + +When he got to his house he found that his forehead was covered with +perspiration and that he could scarcely breathe. Meanwhile he had +decided nothing as to the course he would pursue with Breton. When he +had dressed and come down he found that Breton was waiting for him. + +"How ill he looks!" was Christopher's first thought. Perhaps Breton also +was oppressed by the weather and indeed in the house, although the +windows were open, it was stifling enough. + +"No, the man's in pieces." Christopher's look was sharp. He had never +seen Breton, who was naturally neat and a little vain about his +appearance, so dishevelled. His beard was untrimmed, his eyes bloodshot, +his hair unbrushed, his face white and drawn and his mouth seemed, in +that light, to be trembling. + +"Good heavens, man," said Christopher, "what _have_ you been doing to +yourself?" + +Breton smiled feebly--"Oh, nothing. Don't badger me--I can't stand it." + +"Badger you? Who's going to badger you? only----" Christopher broke off, +looked at him a moment, then put his hand on the other's shoulder. + +"Look here, old man, why have you left me alone all these weeks?" + +"Haven't felt like seeing anybody." + +"Well, you might have felt like seeing me. I've missed you. I haven't +got so many friends that I can spare, so easily, my best one." + +"Oh, rot, Chris," Breton said almost angrily. "You know it's only the +kind of interest you've got in all lame dogs that ties you to me at +all." + +"You're an ungrateful sort of fellow, Frank. But no matter--I'm fond of +you in spite of your ingratitude. Come in to dinner and see whether you +can eat anything on this stifling night." It _was_ stifling, but +oppressive with something more than the mere physical discomfort of it. +It was a night that worked havoc with the nerves, so that Christopher, +who had naturally a vast deal of common sense, found himself glancing +round his shoulder, irritated at the least noise that his servant made, +expecting always to hear a knock on the door. + +Breton contributed very little to the conversation during dinner. He ate +almost nothing, drank only water, looked about him restlessly, muttered +something about its being strangely close for March, crumbled up his +bread into little heaps. + +When they were back in Christopher's smoking-room Breton collapsed into +a deep chair, lay there, staring desperately about him, then, with a +jerk, pulled himself up and began to stride the room, swinging his arm, +then pulling at his beard, crying out at last, "My God! it's stifling. +Christopher--I must go out. I can't stand this. It's beyond my bearing." + +Christopher made him sit down again and then, feeling that he could not +more surely hold the man than by plunging at once into what was, in all +probability, the heart of his trouble, said: + +"Look here, Frank, I said I wouldn't badger you and I won't, but there's +something about which I must speak to you. You must tell me the truth. +There's more involved than just ourselves." + +Breton seemed instantly aware of Christopher's meaning. He sat up. "I +knew," he said, "that I was in for a lecture. Well, it can't make any +difference." + +"No," Christopher answered brusquely. "Whether it makes any difference +to you or no you've _got_ to listen, Frank. It's simply this. I happened +to hear, a good time ago, that you had met Rachel. I knew that she had +been to your rooms. I knew that you had corresponded. I should dismiss +that man-servant of yours, Frank." + +Breton muttered something. + +"You might have told me yourself, Frank. You might, both of you, have +told me. But never mind--it's all too late for that now. The point is +that it was your grandmother that told me." + +"My God!" Breton cried. "She knows? She knew.... But there was nothing +_to_ know. There was nothing anyone mightn't have known. If anyone dares +to breathe a syllable against one of the purest, noblest ..." + +"Yes, yes. I know all that," Christopher answered. "But the thing is +simply this. I don't know--she doesn't know exactly what the truth is +between you and Rachel. All that she does know is that Rachel went to +see you and wrote to you. Now Roddy Seddon isn't--or wasn't aware that +his wife had ever met you. He holds the more or less traditional family +point of view about you. I believe that, two or three days ago, the +Duchess told him about Rachel's visits. I am not sure of this. I hope +that by now Rachel herself has told her husband. But of that also I'm +not sure. All I know is that it's our duty--your duty and my duty to +save Rachel all the unhappiness we can, and still more to save Roddy. +Remember the position he's in." + +Breton sprang to his feet. "Look here, Chris, I should have told you of +all this long ago. I didn't know that you had heard. I wish to God I had +spoken to you. But as Heaven is my witness, Rachel is a saint. I'm a +miserable cur--a misery to myself and a misery to everyone else. But +she----" + +"You've been fools, the couple of you," he answered sternly. "It's no +use cursing now. I won't go and urge Rachel to tell Roddy--she must do +that of her own free will--All our hands are tied. It depends upon the +steps that Roddy takes, and after all the old lady may never have told +him. But I've warned you, Frank. It's up to you to do the right thing." + +"What do you want me to do?" asked Breton. + +"I don't know what you can do. You must see for yourself--only, Frank," +here Christopher's voice became softer, "by all our old friendship and +by any affection that you may have left for me, I do conjure you to play +fair by Rachel and her husband. Rachel is very, very young. Roddy is +helpless----" + +"That's enough," Breton cried. "My God, Christopher, of you could +realize the weeks I've been having you wouldn't think, perhaps, so badly +of me. It's been more, I swear, than any mortal flesh can endure. I'm +driven, driven--I'm at the end.... But she's safe from me, safe now and +safe forever. And that now that old woman should step in--now." + +Christopher came and again put his arm on Breton's shoulder and held +him up, it might seem, with more than physical strength. + +His affection for Breton was an affection sprung from his very knowledge +of the man's weaknesses. He had in him that British quality of ruthless +condemnation for the sinner whom he did not know and sentimental +weakness for the sinner whom he did. He had seen Francis Breton through +a thousand scrapes, he would see him, doubtless, through a thousand +more. + +"We'll say no more now, old boy--You look done up--I won't worry you, +but if you want me here I am and I promise not to lecture. Only you owe +me some confidence, you do indeed." + +Breton got up and stood there, with his hand pressed to +his forehead. "What you've told me," he said. "I must do +something ... something ... it's all been my fault. If they should +touch her----" + +Then, turning to Christopher, he said: "You _are_ the only friend I've +got, and I know it. I do value it--only lately I've been going to bits +again. If it weren't for you and little Miss Rand I swear I'd have gone +altogether. You _are_ a brick, Christopher. Another day I'll come to you +and tell you everything. To-night I'm simply past talking." + +A servant came in and gave Christopher a note. It was from Lord John +saying that he was anxious about his mother and asking the doctor +whether he could possibly come round and see her. + +Breton then said that he must go. He went, promising that he would soon +come again. When he had left the house Christopher stood, perplexed, +wondering whether he should have left him alone. Then he put on his hat +and coat and set off for 104 Portland Place. + + +II + +Breton had, indeed, no destination. He had been frightened of a whole +evening with Christopher. + +He was frightened of everything, of everybody--above all, of himself. He +found himself, with a sense of surprise, as though he were the helpless +actor in some bad dream, standing in Oxford Circus. Surely it _was_ a +dream. + +The sky, grey and lowering, was yet tinged with a smoky red. He had an +overpowering sense of the minuteness of humanity, so that the crowds +crossing and recrossing the Circus seemed like tiny animals crawling +over the surface of a pond from which the water had been drained. + +His old fancy of the waterways came back to him and now he thought that +Oxford Circus, often a maelstrom of tossing, whirling humanity, had run +dry and lay stagnant, filled with dying life, beneath the red-tinged +sky. + +Ever lower and lower that sky seemed to fall. Theatres, restaurants on +that evening were almost deserted. People stood about in groups, saying +that soon the thunder would be upon them, wondering at this weather in +March, watching, with curious eyes, the sky. + +Breton was near madness that evening. He was near madness to this +extent, that he was not certain of reality. Were those lamp-posts real? +What was the meaning of those strange high buildings in whose heart +there burnt so sinister a light? He watched them expecting that at any +moment these would burst into flame and with a screaming rattling flare +go tossing to the sky. + +Near him a girl said, "All right--of course it ain't of no moment what I +might happen to pre-fere--Oh, no!" + +A mild young man answered her: "Well, if yer want ter go to the Oxford +why not say so? _That's_ what I say. Why not say so 'stead of 'angin' +about----" + +"Oh! 'angin' about! Say that again and off I go. 'Angin' about! I'd like +to know----" + +"I didn't say anythink about your 'angin' about. Yer catch a feller up +so quickly, Bertha. What I mean to say----" + +"Oh! yer and yer meanin's. Don't know what yer _do_ mean, if the truth +were known. 'Ere's a pleasant way of spendin' an evenin'----" + +Breton regarded them with curiosity. Were they real? Did they feel the +strange oppression of this lowering sky as strongly as he did? Were they +uncertain as to whether these buildings were alive or no? Perhaps they +could tell him whether those omnibuses that came lumbering so heavily up +Regent Street were safe and secure. + +Oddly enough, although he tried, he could not remember exactly what it +was that Christopher had told him. Something, of course, to do with his +grandmother. Everything was to do with her.... She was the one who was +driving him to destruction. Always she was stepping forward, sending him +down when he was climbing up, at last, to safety, always it was she who +stood behind him, on the watch lest some happiness or success should +come his way. + +He felt as though he would like to go and force his way into 104 +Portland Place and face the woman and tell her what she had done to him. +Yes, that would be a fine thing--to see all those Beaminster relations +gathering round, protesting, frightened. + +And then it occurred to him that he really did not know the way to +Portland Place. Things were so strange to-night. He knew that it was +close at hand, but he was afraid that he would never find it. He was +really afraid that he would never find it. + +Some man jostled into him, apologized and moved away. The contact +cleared his brain, asserted the reality of the buildings, the crowds, +the cabs and carriages. He pulled himself together and began slowly to +walk down Oxford Street in the direction of Tottenham Court Road. + +He remembered very clearly and distinctly what it was that Christopher +had told him. Rachel was in danger because her husband had heard of her +friendship with him, Breton.... + +It would not have been Francis Breton if he had not taken this piece of +news and looked at it in its most sensational colours. He had, through +all these last weeks, been striving to accustom himself to the agony of +enduring life without her. He dimly perceived that it was the emptiness +of life rather than any actual loss of any particular person that was so +terrible to him. He had still, very fine and beautiful, his memory of +the day when she had come to him in his rooms, and had that day been +followed by a secret relationship between them and many hours spent +together, then his passion would have been very genuine and moving. + +But, after all, she had flashed into his life, and then flashed +out of it again, and, so swiftly with him did moods follow one upon +another, and ideals and ambitions and despairs and glories jostle +together in his brain, that she might have remained, very happily raised +to a fine altar in his temple, very distantly recognized as a beautiful +episode now closed and contemplated only from a worshipping distance, +had any other figure or incident definitely occupied his attention. + +But no figure, no incident had arrived. He had had, during all these +weeks, no drama into which he might fling his fine feelings, his great +ambitions, his glorious sacrifices. Of genuine sincerity were these +moods of his--he had never stood sufficiently beyond himself to arrive +at any definite insincerity about any of his movements or impulses--but +of all things in the world he could not endure that his life should be +empty, and empty now it had been for, as it seemed to his swift +impatience, a long, long time. + +Christopher's news did touch him very deeply. He would instantly have +sacrificed his life, his honour, anything at all, for Rachel, and the +fact that he would enjoy the drama of that sacrifice did not rob it of +any atom of its sincerity. + +But the pity of it was that he really did not see what he could do. Had +he been able, here and now, to rush into the Portland Place house and +seize his grandmother by the throat and shake her, or had it been +possible to appear before Roddy Seddon, to declare himself the only +culprit, to proclaim that he was ready for any condemnation, any +punishment, then, in spite of all his unhappiness, he would be now a +happy man, but, alas, the only possible action was to pause, to see what +happened, to wait--and waiting it was that sent him mad. + +One action indeed _was_ possible and that was that he should put a close +to his wretched existence. On this close and sterile night such an +action did not appear at all absurd. It had fine elements about it, it +would deal a sure blow at his grandmother and all that family who had +treated him so basely. What a headline for the papers! "Suicide of +member of one of England's noblest families!" Rachel should be, no +longer, annoyed with his unfortunate presence: he would make it, of +course, quite obvious that she had had nothing to do with his sad end. + +He looked about him, with an air of fine melancholy, at the passers-by. +Little they knew of the terrible tragedy that was even now preparing in +their midst! + +He felt almost happy again as he turned this solution over and over +again. Some people would be sorry--Christopher, Lizzie Rand, and Rachel: +above all, it must be heavy upon the consciences of the Duchess and her +wretched children. They had driven him to his death and must bear the +blame to the grave and beyond. + +Very faintly the rolling of thunder could be heard as the storm +approached the town. + +He was standing outside the Oxford Music Hall, and he thought that he +would go inside for a little time that he might avoid the rain ... and +then upon that followed the reflection that it did not matter whether he +was wet or no--he would soon be dead. + +Faintly behind these gloomy resolves some voice seemed to tell him that +if he could only pass safely through this night fortune would again be +kind to him. "Wait," something told him. "Be patient for once in your +life".... But no, to wait any more was impossible. Some fine action, +some splendid defiance or heroic defence, here and now ... otherwise he +would show the world that he had courage, at least, to die. Most of his +impetuous follies had their origin in his conviction that the eyes of +the world were always upon him. + +He paid his money and walked into the circle promenade. Behind him was a +bar at which several stout gentlemen and ladies were happily +conversational. In front of him a crowd of men and women leaned forward +over the back of the circle and listened to the entertainment. + +On the stage, in a circle of brilliant light, a thin man with a +melancholy face, a top hat and pepper-and-salt trousers was singing-- + + "Straike me pink and straike me blue, + Straike me purple and crimson too + I'll be there, + Lottie dear, + Down by the old Canteen." + +"Now," said the gentleman, "once more. Let's 'ave it--all together." + +There was a moment's pause, then the orchestra began very softly and, in +a kind of ecstasy the crowd sang-- + + "Straike me pink and straike me blue, + Straike me purple and crimson too," etc. + +Breton sat down on a little velvet seat near the bar and gloomily looked +about him. Did they only realize, these people, the tragedy that was so +close to them, then would they very swiftly cease their silly singing. +The place was hot, infernally hot. It glowed with light, it crackled +with noise, it was possessed with a glaring unreality. It occurred to +him that to make a leap upon the railing at the back of the circle, to +stand for one instant balanced there before the frightened people, then +to plunge, down, down, into the stalls--that would be a striking finish! +How they would all scream, and run and scatter! ... yes ... + +Against the clinking and chatter of the bar he would hear the voice of +the funny man: "And so I says to 'er, 'Maria, if you're tryin' to prove +to me that it's two in the mornin', then I says what I want to know is +oo's been 'elpin' yer to stay awake all this time? That's what....'" + +It was then that, in spite of himself, he was drawn from his moody +thoughts by the eyes of the girl standing near the bar against the wall. +She was a small, timid, rather pale girl in a huge black hat. She wore a +long trailing purple dress and soiled white gloves, and was looking, +just now, unhappy and frightened. + +He had noticed her because of the contrast that her white face and small +body made with her grand untidy clothes, but, looking at her more +closely, he saw something about her that stirred all his sympathy and +protection. + +Like most Englishmen he was at heart an eager sentimentalist and he was, +just now, in a mood that responded instantly to anyone in distress. + +He forgot for the moment his desperate plans of self-destruction. A fat +red-faced man came from the bar towards her, with two drinks; he was +himself very unsteady and uncertain in his movements and his smile was +both vacuous and full of purpose. He lurched towards her, put his hand +upon her shoulder to steady himself, then, as one of the glasses +spilled, cursed. + +She refused the drink, but he continued to press it upon her. His fat +hand wandered about her neck, stroked her chin, and he was leaning now +so that his face almost touched hers. + +Breton heard him say-- + +"Well, if you won't drink--damme--come along, my dear--let's be goin'." +She shook her head, her eyes growing larger and larger. + +"Nonshensh," he said. "Darn nonshensh." She glanced about her +desperately, but no one, save Breton, was watching them. She caught his +eyes, pitifully, eagerly. + +The man put his arm about her and tried to draw her from the wall. + +"Come," he said. "We'll go home." + +She drew away. He pulled at her hand. "Damn the O----Place. Wash the +matter? You got to come." + +Then he seized her by the arm, and, still lurching from side to side, +began to move away. + +"No, no," she whispered, obviously terrified of a scene, but using all +her strength to resist. Her eyes again met Breton's. + +"That lady," he said, advancing to the stout gentleman, "is a friend of +mine." + +The man looked at him with an expression astonished, simply and rather +puzzled. + +"Wash--wash...?" he said. + +"You'll be so good as to leave that lady alone." + +"Well, I'm b----well damned. Oh! gosh." The stout gentleman +contemplated him with furious amazement. + +"'Oo the b----'ell I'd like to know? Get out or I'll kick yer out." + +The quarrel had by now gathered its crowd. + +The stout gentleman, lurching forward, aimed a blow at Breton which +missed him. + +"Let her alone, do you hear?" cried Breton. + +The stout gentleman, amazed, apparently, at a world that defied all the +probabilities, turned, caught the girl by the body and, dragging her +with him, pushed past his opponent. + +Breton seized him by the waist, turned him round so that, with a little +puzzled gasp, he half fell, half sat upon the cushioned seat against the +wall. + +Then Breton offered the girl his arm and walked away with her, conscious +that an attendant had arrived rather late upon the scene and was now +abusing the stout gentleman, whilst a sympathetic little crowd listened +and advised. + +He walked down the stairs with the girl. "That _was_ decent of you," she +said. "Most awfully----" + +Beyond the doors the world was a hissing, spurting deluge of rain. + +A cab was called and she climbed into it. + +"What about coming back?" she said. He shook his head. + +"Not to-night. You have a good rest. That's what you want." + +"Well, I _am_ done. Meet 'nother night p'raps----" + +"I hope so," he said politely. He raised his hat and the cab splashed +away. + +"Another cab, sir?" said the commissionaire. + +"No, thanks," said Breton, and plunged out into the rain. The air was +fresh and cool. Streams of water danced and spurted on the gleaming +pavements. + +Breton walked along. The little adventure had swept completely from his +mind his earlier desperate decisions. + +There were still things for him to do! Poor little girl ... he was glad +that he had been there! What a fool he had been all these weeks, sitting +there, letting himself go to pieces because the world had gone badly! +What sort of a creature was he? Well, he was some good yet. Just one +twist of the hand and that man had gone down ... Yes, she was +grateful.... Her eyes had shone. + +And what of the candles, his business? Why had he allowed that to drop +when he had made, already, so good a start? He would be in the City +early to-morrow. Business was humming just now. + +And Rachel? Rachel! + +Let him be content to have her as his ideal, his fine beacon to light +him on, to hold him to his work and do the best that was in him! + +After all, things were for the best. They would always have their fine +memories, one of the other. Nothing to spoil that idyll. + +He arrived, soaked to the very skin, at his door. "Funny," he thought, +"how that thunder depresses one. I've been moody for weeks. Air's ever +so much clearer now. God, didn't that old beast tumble?--Poor little +girl--she _was_ grateful though!" + +Then as he opened the door, he remembered what Christopher had, that +evening, told him. + +"To-morrow," he said to himself, in a fine glow of hope and confidence, +"to-morrow I'll get to work and soon stop that wicked old woman's mouth. +Rachel--God bless her--I'll show her what I'm like...." + +He climbed the dark stairs as though he were storming a town. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +MARCH 13th: RACHEL'S HEART + + "When God smote His hands together, and struck out the soul at a + spark, + Into the organized glory of things, from drops of the dark,-- + Say, didst thou shine, didst thou burn, didst thou honour the power + in the form, + As the star does at night, or the fire-fly, or even the little + ground-worm? + 'I have sinned,' she said." + + ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. + + +I + +Meanwhile Rachel had not spoken to Roddy. Bad though the months had been +since that terrible afternoon at Seddon these days that followed the +Duchess's visit were the worst that she had ever known. + +During the weeks that immediately followed Roddy's accident she was +allowed no line for thought. She discovered--and she never forgot the +sharpness of the discovery--that she was the poorest of nurses. +Everything that she did was clumsily and slowly done; she watched Lizzie +Rand with admiration and wonder. Dimly through the absorption that held +her, thoughts of Francis Breton pierced, but always to be instantly +dismissed. + +Before her was simply the amazing, incredible fact that Roddy, the most +active, the most vigorous of human beings, would never stand upon his +feet again. She could see nothing but Roddy, and no service, no +sacrifice, was too stern or too difficult. Meanwhile subtly, almost +unconsciously, she was influenced by Lizzie Rand. It was not strange to +her that Lizzie should have changed so swiftly from hatred to friendship +and affection. Rachel was passionate enough herself to understand that a +woman will go, instantly, to the person who needs her most, even though +she has hated that same person five minutes before. No, the thing that +was wonderful to her was that Lizzie Rand should combine such feeling +with such discipline. + +To watch her as she moved about Roddy's rooms was to deny to her the +possibility of emotion, of anything that could disturb that efficiency. +And yet Rachel knew ... she had seen depths of feeling in Lizzie that +made her own desires and regrets small and puny things. + +But it did not need Lizzie's power to abase Rachel before Roddy. It +would have been enough for her to have remembered what her thoughts and +intentions had been on that day to have brought her on her knees to beg +his pardon, but when she saw the fashion in which he bore his sentence, +his endurance, his stubborn will beating down any temptation to despair, +she recognized that it was very little of Roddy that she had known +before this crisis. + +Then as the weeks passed and the world settled into this new shape and +form, thoughts of Francis Breton returned to her. She had written to him +soon after the accident, but that was for herself, that she might clear +her mind of anything except her husband, rather than for Breton. She had +considered him whilst she wrote that letter, had seen him as someone in +her old, old life, someone who had stirred her then but possessed now no +power to move her. She wanted him to be happy, but wished never to see +him again; once, long ago, there had been a scene in a room and she had +been carried up to strange and dangerous heights and the world had +tossed and stormed about her--but oh! how long ago that was! How younger +she had been then! + +But, as the weeks passed, that scene drew closer to her and life crept +back into its heart. Sometimes, when Roddy was sleeping and she was +sitting there beside him, and, about her, the house slumbered and the +very birds were still, her heart would beat, beat thickly, her cheeks +would flush, and she would remember that, had it not been for a horse +that stumbled, she might be now far away, leading a life that might be +tragedy, but that was, at any rate, Life! + +She would beat the thought down--she would tell herself what, now, from +this distance, she knew to be true, that she would not have been happy +had she gone with Breton. She remembered that even at that supreme +moment in Breton's rooms when he had kissed her for the first time her +swift thought had been "Poor Roddy!" She knew, with an older wisdom than +she had possessed two months ago, that Breton on his side would not have +held her any more than Roddy, in his so different fashion, could hold +her now. Was she to be always thus, wanting something that was not hers? + +During the weeks that had immediately followed the accident she had +thought that, at last, love for Roddy had really come to her. Then, as +the days threaded their way, she knew that it was not so. He was more to +her, much more to her, helpless and courageous, than he could ever have +been under the old conditions. + +But it was not passion--it was care, affection, even love; she loved +him, yes, but she was not in love with him. He held all of her save that +one part that Breton alone, of all human beings, had called out of her. + +But she had learnt discipline during these weeks--down, down she drove +rebellion, memory. She was Roddy's--she had dedicated her life to his +happiness. + +Then they came to London, Lizzie returned to her mother and to Lady +Adela, and Rachel was alone. Life was again very difficult for her. +Roddy was wonderfully cheerful, but Rachel found that she could not do +very much for him. He liked to have her there, but she knew that many of +his friends who could tell him the town gossip, the latest from clubs, +the hunting and racing chatter entertained him more than she did. She +had not, since her marriage, made many friends and she knew that almost +everyone who came to their little house came for Roddy's sake rather +than for hers. She did not mind that--she was glad that he was +happy ... but she wished that he needed her a little more. Roddy urged +her to drive, to see people, to dine and go to the theatre. She went +because she saw that it disturbed him if he felt that she stayed indoors +for his sake, but she did not enjoy her gaiety. When she was out she +wished to hurry back to him and then, when she was with him again, she +often wondered whether her presence made him any happier. Through all +his intercourse with her she discerned a wistful restraint as though he +would like to ask her for something that he had not got and yet was +afraid. When she felt this in him she redoubled her affection towards +him, but she thought that he noticed this and knew her effort. + +Her thoughts went often now to Francis Breton, not as to anyone whom she +would ever see again--but she hoped that he was happy, wondered whether +there was anyone to look after him, wished that he had some friend so +that she might know that he was safe. Her pride did not allow her to +speak to Lizzie Rand about him; they had had one talk when Lizzie had +taken her letter, but that was all. + +Then, as February drew to a close, she was unwell; that was so unusual +for her that she might have been disturbed had it been anything more +material than headaches, strange fits of indifference to everything and +a general failure of energy. She thought that she was indoors too much +and was now in the air as often as her duties to Roddy allowed her. + +But the indifference persisted. Her feelings for Roddy were an odd +confusion; there were times, when she was away from him, and the thought +of him made her heart beat--"This is love--at last." There were times +again when, as she sat beside him, she could have beaten her hands +against the walls for very boredom and for his impenetrable taciturnity +as he read _The Times_ from the Births and Marriages on the front page +to the advertisements on the last and flung her details--"London +Scottish won their game at Richmond--That Fettes man got over three +times," or "I wouldn't give a button for that horse of old Tranty +Stummits they're all so gone on. You mark my words...." "I'd like to see +that new piece of Edwardes'"--"They've got a girl in it who dances on +her nose--jolly pretty she is, too, so Massiter says. He's been five +times and there's a song about moonlight or some old rot that they say +is spiffin'----" How to adjust this horrible stupidity with the courage, +the humour, the affection, even the poetry that she found in him at +other times? + +There were days when she cared for him with a new thrilling emotion, +something that had in it a quality of curiosity as though he were coming +before her as someone unknown and unexpected. There were other days when +she wondered how he could have remained, through all the crisis, so +precisely the same Roddy. + +Meanwhile between all these uncertainties she lost touch with herself. +It was as though her soul flew, like some bird in a strange country, +from point to point, restless, unsatisfied.... + + +II + +Then those few hurried words with Christopher on the afternoon of the +Duchess's visit flung, at an instant, her whole life into crisis. Even +as the words left him she knew that it was up to this that all her days +had been leading, that at last she was, in very truth, face to face with +her grandmother, that the battle between the two of them had commenced. + +She knew, in those few minutes whilst she stood there, motionless, in +that room, other things. She knew--and this was the first sharp +conviction that struck her heart--that, at all costs, whatever else +might come to her, she must not now lose Roddy's love. Strangely, as she +stood there facing her danger, some warm glow heightened her colour as +she felt from this what Roddy really meant to her. She thought then of +Francis Breton, of his danger if her family understood how implicated he +was with her. It was true that she had, not very long ago, contemplated +running away with him, and surely nothing could have implicated him +more than that, but now that he should suffer and yet not have her, +secured, as his reward for his suffering--that, at all pain to herself, +she must prevent. + +Her first impulse after Christopher had left her was to go down +instantly to Roddy and confess everything. Then she paused. + +Perhaps, after all, her grandmother had not spoken? In that case how +cruel to make Roddy miserable with something that was dead and already +remote. In her heart too was terror lest she should precipitate Breton +into some peril. On every side it seemed to her better that she should +wait and discover, perhaps through Christopher, perhaps by her own +intelligence, what exactly had occurred. + +Four days afterwards, on the afternoon of that day that brought Breton +to dine with Christopher, she had not yet spoken. She had taken no steps +at all; despising herself, afraid for Breton, feeling at one instant +that Roddy knew everything, at another that he knew nothing, ill with +this same lassitude that had hung about her now for so many weeks, +determining at one moment that she would confront her grandmother, at +another that she would go instantly and confess to Roddy. + +Yet Rachel hesitated and did nothing. + +On this close and heavy afternoon Rachel sat up in her little +drawing-room, wondering whether she would wait there for possible +callers, or go down to Roddy, who was being entertained at the moment by +Lord Massiter, or, complete confession of surrender to nerves and +general catastrophe, go up to her bedroom, pull down the blinds and lie +there, hunting sleep. + +The day was intolerably heavy. The windows of the little room had all +been flung open and, through the park, figures wearily dragged +themselves and the waters of the lake lay as though they had fallen, +because of this leaden heaviness, from the grey sky. + +She sat there, listening for every sound, starting at every opening or +closing of a door, thinking that were Lord Massiter not there she would +go down now and tell everything to Roddy, yet knowing in her heart that +if Peters were to come now and tell her that his master was alone she +would not move. + +Peters _did_ come, but it was to tell her that Lord John would like to +see her. Uncle John! She scarcely knew whether she hailed him as a +relief or no. + +"Oh! ask him to come up, Peters, at once. Bring tea here. Lord Massiter +will have his downstairs, I expect." + +Had her grandmother told Uncle John anything? Was his visit in +connection with anything that he had heard? Of all the changes that her +marriage had brought her, that she should have slipped away from Uncle +John was one of the saddest. She loved him as dearly as ever, but +restraint had been there between them, struggle against it though they +might. He was, like Roddy, so ineloquent that anything like a situation +was real agony to him; he could never explain his feelings about +anything and he would eagerly agree with you that it was a great pity +that he had any. What had made this trouble between them? Rachel only +knew that now there were so many things in her life which Uncle John +could not understand. At her heart her love for him was as clear and +simple as it had ever been. + +But oh! Uncle John was glad to see her! His picture of her, as she sat +there, her cheeks flushed, in a rose-coloured dress, with the room as +soft and delicate as a shell around her, filled him with delight: +changes had come to him even since their last meeting. The lines in his +forehead seemed to her a little deeper, his eyes were anxious and his +smile less sure and genial. He wore a beautiful white waistcoat and sat +there, with his chest out, his white hair rising into a crest, looking +exactly like a pouter pigeon. + +"Dear Uncle John! I'm _so_ glad!" + +"Well, my dear, I was just passing. Been to some woman who's got a +party in Harley House. War party, of course, there were characters of +the names of different generals and if you won you paid a guinea to the +War Fund--quite a reversal of the ordinary proceedings. I'm sure, my +dear, I don't know why I went. Well, it was so close that I felt I +couldn't walk back, even to 104, without a cup of tea from you. How's +Roddy?" + +"All right. Lord Massiter's been down there chatting to him ever since +three o'clock. Would you like us to go down and have our tea with +_them_, or shall we stay cosily up here by ourselves?" + +"Why, stay up here of course! You're not looking very well, my dear. +You've not been the thing lately, have you? This business with +Roddy?..." (he took her hand and held it)--"Don't you think it would be +a good thing if you went away for a week or two and had a change?" + +"No, Uncle John dear, thank you. I _am_ tired and I _will_ go away later +on, but just now it would only make me anxious and I should worry about +Roddy." + +Tea was brought. She looked at Uncle John and thought that he had heard +nothing. His guileless eyes smiled back at her; all that she could +discern in him was apprehension lest he should say something to +displease her, to make her angry. Bless his heart, he need not be afraid +of that now! + +As she gave him his sugar she felt that some of the old intimate +relationship between them was creeping back. + +"Of course you heard of grandmother's wonderful visit to us the other +day," Rachel said. "Wasn't it amazing? and Christopher says that she was +none the worse--rather the better." + +"Amazing," said Uncle John very solemnly. "Perfectly astonishing. Your +grandmother, Rachel, is an astounding woman. Just when we were all of us +thinking that she was really not quite so well, quite so fit as she used +to be, she comes along and does something that she hasn't done for +thirty years. I confess I was nervous when I first heard of it, but +Christopher reassured me--said it would do her no harm, and it hasn't." + +"It shows what her affection for Roddy is," Rachel said slowly. + +"And for you, dear," Uncle John said timidly. "I know that you +haven't--well, haven't--that is, weren't always very friendly, but I +hope that now you've come to understand her a little more. She's a +difficult woman. She wouldn't be so splendid if she weren't so +difficult." + +He saw those hard lines that he knew of old strike into Rachel's face. +He shrank back himself, afraid that he had, by one ruthless sentence, +lost all the happy intimacy that had returned to them. + +She had risen and walked to the window. "Dear Uncle John," she said, "I +know you'd like us to be friends, bless you. But you may as well give +that idea up, once and for ever. Grandmother and I--the old and the new +generation, you know. There's never been anything but war and never will +be. Besides, she's never forgiven me for marrying Roddy, although she +arranged it all." + +"Oh! my dear!" said Uncle John. + +"No, it is so. I shouldn't be astonished," she continued bitterly, "if I +were to hear that she thinks that I flung Roddy from his horse and +trampled on him. It would be quite likely." + +Then, suddenly, she came back from the window to the sofa where Uncle +John, looking greatly distressed, was sitting. She leaned down, put her +arms round his neck and her cheek next to his. + +"Uncle John dear. Don't you worry about grandmother and me. That's an +old, old story and it can't alter. The case of us two, you and me, is +much more important. I've been a beast, for a long time, Uncle John. +We've got away from one another somehow and it's all been my fault. I've +been a prig and all sorts of horrid things, and I've let things come +between us. Nothing shall ever come between us again--never." + +He kissed her and his fat body thrilled with happiness. Amongst all the +distressing things that this last year had brought him, nothing had been +more distressing than his separation from Rachel; now the old Rachel had +come back to him again. + +They sat on the sofa there and he talked of a number of things in his +old happy, disconnected way. Some of her apprehension lifted from +Rachel, she forgot the closeness of the day and sat there, happier than +she had been for many weeks. Six o'clock struck and he got up to go. + +"Taking your aunt out to dinner. You going anywhere to-night, my dear?" + +"Yes. It's such a nuisance, but Roddy insists on my going. I'd so much +rather stay with him. It's only a silly little dinner at Lady Carloes'. +She's asked a harpist in afterwards! Fancy, harpist!" + +But Uncle John liked Lady Carloes. She was an old friend of his. "Don't +laugh at Lady Carloes, dear. She's a kind creature, and been a friend of +the family's for ever so long--a devoted friend." + +He stopped suddenly. "By the way, something I meant to have told you." +He dropped his voice. "You needn't say anything about it and I don't +want to worry your grandmother. I'm afraid she wouldn't like it. But the +black sheep is to be restored to the fold." + +"The black sheep?" said Rachel, wondering. + +"Yes," said Uncle John. "Your Cousin Frank Breton, my dear. Your Uncle +Vincent and your aunt and I thought that he'd behaved so well, been so +quiet and steady all this time, that really something ought to be done +about him. It's been on my conscience, I can assure you, for a long time +past. Well, I've written to him. I'm going to see him. Of course it's +better to be quiet about it whilst your grandmother feels as she +does--but in time----" + +Rachel's voice was sharp and rather harsh as she said, "Dear Uncle John, +that _is_ kind of you. I'm so glad. Poor Cousin Frank! I always felt it +unfair." + +John looked at her with one of his supplicating, +"Please-don't-be-hard-on-me" glances. + +Rachel really _was_ strange. She seemed to dislike the idea of Breton's +redemption. He had thought that she would have been delighted. + +She kissed him. "Nothing's ever to come between us again," she +whispered. He pressed her hand. + +"I must just look in upon Roddy," he said, and they went down together. + + +III + +The thought that instantly occurred to her was that she must not allow +Uncle John to talk to Roddy about Breton. She saw some innocent word +falling, like a match into a haystack, and starting immediately the most +horrible blaze. + +There were other thoughts behind that--thought of her grandmother's +actions when she heard of this, thoughts of Roddy's probable decision +about it, thoughts that she, Rachel, might prove to be the one person in +the world who had helped to drive Breton out, thoughts intolerable were +they, for a moment, indulged--but now, as she walked, laughing, +downstairs, with Uncle John, her one urgent resolve was to prevent an +immediate scene. + +She need not have feared. Massiter, stout, red-faced, hearty and stupid, +held the stage. He had been holding it since three o'clock and Roddy's +white face showed fatigue, his eyes were half closed and, although he +smiled, his mind, distressed and exhausted, was far away. + +Rachel's glance at him told her that his visitor had been too much for +him. When she saw Roddy like this she longed to have him alone, away +from all the world, to love him and care for him; although, in hard +fact, when he was worn out, Peters was of more value than she. She +looked at him now, loved him and was also afraid; she hated Lord +Massiter, at this moment, and hoped that he would go. + +He talked in his cheerful voice, as though he were addressing an +assembly in the open air. He spoke of the hunting (pretty rotten), of +the musical comedies (absolutely rotten), of our tactics in South Africa +(rotten of course beyond all words), and of farming on his land in the +country (unspeakably rotten), and was cheerful about all these things. +He knew that he had been self-sacrificing and had spent a whole +afternoon in cheering up "that poor devil, Seddon. Got to lie on his +back all his life, poor chap. Active beggar he was too." + +He overwhelmed Lord John, whom he liked but scorned. "Never takes any +decent exercise, John Beaminster. Always about with a parcel of women." +Finally he departed, carrying with him a faint scent of soap and +tobacco, swearing that it was the closest night he'd ever known and +wiping his red forehead with the air of one who rules this country and +is going very shortly to enjoy an excellent meal. + +Soon Uncle John also departed. + +Roddy, alone with Rachel, faintly smiled and then closed his eyes again. + +"Better go and dress, dear. It's gone half-past six." + +"What on earth did he stay all that time for, roaring like a bull?" she +cried indignantly. "Tired you out. Roddy, dear, I don't think I'll go +out to dinner. I'll send a wire to Lady Carloes." + +"No, you must," he said firmly. "It's too late to disappoint her." + +"It's such an appalling night. I'm not feeling awfully well. I don't +think I could stand one of her dinners. There'll be old Lord Crewner, +old Mrs. Brunning and young somebody or other for me, and I believe +Uncle Richard. I simply couldn't stand it." + +"Aren't you well?" He looked up at her sharply. + +"Not very." Their eyes met; she turned hers away. She was desperately +near to tears, near to flinging herself down at his side and hiding her +head and telling him all. "Wait--wait--perhaps he knows nothing ..." + +Still looking away from him she said, "Oh yes! I must go, of course. +It's only this thunder that one feels." + +She bent down, hurriedly, and kissed him. They said good night to one +another and she left the room. + +Later, in the carriage, she saw his white face and was miserable. She +thought of Breton and that made her miserable too. To everyone she +seemed to bring unhappiness. The stifling evening held a hand at her +throat; the carriage moved languidly along--on every side of her she saw +people listlessly moving as though controlled by an enchantment. She +really was ill. "If I don't look out," she thought, "I shall be +hysterical to-night. I shall just have to hold on and keep quiet. I've +never felt like this before. Fancy being hysterical before Uncle +Richard. _How_ surprised he'd be and how he'd disapprove!" + +In Lady Carloes' small and stuffy drawing-room bony Mrs. Brunning and +Lord Crewner were being polite to one another. One would suppose that it +had been Lady Carloes' intention to gather together into a confined +space as many of her grandmother's possessions as possible. Her +grandmother had known Sir Walter Scott and had Lord Wellington to tea +and spent several days in the country with Joanna Baillie. The little +room had an old faded wall-paper covered thickly with prints, miniatures +and fading water-colours. On the many little tables were scattered old +keepsakes, "bijouterie" of every kind, dragon china, coloured stones and +even an ebony box with sea-shells. There were cabinets and glass cases, +several chattering clocks, nodding mandarins and shepherdesses on the +mantelpiece, a faded illustrated edition of Sir Walter's poems and, +finally, three cats with large blue bows and tinkling bells. All these +things added, immensely, to Rachel's distress; on such an evening this +jumble of small objects rose, like the sound of the sea, and threatened +to throttle her. A fire was burning and only the upper part of one +window was open. Rachel felt that she was in real peril of fainting; +that she had never done, but to-night she had the sensation that at any +moment the floor with its old faded carpet would rise slanting before +her and pitch her into the street. Lady Carloes, more hunched together +than usual, her voice thick and husky and her dress of blue satin, +hurried in. Uncle Richard, untouched by the closeness of the evening, +clean and starched and dignified, made his majestic entry; a young man +from the Embassy, so beautifully dressed that he appeared to have spent +his days in the effort to make his personality of less importance than +his studs and his waistcoat buttons, apologized from behind his shining +collar for being the last of the party. They all went down to dinner. + +Rachel felt, as the young man led her downstairs, that at last she knew +what Panic was. Panic was the state of standing, surrounded by ordinary +everyday things and people, waiting for the bolt to fall, the enemy to +advance, danger to spring, but seeing, in actual vision, nothing to +justify terror. She had reached to-night the climax of months of alarm, +and, during these past days, unbroken suspense. She was at the end of +endurance.... + +How was she ever to compass this horrible meal? The young man was +finding her difficult. She was aware that Uncle Richard watched her and +was expecting her to sustain the family ease and dignity. They were at a +little round table, so that he was able to hear all the conversation. + +"Yes," she said desperately. "I quite agree with you. The lack of +enterprise at Covent Garden is shameful. We want more competition...." + +"So I said to her, 'My good woman, if you really imagine that I'm taken +in by your pretending that that's Dresden'..." + +"Herr Becknet is coming in afterwards," old Lady Carloes said. "You'll +like him, my dear. He plays the harp too wonderfully. I've asked a few +friends to come in. Of course the drawing-room isn't very large, but I +hope----" + +The room was swimming before Rachel. A stuffed bird in a glass case +sailed across the table towards her and the fireplace tottered and +staggered. She was just able to gasp: "Lady Carloes--please--it's this +heat or something----" + +There were cries of agitation. The young man gave her his arm into the +passage, she was surrounded by anxious servants; someone fanned her, she +drank water and was conscious of Lady Carloes' blue satin and Uncle +Richard's shirt-front. + +She knew now what she wanted; she pulled herself together and absolutely +refused Uncle Richard's escort. + +"No, I shall be _quite_ all right--really. No, Uncle Richard, I won't +hear of it. It was silly of me to come out really. I've been feeling +this thundery weather all day. No, Lady Carloes, thank you, I'll just go +straight back and go to bed. I won't hear of anyone coming with me, +thanks. No, _really_ I _am_ so sorry, Lady Carloes. I shall be all right +in the morning. Yes, if you'd call a cab, please. No, Uncle Richard, I'd +rather not." + +She was better. She knew what she wanted. At last the cab was there, but +it was not "York Terrace" that she had commanded, but "24 Saxton +Square." + +It was Lizzie whom she needed. + + +IV + +It was a long drive to Saxton Square. She was better now, but still +strangely unwell, and to open both the windows was of no use: not a +breath stirred, the trees, dark and sombre, were of iron, the lamps gave +no radiance and the sky was black. + +She was terribly frightened, frightened because here in the dark of her +carriage, thoughts of Breton attacked her as they had never done before. +She hid her face in her burning hands; her body was shivering. Breton +was before her as he had been in his room. She felt his hands about +her, his breath on her cheek, his mouth was pressed against hers, her +fingers knew again the stuff of his coat and the back of her hand had +touched his neck.... + +And yet, it was at this moment, with those very memories crowding about +her, that she knew definitely and with absolute assurance, that it was +Roddy, and Roddy only in all the world, whom she now loved. + +Her passion for Breton had been a passion of rebellion, of discontent--a +moment perhaps in her education that carried her from one stage to +another. + +She loved Roddy. She could not trace the steps by which her love had +grown, but affection had first been changed into something stronger on +that day when he had been carried back into his house from whose gates +he had passed, that morning, so strong and sure. Pity had been the +beginning of it, admiration of his courage had continued it, this moment +of this stormy night had struck it into flame-- + +And now, perhaps, in another day or so, she would learn that he had done +with her for ever. + +She sat there, huddled, trembling, her eyes burning, her throat dry. + +Oh! why wouldn't the carriage go faster! If only this storm would come +and that terrible sky would break! She knew that Mrs. Rand and Daisy +were away in the country and Lizzie went out very seldom. She would find +her. She _must_ find her. She shuddered to think what she might do were +Lizzie not at home. + +They were there. Yes, Miss Rand was at home: Rachel went in. + +Lizzie was sitting quietly by the open window, reading. She looked up +and saw Rachel in a dress of black and gold, her face very pale, as she +stood there in the doorway. + +"Lizzie dear--Lizzie." Rachel flung off her cloak, stood for a moment +motionless, then without another word, huddled up on to the sofa and, +her face buried in her arm, began to cry. Lizzie came across to her, +took her hand, and sat there without speaking. + +After a long time she said, "Rachel dear. What is it?" + +Rachel clung to her, holding her fiercely. At last, looking up but away +from Lizzie, she said, "Oh! if you hadn't been here. I don't know--I +simply don't know what--I think it's this night. This awful night. It's +so close and the storm is so long coming." + +"Has anything particular happened?" + +"Yes. The Duchess has told Roddy about--about Francis--or I think she +has. Roddy's said nothing to me, but I ought to speak to him, to tell +him.... I've put it off." + +Lizzie said softly. "You must tell him, Rachel. You know that you must. +It's the only thing. I thought it would come to that sooner or later." + +"But it's more than that. I'm not well. I don't know what it is, but +I've never felt like it before, and it makes me more frightened than +I've ever been. To-night I've been more frightened." + +But Lizzie was thinking. + +"Has your grandmother told many people?" + +"I don't know. I know nothing; that's what makes it so hard. It's all +had a climax to-night. There was an awful dinner at old Lady Carloes' +and it was so hot and stuffy that I nearly fainted. I had to leave. And +then, coming here ..." + +Rachel began to tremble again and, creeping close to Lizzie, she held +her tighter. + +"Lizzie ... in the cab coming here ... Francis ... I had such thoughts. +I couldn't have believed...." + +Lizzie's eyes gazed out into the square, far away--not like a Pool +to-night, Mr. Breton. All hard and cruel and even the Nymph has no +softness. + +She kissed Rachel. "It's the night, dear. When the weather's like this +it affects one. London's awful to-night. There'll be such a storm +soon." + +"But it's worse, Lizzie. I seem to-night to have seen myself as I +am--more clearly than before. My priggishness--talking so much about +Truth and then--the things I do. Roddy, Francis, all the same. I've +treated them all badly. I've been true to no one. I'm no good...." + +"Promise me, dear, that you'll tell him--your +husband--everything--to-morrow. Promise me." + +"But Lizzie, perhaps----" + +"No--no--no. Everything. To-morrow." + +"He'll hate me. He'll----" + +"No matter. You must. To-morrow." + +Rachel was silent. Then she looked into Lizzie's face. "Yes," she said, +"I will." + +Then, with a little sigh, she fainted. + + +V + +When she rose to a realization of life again she was lying upon Lizzie's +bed and the storm had broken over the house. Lizzie was holding her +hand; the thunder roared. Coming with stealthy steps closer and closer, +sometimes to creep stealthily away again, sometimes to break, with +crashing splendour, upon their very heads. + +The lightning flung Lizzie's bedroom into pale brilliance and was gone; +Life leapt into vision, then surrendered to the candle flare, then leapt +again. + +Rachel smiled faintly. She felt around her and about her a great peace. +She knew that all her terror had departed; her one thought now was to +return to Roddy and tell him everything. + +She sat up. "How silly of me to faint. It's a thing I've never done in +my life. How _did_ you get me here?" + +"The maid and I carried you in. It's better for you in here." + +"I think I'll go now, Lizzie dear." + +"Wait a little while." + +They stayed in silence. Then they heard the rain that lashed the +windows. + +"Isn't the rain terrific?... Oh! Lizzie, it's all gone, all the terror, +all that awful fright." She added solemnly, "I don't believe I'll ever +feel like that again. It'll never come back--I'm sure of it." + +Rachel sat silently for a moment, then turned and buried her head in +Lizzie's dress. + +"Lizzie dear, I've been so frightened--of something else." + +"Of what?" + +"I'm going to have a child. I've known it for some time. At first I +wasn't sure. Then I knew. I was frightened and miserable. Then, as with +every day I seemed to grow fonder and fonder of Roddy I became glad +about it. Then very happy----" + +"Oh, Rachel dear, I'm _so_ glad!" + +"Yes. But now, with this, about Roddy it's all dreadful again. If he +should turn on me now just when I've begun to care." + +She sat up in bed, her eyes staring, her hands clutching the clothes. + +"Lizzie, if it _should_ come right!--if it _should_! Just think what a +child would mean for him; he's so brave, lying there all day, making +himself amused and interested. I watch him often and wonder where all +that courage comes from. _I_ couldn't have done it.... But now, if the +child's a boy, he'll be able to put all his old strength and keenness +into _him_--and the Place! Think what it will mean to him to have that!" + +"And for you?" asked Lizzie. + +"I believe it's what I've wanted. Oh! if only things are all right with +Roddy, then I can start again and have some decent pride about it all. +I've made _such_ a mess of things so far." + +They talked for a little. Then Rachel got up and dressed. + +"I'm all right now. Everything seems to have cleared. I'll tell Roddy +everything to-morrow, Lizzie dear." + +"Come and see me as soon as ever you can, won't you?" + +"I will." + +Rachel said good night. She held Lizzie's shoulders. + +"Lizzie, you're wonderful. Don't think I don't know how wonderful you +are. I'll never forget what you've been to-night. And if it's all right +to-morrow. Oh! I _am_ going to be happy." + +"That's all right," said Lizzie. "Don't go and get frightened again." + +"I'll never be so frightened as I was to-night--never." + +"I'm afraid you've got dreadfully wet," she said to the cabman. + +"It don't matter, mum--but it _does_ come down." + +Lizzie stood in the doorway and waved her hand. + +The rain slashed the panes and whipped the shining deserted streets. +Very far away the faint whisper of thunder bade the town farewell. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +MARCH 13th: RODDY TALKS TO THE DEVIL AND THE DUCHESS DENIES GOD + + "Que désirez-vous savoir plus précisément?' + Mais le porte-drapeau répondit: + 'Non, pas maintenant ... apres ...'" + + _A l'Extrême Limite._ + ARTZYBACHEV. + + +I + +That afternoon had been a difficult one for Roddy. He felt, lying so +eternally on his back, the vagaries of the English weather. There were +days when the wind was in the park, when sunshine flashed and flung +shadows, when the water of the pond glittered and every duck and baby +thrilled with life. Then it was very hard to lie still, and memories of +days--riding days and swimming days and hunting days--would persecute +him. But there were dark wet hours when his room seemed warm and +cosy--then he was happy. + +On a day of thunder, like this afternoon, his one desire was to get out; +never had he felt the bars of his cage so sharply, with so intense an +irritation as on to-day. + +Massiter broke the chain of his thoughts and he was glad. Four days now +and Rachel had said nothing; many times he had thought that she was +going to speak, but the moments had passed. He had not slept for two +nights--over and over he turned the question as to what he was to do. + +Had he been up and about, some solution would have naturally come, he +thought, but, lying here, thinking so interminably with one's body tied +to one like a stone, nothing seemed clear or easy. + +This was the worst day in the world to make thinking simple. The leaden +sky pressed one down and held one's brain. + +"I'm goin' to have a jolly bad evenin'," said Roddy, "I know I am." + +Massiter was a relief; there was no need to talk whilst Massiter was +there and his fat cheerful body restored one's balance. The same, +sensible world that had once been Roddy's own and had, of late, slipped +away from him, was restored when Massiter was there. Nevertheless one +hour of Massiter was enough. Roddy could detect in Massiter's attitude +that pity moved him to additional cheerfulness, and this was irritating; +then Massiter's clumsy efforts to avoid topics that might be especially +tactless--that also was tiresome. + +Roddy was glad when Rachel and John Beaminster came down and relieved +him, and then the moment arrived when he thought again that Rachel was +going to speak, and perhaps if he had made a movement of affection he +would have caught her, but always when some expression of feeling was +especially demanded of him did he feel the least able to produce it. + +The whole relationship between them depended on such slender incidents; +one word from anybody and there would be no more confusion or doubt; the +situation had the maddening tip-toe indecision of a dream. + +"I'm going to have a bad time to-night," he thought. "It's no use giving +in to the thing." He faced it deliberately; if only he could think +clearly, but the damned weather.... Well, he and Jacob must face the +night as best they could. + +The dog lay flat near the window, moving restlessly under the close air, +but pricking his ears at every movement that Roddy made, ready to come +to him at any instant. + +"That old dog cares for me more than anyone else does--and I only +appreciated him after I was laid up--Rummy thing!" Roddy was conscious +that high above him, somewhere near the ceiling, hovered a Creature, +born of this damnable evening, and that did he allow himself to relax +for a moment, down that hovering Creature would come. Very faintly, as +it were from a great distance, he could catch its whisper in his ear. +"What's the good of this?... What's the good of this? What did you +always say? What would you have said about anyone placed as you are now? +Better for him to get out." + +"Damn you, shut up...." + +He was in great physical pain, the pain that always came to him when he +was tired out, but that was nothing to the mental torture. Twisted +figures--Rachel, Breton, himself, the Duchess--passed before him, +mingling, separating, sometimes coming to him as though they were there +with him in the room. He had not, even on the day that had told him that +he would never get up again, felt so near to utter defeat as he was now. +He had been proud of himself, proud of his resistance to what, with +another man, might have appeared utter catastrophe, proud of his dogged +determination. "To have the devil beat...." To-night this same devil was +going to be too much for him, did he not fight his very hardest, and the +cruelty of it was that this weather took all one's vitality out of one, +drained one dry, left one a rag. + +"Curse you, get out," he muttered, clenching his teeth, then whistled +and brought Jacob instantly to his side. The dog jumped on to the long +sofa, taking care not to touch his master's legs. Then he moved up into +the hollow of Roddy's arm and lay there warm against Roddy's side. + +"What's the use?" The Creature was close to him, his breath warm and +damp like the night air. "She doesn't care for you. You can see that she +doesn't. She's been in love with her cousin for ever so long, only you +didn't know. Wouldn't she have told you that she was a friend of his if +there had been nothing more than that in it? What a fool you are--lying +here all broken up, simply in the way of her happiness, no good to +yourself or anyone else." + +"I wish the thunder would come and smash you up...." Then, more +desperately, "What if that's right? if I were to clear out...." + +"After all," said the Creature, "you've never before seen yourself as +you really are. You thought that you were all right because you could +use your legs and arms. Now you know what you are--You're nothing--only +something that many people must trouble to keep alive--useless--useless! +Why not?" + +Yes, Roddy did see himself to-night, sternly; as in the old days he +might have looked upon someone and judged him unfit, so now he would +confront himself. "It's quite true. You've got nothing--nothing to show, +you've no intellect, you're selfish, you despise all kinds of people for +all kinds of reasons. You've stood a little pain--so can any man. You'd +better get out--no one will know." + +"Yes," said the Creature, very close to him now. "You can do it so +easily. That morphia that you've had once or twice--an overdose. No one +would suppose.... She would never know, and you'd be rid for ever of all +this wrong and you'd free so many people from so much trouble." + +"Jacob, my son," he whispered, "do you hear what they're saying?" + +He went right down, down to the depths of a pit that closed about his +head, filled his eyes with darkness, was suffocating. + +"Yes, he's beaten," he heard them say. "We've succeeded at last. We've +succeeded...." + +But they had not. + +With an effort of will that was beyond any power that he had believed +himself to possess, he pulled himself up. + +"There's one thing you've forgotten." He gasped as he came struggling +up. + +He took the Creature in his hands, wrung its neck and flung it out of +the window. + +"There's one thing you've forgotten. There's my love for her. That's +strong enough for anything. That's reason enough for living even though +she doesn't want it. I'll beat you all with that ... go back to hell, +the lot of you." + + +II + +"I must never let it happen like that again. What a state this weather +can get one into...." + +But he had come back to his senses. His brain was clear; he could think +now. The great point was that it was of no use to think of himself in +this affair. "Rachel, Rachel's the only thing that matters." + +Then upon that came the decision. "That old woman's got to pay for it. +She's been wantin' to give Rachel a bad time. She's tried to. Her +mouth's got to be stopped _however_ old and ill she is!" + +He was fiercely, furiously indignant with her--vanished, it appeared, +all his affection, the sentiment of years. "I've got to defend Rachel +from her, no knowin' _whom_ she's been tellin'." Roddy still found it +impossible to admit more than one idea at a time, and the idea now was +that "he must stop the old lady dead." + +His brain came round now to Breton, and halted there. What kind of +fellow, after all, was he? What, after all, did Roddy know about him +that he could so easily condemn him? + +To-night, fresh from the battle with the Creature, Roddy's view of the +world was painted with new colours. The man had been condemned for +things that his father had done, and one recognized, here in London, how +difficult it was for a fellow to climb up once he had been pushed down. + +Was the man in love with Rachel? Well, Roddy did not know that he could +blame him for that? ... difficult enough, surely, for anyone not to be. +But _was_ he? What, after all, was he like? + +Then swiftly the answer came to him. See the man.... Talk to him ... +know him. He stared at the idea, felt already new energy in his bones +and a surging victory over the lethargy of this awful evening at the +suggestion of some definite action. + +But see him, yes, and see him here and see him soon. His impatience +leapt now hotly upon him; he pulled Jacob's ears. "That's the ticket, +old boy, ain't it? See what kind of a ruffian this is! My word, but +wouldn't the old lady hate it if she knew?" + +But, and at this the room flared with the thrill of it, why not have her +here to meet him? Confront her with him. + +He was cool now. Here was matter that needed careful handling. Still as +vigorous now as in his most active days was his impatience. Was +something in the way, cobwebs, barriers, obstacles of any sort? Brush +them aside, beat them down! + +Here was a plan. Here, too, most happily at hand, was the Duchess's +punishment. + +All these years had the old lady been refusing to set eyes upon her +grandson, therefore, how dramatic would it be were she confronted with +him unexpectedly. Out of the heart of that meeting would come most +assuredly the truth about Rachel. + +There, in a flash, solid, substantial, beautifully compact, +magnificently splendid his plan lay before him. He would have them +there. Rachel, the Duchess, this Breton, all of them there before him. +They should come ignorant, unprepared, Breton first, then Rachel, then +the Duchess. + +Having them there he would quite simply say that someone had been +pouring into his ears a story of friendship to which he might take +objection. + +He would then, very quietly.... But here he paused. Oh! he knew what he +would do. He smiled at the thought of the success of his plan. + +When he had made his little speech to them all there would never again +be any danger of scandal. The old lady would never again have any single +word to say. + +The thought that Rachel might be angry at his deceptive plot did not +disturb him. When she had heard his little speech she would not say +that--and here, suddenly, he knew how deeply, in his heart, he trusted +her. + +But what if, after all, it should be a lie on the old lady's part? Was +he not doing wrong to take things so far without a question to anyone +else, Christopher or Lizzie Rand? + +But this was Roddy. Here both his pride and his impatience were +concerned. He did not wish that the business should pass beyond its +present bounds. He could not go from person to person asking them +whether they trusted his wife. And then he could not wait. Here was a +plan that killed the danger at one blow, something direct, open, with +sharply defined issues. Oh! Rachel should see how he loved her! + +"All these days," he said to Jacob, "I've been worryin' about her, but I +knew--yes, I knew--that she was comin' to me all right." He thought of a +day long before and of Miss Nita Raseley and of a meeting in the garden. +"I'll show her that I can forgive, too, if it's necessary. Not because I +care so little, but, by God, because I care so much. No," he thought, +shaking his head over it, "she doesn't love me, not yet. But she's +beginnin' to belong to me. She's coming." + +There was also the thought that the Duchess was an old, sick woman and +that the scene might be too much for her strength. "Not she," he grimly +decided, "that's the kind of thing she lives on. Anyway, I owe her one. +Didn't do her any harm comin' to me the other day, won't do her any harm +now. _I_ know her." + +His scheme must be carried out at once. He felt that he could not wait a +moment. He would have liked to have had them all there, before him, +to-night. + +"Why, by this time to-morrow, old boy, it will all be straight. Thank +God, my brain cleared, in spite of this damn weather." + +He rang the bell and Peters, large, solemn, but bending a loving eye +upon his master, appeared. + +"Writing things, Peters." + +He wrote swiftly two notes. + +"Very close to-night, sir." + +"Yes, Peters, very." + +"You're looking better, sir ... less tired. Your dinner will be up in a +quarter of an hour. Nice omelette, nice little bird, nice fruit salad, +sardines on toast." + +"Thank you, Peters, I'm hungry as--as anything." + +"Very glad to hear it, sir." + +"I want these two notes sent by hand instantly, do you see?" + +"Yes, Sir Rod'rick." + +"At once." + +"Yes, Sir Rod'rick." + +Roddy lay back and surveyed the black sky. + +"Nasty storm comin' up--look here, Peters, give me that bird book over +there. That big one. Thanks." + +Peters retired. + + +III + +Meanwhile Her Grace had found this close evening very trying. That visit +to Roddy had not harmed her physically, but had made her restless. The +very fact that it had not hurt her, urged her to have more of such +evenings. Having shown them once what she could do she would like to +show them all again, and yet with this new energy was also lethargy so +that she sat, thinking about her adventures, but felt that it would be +difficult to move. + +Then this thundery afternoon really did drag the strength from her. She +allowed her fire to fall into a few golden coals, she allowed Dorchester +to move her from her high-back chair on to a sofa that was near the wide +window, now flung open. She could see roofs, chimneys, towers of +churches, all dingy grey beneath the leaden sky. + +She lay there, a book on her lap, but not reading; she was thinking of +Roddy. For perhaps the very first time in all her life she regretted +something that she had done. Nobody but Roddy could have called this +regret out of her and now, she would confess it to no living soul, but +she lay there, thinking about it, remembering every movement and gesture +of his, seeing always that, at the end, he had wanted her to go, had, as +her sharp old eyes had seen, hurried her away. + +There had been so splendid a chance, she had shown her love for him so +magnificently that he could not but have been touched and moved had she +only left Rachel alone. Ah! that girl! again, again.... The Duchess +looked at the plain roofs that lay dry and sterile beneath the torrid +sky and wished, not by any means for the first time, that she had left +that marriage with Roddy alone. + +Roddy would have married some other girl, Nita Raseley or such, and he +would have been mine ... mine! + +Hard and utterly selfish in all her ordinary dealings with a world that +she professed to despise but really adored, her love for Roddy was a +little golden link to a thousand softnesses and, as she termed them, +weak indulgences. Why had she loved him so? She was like the grim pirate +of some conventional fiction. See him on his dark vessel surveying with +cold and cruel eye the beautiful captives provided by the stricken ship, +on every side of him! See him select, for the very flavour that the +contrast gave him, some ordinary slave from the crowd to whom he shows +weak indulgence! So much blacker, he feels, does this kindness make his +infamies. + +But the Duchess's career as the dark pirate of her period was swiftly +vanishing; the black hulk of her vessel remained, but upon its boards +only the little slave was to be seen, and even he, with furtive eye, +sought his way of escape. + +Yes, on this torrid evening every soul in that vast city, surely, felt +that he was alone, abandoned, in a desert of a world. But the fear that +she was losing even Roddy brought the Duchess very close to panic. She +had not grasped before how resolutely she had been using him to bolster +up life for her, how important his friendly existence was for her. + +Since his marriage that friendliness had grown, with every hour, +weaker. Something she must do now to repair her error of the other day; +she was even ready to pretend affection for her granddaughter if that +would bring Roddy back to her. + +She watched the sky and longed for the threatened storm to break; her +bones were indeed old and feeble to-day, to move at all was an effort +and, with it all, there was a sense of apprehension as though she were +some terrified bird conscious of the hawk's approach, she who had, until +now, been herself the hawk. She remembered the day when she had realized +more poignantly than ever before, that the hour must come--and indeed +was not far away--when she would inevitably meet death. She had loathed +that realization, attempted to defy it, been defeated by it. Now on this +evening, she suspected again the invasion of that same power. But +to-night there was no resistance in her, she lay there, whitely +submitting to the tyranny of any enemy. She could scarcely breathe; +London, like a scaly dragon, flung its hot breath upon her and withered +her defiance. She would have moved away from the window had not those +grey roofs held her, by their ugly indifference, with a terrible +fascination. "I'm going--I'm going--and they don't care. Just like +that--just like that--long after I'm gone." + +The evening slipped away and Dorchester, coming to her, thought that she +was sleeping; she did not disturb her, but ordered her evening meal to +be kept until she should wake. + +The Duchess did sleep. She awoke to find, in the sky above the now +vanishing roofs, a golden glow and in the room behind her the shaded +lamps, the fire burning, and her table spread. + +But she had had a horrible dream; she struggled to recall it and, even +as she struggled, trembling seized her body as the vague horror that it +had left behind it still thrilled and troubled her. + +She could recollect nothing of her dream except this, that she had died, +and that being dead, she was immediately aware that God awaited her. +She could remember her frantic effort to reassert all those earthly +convictions that had been based on the definite creed that the Duchess +existed but _not_ God. She had still with her the sensation of hurry and +dismay, the dismal knowledge that she had only a moment with which to +break down the discoveries of a lifetime and place new ones in her +stead. + +She had, above all, the horrible knowledge that her punishment was +settled, that at last she was in the hands of a power stronger than +herself and that nothing, nothing, nothing could help her. + +She was frightened, but she knew not by what or by whom. She tried to +tell herself that she had been dreaming, that this breathless evening +was responsible, that she would be all right very soon. But she was +seized by that terrible vague uncertainty that had been with her so much +lately, uncertainty as to what was real and what was not. She looked at +the French novel lying upon her lap; that was real, she supposed, and +yet as she touched its pages her fingers seemed to seize upon nothing, +only air between them. + +The fits of trembling shook her from head to foot and yet she could +scarcely breathe, so close and heavy was the night. + +"That was only a dream--only a dream. Suppose it should be true though. +What if I _were_ to die--to-night?" + +Dorchester came to her and was alarmed. + +"Dinner is ready, Your Grace." + +Her mistress did not answer, but lay there, looking through the open +window and shivering. + +"Your Grace will catch cold by that open window. I had better close it." + +"It's stifling--stifling." + +"Will you have dinner now?" + +"No--no. Why do you worry me? I can eat nothing." + +Dorchester was seriously alarmed; an evening like this might very +easily.... She determined to send word round to Dr. Christopher. + +She went away, gave directions about the dinner, saw that her mistress's +bedroom was warm and comfortable. + +She came back. The Duchess was sitting up, colour in her cheeks and her +eyes sparkling. On her lap lay a note. + +"I've had a dream, Dorchester--a horrid dream. I was disturbed for a +moment. I think I will eat something after all." + +"The way she goes up and down!" thought Dorchester. "Must say I don't +like the look of her--not knowing her own mind, so unlike her--Who's the +letter from, I wonder?" + +It was the letter, plainly, that had done it. Sitting up and enjoying +her soup, forgetting that black sky and the Dragon's scaly menace, the +Duchess knew that that dream--that dream about God--had been as silly, +as futile as dreams always are. + +The note, brought to her by Norris and lying now beside her plate, had +told her so. The note of course had been from Roddy. It said: + + "DEAR DUCHESS, + + I don't want to ask anything impossible of you, but, encouraged + by your coming to me the other day and hearing that you took no + harm from your expedition, I am wondering whether to-morrow + afternoon about five you could come again and have tea with me. + There is something about which you can help me--only you in all + the world. If I don't hear from you I will conclude that you + can come--five o'clock. + + Your affectionate friend, + + RODDY." + +That letter showed the perfection of his tactful understanding.... + +No absurd talk about her age, her feebleness, the weather, but simply it +was taken for granted that of course she would be there. Well, of +course, she _would_ be there--nothing should stop her. She was aware +that Christopher, hearing that to-night she had not been so well, would +certainly forbid her to move. He should, therefore, know nothing about +it, nothing at all. His visit would be paid in the morning--she would +have the afternoon to herself--Norris and Dorchester should help her to +the carriage. + +Christopher expected, on his arrival, to find her in a very bad way, +exhausted by the closeness of the evening: it was possible that he might +have to remain all night. He found her in bed, a lace cap on her head, a +crimson dressing-gown about her shoulders, and all her rings glittering +upon her fingers. An old-fashioned massive silver candlestick with six +branches illuminated the lacquer bed, the black Indian chairs, the +fantastic wall-paper. The windows were closed and the dry heat of the +room was appalling. + +She was in her mildest, most amiable mood, had enjoyed an excellent +dinner, laughed her cracked, discordant laugh, was delighted to see him. + +"Sit down, there, close to me. Have some coffee." + +"No, thank you." + +"Dorchester can bring it in a minute." + +"No, really, thank you." + +"Who sent for you?" + +"Lord John." + +"Yes, I thought so. Pretty state of things with them all hanging round +like this waiting for me to die--never felt better in my life." + +"So I see--delighted. I'll go." + +"Not a bit of it. Stay and talk. I feel like telling someone what I +think of things, although you've heard it all often enough before. But +the truth is, Christopher, I _did_ have a nasty dream--a very nasty +dream--and the nastiest part of it was that I couldn't remember it when +I woke up. + +"But it's the weather--I was frightened for a minute although I wouldn't +have anyone else know." + +"But you had a good dinner." + +"Splendid dinner, thank you." + +She lay back in bed and looked at him; delightful to think that she +would play a little game with him to-morrow; he would in all probability +be angry when he knew--that would be very amusing; delightful, too, to +think that, just when she was afraid that she had seriously alienated +Roddy away from her, he should write and say that he needed her. She +would go to-morrow and would be exceedingly pleasant to him and would +reassure him about Rachel.... + +Yes, she had seldom felt so genial. She told Christopher stories of men +and women whom she had known, wicked stories, gay stories, cruel +stories, and her eyes twinkled and her fingers sparkled and her old +withered face poked out above the dressing-gown, with the white hair, +fine and proud beneath the lace cap. + +Once she said to him: "You think all this queer, don't you?" waving her +hand at the bed, the chairs, the paper. "This colour and the odds and +ends and the rest." + +"It's part of you," he said; "I shouldn't know you without them." + +"I love them," she breathed. "I _love_ them. Oh! if I'd had my way I'd +have been born when one could have _piled_ up and splashed it about and +had it everywhere--jewels, clothes, processions--Ah! that's why I hate +this generation that's coming; the generation that you believe in so +devoutly, it's so ugly. It wears ugly things, it likes ugly people, it +believes in talking about ugly morals and making ugly laws...." Then she +laughed--"It's funny, isn't it? I had to use the age I was born into, I +cut my cloth to it, but what a figure I'd have made in any century +before the nineteenth. All the old times were best. You could command +and see that you were obeyed.... None of your Individualism then, +Christopher." + +She was silent for a time and he said nothing. He was thinking about +Breton, wondering where he was, feeling that he should not have let him +go. She said suddenly: + +"Christopher, do you think there's a God?" + +"I know there is." + +"Well, I know there isn't--so there we are. One of us will find that +we've made a mistake in a few years' time." + +He said nothing. At last she began again: + +"You're sure of it?" + +"Quite sure." + +"So like you--and you get a deal of comfort from it, no doubt. But what +kind of a God, Christopher?" + +"A just God--a loving God." + +"How any doctor can say that truthfully! The pain, the crime you must +have seen----" + +"Exactly. I've known, I suppose, of as much misery, as much agony, much +wickedness as most men in a lifetime. I've never had a case under my +notice that hasn't shown the necessity for pain, the necessity for +struggle, for defeat, for disaster. If this life were all, still I +should have had proof enough that a loving God was moving in the world." + +She lay back, smiling at him. + +"You're a sentimentalist of course. I've heard you talk before. You're +wrong, Christopher, badly wrong. I shall prove it before you will." + +"Well," he said, smiling back at her, "we'll see." + +"Oh, yes, you're a sentimentalist of the very worst--I don't know that I +like you the less for it. I'm an old pagan and it's served me all my +life. Ah! there's the thunder!" + +She sat up in bed, her cap pushed back, her skinny arms stretched out in +a kind of ecstasy. "There! That's it! That's the kind of thing I like! +There's your God for you, Christopher." + +A flash of lightning flung the room into unreality. + +"I'd hoped for one more good storm before I went. I've been waiting all +day for this." + +He never forgot the strange figure that she made; she displayed the +excitement of a child presented with a sudden unexpected gift. + +He himself had known many storms, but, perhaps because she now made so +strange a central figure of this one, this always remained with him as +the worst of his life. He had never heard such thunder and, as each +crash fell upon them, he felt that she rose to it and exulted in it as +though she were a swimmer meeting great ocean rollers. + +There was at last a peal that broke upon them as though it had tumbled +the whole house about their ears. Deafened by it he looked about him as +though he had expected to find everything in the room shattered. + +"_That_ was the best," she cried to him. + +At last she lay back tired, and he bade her good night. + +She held his hand for a moment. "I regret nothing," she said, "nothing +at all. I've had a good time." + +But, after he had left her, the sound of the rain had some personal fury +about it that made her uneasy. + +She called to Dorchester. "I think I'd like you to sleep here to-night, +Dorchester. I may need you." + +"Very well, Your Grace." + +"After all," she thought as, the candles blown out, she lay and listened +to the rain, "that dream may come back...." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +CHAMBER MUSIC--A TRIO + + "A place may abound in its own sense, as the phrase is, without + bristling in the least."--_The American Scene._ + + HENRY JAMES. + + +I + +The storm savagely retreating left blue skies, spring, and the greenest +grass the parks had ever displayed, behind it. Roddy, lying before his +window, watched the pond, gleaming like blue grass but crisped by the +breeze into a thousand ripples. Two babies ran, tumbled, screamed and +shouted, and all the many-coloured ducks, the ducks with red bills, the +ducks with draggled feathers, the ducks in grey and brown, chattered +beneath the sun. + +By midday a note had arrived from Breton saying that he would be with +Roddy at half-past four; there was no word from the Duchess. He knew +therefore that his plan had prospered. But, with those morning +reflections that freeze so remorselessly the hot decisions of the night +before, he was afraid of what he had done; he was afraid of Rachel. + +He was afraid of Rachel because he recognized, now that he was on the +brink of this plunge, how much deeper and more dangerous it might be for +him than he had thought. During these last months he had been slowly +capturing Rachel; that capture was the one ambition and desire of his +life. + +But in the very intensity and ardour of his desire he had learnt more +surely than ever the strange contradictions that made her character. His +accident had increased his own age and so emphasized her youth; she was +ever so young, ever so impulsive; her seriousness was the seriousness of +some very youthful spirit, who, guessing at the terrific difficulty of +life, feels that the only way to surmount it is to close eyes blindly +and leap over the whole of it at once. This was what he knew in his +heart--although he would never have put it into words--as her adorable +priggishness. + +She had found her solution and everything must fit into it, but, since +she had finally resolved it, nothing would fit into it at all--and there +was the whole of Rachel's young history! + +To Roddy one thing manifest was that a very tiny blunder might shatter +the bond that was forming between them, and it was eloquent of a great +deal that, whereas before in the Nita Raseley episode, it had been +Rachel who feared the one false step, it was now Roddy. What it came to +was that, in spite of everything, he was still unable to prophesy about +her. She was still unrealized, almost untouched by him, that was partly +why he loved her so. + +Roddy's brain had been alive last night and ready to grapple with +anything; to-day he felt stupid and confused. "We're in for a jolly good +row," he thought, "far as I can see. There's no avoidin' it. Anyway, +some clearin' up will come out of all of it." + +So intent was he upon Rachel that he scarcely considered the Duchess. He +had not very much imagination about people and made the English mistake +of believing that everyone else saw life as he did. He had, for that +very reason, never believed very seriously in the Duchess's passion for +himself; he liked her indeed for her hardness and resented any +appearance of the gentler motions--"She'll like tellin' us all what she +thinks of it"--placed _her_ in the afternoon's battle. He might have +taken it all, had he chosen, as the most curious circumstance, that he +should be "arranging things"--eloquent of the changed order of his life +and of the new man that he was becoming. + +He lay there all the morning, nervous and restless--Rachel had looked in +for a moment and had told him that she was going to see Christopher, +that she might not return to luncheon. He had fancied that, in those +few moments, he had divined in her some especial thrill--"We're all +going to be tuned up this afternoon." + +If he found--and this was the question that he asked himself most +urgently--that Rachel really had, in the competent interpretation of the +term, "deserted" him for Breton, what would be his sensations? Being an +Englishman he would, of course, horsewhip the fellow, divorce Rachel and +lead a misanthropic but sensual existence for the rest of his days. But +here the wild strain in Roddy counted. That is exactly what Roddy would +not do. What was law for the man must be law also for the woman. + +He had, on an earlier day, told her that were he to present her with a +thousand infidelities, yet he would love her best and most truly, and +therefore she must forgive him. Well, that should be true too for +her.... Any episode with Breton seemed only an incident in the pursuit +of her that Roddy had commenced on that day that he had married her. + +And yet was not this readiness on his part to forgive her sprung from +his conviction that she would have told him had she had so much to +confess to him? Let her relations with Breton remain uncertain and +shifting, then she might have found justification for her silence; let +them once have found so definite a climax and she must have +spoken--Roddy had indeed advanced in his knowledge both of her and +himself since two years ago. + +By the early afternoon he was in a pitiable state. Should he send notes +to the Duchess and Breton telling them both that he was too unwell, too +cross, too sleepy, too "anything" to see them? Should he retire to bed +and leave Peters to make his excuses? Should he disappear and tell +Rachel to deal with them? _What_ a scene there'd be between the three of +them! + +His illness had made a difference to his nerve, lying there on one's +back took the grit away, gave one too much time to think, showed one +such momentous issues. + +On the events of this afternoon might hang all his life and all +Rachel's! + +His capture of her was indeed now to be put to the test!... + + +II + +Rachel came into his room at four o'clock. She carried a great bunch of +violets and a paper parcel. + +She smiled across the room at him; a cap of white fur on her head, and +the hand with the violets held also a large white muff. + +"Roddy--I'm coming to have tea with you--alone. You'll be out to +everyone, won't you? But first, see what I've brought you." + +She was dreadfully excited, he thought, as though she knew already the +kind of thing that awaited her. Her smile was nervous, and that +trembling of her upper lip, as though she would, perhaps, cry and +perhaps would laugh but really was not sure, always told him when she +was afraid. + +"See what I've brought you!" She put the violets down upon the table +beside him--"Now! Look!" She undid the paper and held up to his gaze a +deep, gleaming silver lustre bowl, a beautiful bowl because of its +instant friendliness and richness and completeness--"I found it!" she +said, "staring at me out of a shop window, demanding to be bought. I +thought you'd like it." + +She put it on his table, found water and filled it, then arranged the +violets in it. + +"Oh! my dear! it's beautiful!" he said, and then, with his eyes fixed +upon her face, watched her arrange the flowers. But he brought out at +last, "I'm afraid I can't promise to be alone for tea." + +"Oh!" she stepped back from the flowers and looked at him. They faced +one another, the silver bowl between them. She stood, as she always did, +when she had something difficult to face, her long hands straight at her +side, her hands slowly closing and unclosing, her eyes fixed upon some +far distance. + +"Roddy, please!" she said, "I do want to be alone with you this +afternoon. I have a special, very special reason. I want to talk." + +"You see----" he said. + +"No," she cried impatiently. "We _must_ have this afternoon to +ourselves. Tell Peters that you're too ill, too tired, anything. I'm +sure, after all that storm last night, it would be perfectly natural if +you were. Now, please, Roddy." + +"I'm awfully sorry, Rachel dear. If I'd only known. If you'd only told +me last night." + +"I didn't know myself last night. How could I? But now--it's most +awfully important, Roddy. I've--I've something to tell you." + +His heart beat thickly, his eyes shone. + +"Well, they won't stay long, I dare say." + +"Who are they?" + +"Oh! nobody--special. Friends----" + +"Then if they _aren't special_ put them off. Roddy dear, I beg you----" + +"No, Rachel, I can't----" + +"Well--you might----" For a moment it seemed that she would be angry. +Then suddenly she smiled, shrugged her shoulders--at last, moved across +and touched the violets; then, with a little gesture, bent down and +kissed him. + +"Well, my dear, of course you will have your way. But am I to be allowed +to come or are these mysterious friends of yours too private--too +secret?" + +"Not a bit of it. I want you to come." + +"I'll go and take my things off. I hope they'll come soon; I'm dying for +tea, I've had such a tiring day, and last night----" + +"How was last night? You haven't had time to tell me." + +She was by the door, but she turned and faced him. "Oh! I was so silly. +The weather upset me and I went and fainted at Lady Carloes'." + +"Fainted!" His voice was instantly sharp with anxiety. + +"Yes--in the middle of dinner. _Such_ a scene and Uncle Richard thought +I let down the family dreadfully." + +"I hope you went straight to bed--Ah! that was why you saw Christopher +this morning!" + +"Yes, that was why! No, I didn't come straight back last night--I went +round to Lizzie's--I was frightened and felt that I couldn't come back +all alone." + +They were both of them instantly aware that someone else lived at 24 +Saxton Square beside Miss Rand. There was a sharp little pause, during +which they both of them heard their hearts say: "Oh! I hope you aren't +going to let _that_ little thing matter!" + +Then Roddy said--"Well, dear. I'm jolly glad you _did_ go to Lizzie. I +hate your fainting like that. What did Christopher say this morning?" + +"Oh! nothing--I'll tell you later." + +She was gone. + +When she returned Peters was bringing in the tea and they could exchange +no word. The spring was beginning, already the evenings were longer and +a pale glow, orange-coloured, lingered in the sky and lit the green of +the park with dim radiance. Within the room the fire crackled, the +silver shone, the lustre bowl was glowing-- + +Rachel went across to the table, then staring out at the evening light +said, "Roddy, who _are_ your visitors?" + +Peters answered her question by opening the door and announcing-- + +"Mr. Breton, my lady." + + +III + +She took it with a composure that was simply panic frozen into +stillness. She saw him come, straight from the square immobility of +Peters, out to meet her, noticed that he looked "most horribly ill" and +that his eyes cowered, as it were, behind their lashes, as though they +feared a blow--she saw him catch the picture of her, hold her for an +instant whilst his cheeks flooded with colour, then all expression left +him; he walked towards her as though the real Francis Breton, after that +first glance had turned and left the room, and only the lifeless husk of +him remained. + +For herself, after the word from Peters, her mind had flown to Roddy. He +knew everything--there could no longer be doubt of that--but oh! how she +turned furiously now upon the indecision that had allowed to surrender +her courage and her self-respect! With that she wondered what it was +that her grandmother had told him. Perhaps he believed worse than the +truth. Perhaps he thought that nothing too bad.... + +And what, after all, did he intend to do? This meeting had sprung from +some arranged plan and he had, doubtless, now, some end in view. Had he +meditated some vengeance upon Breton? At all costs, he must be +protected. + +Meanwhile Breton had, apparently, taken it for granted that she had +known about his coming. + +"How do you do, Lady Seddon?" he said, shaking her hand. + +"You don't know my husband," she said quietly. "Roddy, this is Mr. +Breton." + +Breton went over to the sofa and the two men shook hands. + +"How do you do?" Roddy said, smiling. "My word, the feller _does_ look +ill!" was Roddy's thought. He did not know what type of man he had +expected to see, but it was not, most certainly, this nervous rather +pathetic figure with the pointed beard, the white cheeks, the blue eyes, +the armless sleeve, that uncertain movement that invited your +consideration and seemed to say, "I've had a bad time--not altogether my +fault. I'm trying now to do my best. Do help me." + +"Just the sort of feller women would be sorry for," Roddy thought. But +he was rather happily conscious that, although he was lying there +helpless on his back, he was on the whole in better trim than his +visitor. + +Breton, before he sat down, turning to Roddy, said, "I was very nearly +wiring to you my excuses, Sir Roderick. I've been most awfully unwell +lately and all that thunder yesterday laid me up. I got sunstroke once +in Africa and I've always had to be careful since." + +"Jolly good of you to come," said Roddy. "Sorry it was such short +notice. But I can never tell, you know, quite how I'll be from day to +day." + +Breton sat down and the two men looked at one another. To Breton, whose +imagination led him to live in an alternation of consternation and +anticipation, the whole affair was utterly bewildering. He had reached +his rooms, on the night before, soaked to the skin, and had found +Roddy's note waiting for him. It had seemed to him then as though it +were, in all probability, some trick of the devil's, but he had of +course accepted it as he accepted all challenges. + +He had supposed that he would be confronted by a raging, tempestuous +husband. He would welcome anything that would bring him again into +contact with Rachel and he always enjoyed a scene. But he had never, +for an instant, imagined that Rachel would be present. The sight of +her took all calmer deliberation away from him because he wished so +eagerly to speak to her and to hear her voice. + +They were sitting with the table between them and they were both of them +conscious first of Roddy, lying so still and watching them from his +sofa, and then of the last time that they had met and of that last kiss +they had taken. But Rachel, with strange relief and also with yet +stranger disappointment, was realizing that Breton's presence gave her +no spark, no tiniest flame of passion. She was sorry for him, she wished +most urgently that no harm should come to him, she would, here at this +moment, protect him with her life, with her honour, with anything that +he might demand of her, but her emotion, every vital burning part of it, +was given to her retention of Roddy. + +She might have felt anger because she had, as it were, been entrapped, +she might have felt terror of the possible results to herself ... she +felt nothing except that she must not lose Roddy. + +"I know now," she said, perhaps to herself, "I know at last what it is +that I have wanted. And, knowing this, if, just grasping it, I should +lose it!" + +"Tea, Mr. Breton--sugar? Milk? Would you take my husband's cup to him? +Thank you so much. Yes, he has sugar----" + +"I was so sorry," Breton said, "to hear of your accident. You must have +had a bad time." + +"Yes," said Roddy, laughing. "It was rotten! But what one loses one way +one gains in another, I find. People are much pleasanter than they used +to be." + +Roddy, as he looked at them both, had something of the feeling that a +schoolboy might be expected to have did he suddenly find that some trick +that he had planned was having a really great success. + +He was strangely relieved at Breton's appearance, he was more sure than +ever of his retention of Rachel, he had, most delightfully up his +sleeve, the imminent appearance of the Duchess. As he looked at his wife +he could see that she was appealing to him not to make it too hard for +both of them. He could, now that he had seen Breton, flatter himself +with something of the same superiority that Rachel had once shown on +beholding Nita Raseley. + +Breton, as the moments passed, felt firmer ground beneath his feet. +Rachel, wondering how she could contrive their meeting, had chosen this, +the boldest way, had begged her husband to invite him, planned to make +him a friend of the house. And yet with all this new confidence, he felt +too that there was something that he missed in Rachel, some response to +his thrill, he could see that she was ill at ease and was relying on him +perhaps, "to carry it off." + +So he carried it off, talked and laughed about his experiences, the +countries that he had seen, things that he had done, and, as always when +he was striving to make the best impression, made the worst, letting +that note of exaggeration, of something theatrical that was dangerously +near to a pose, creep into his voice and his attitude. + +Rachel and Roddy said very little. He stopped, felt that he had been +speaking too much, and, sensitive always to an atmosphere that was not +kindly to him, cursed himself for a fool and wished that he had never +spoken at all. + +There was a little pause, then Roddy said, "That's very interesting. +I've never been to South America, but I hear it's going to be _the_ +place soon. Everyone's as rich as Croesus out there, I believe. +Another cup, Rachel dear, please--Oh! thank you, Mr. Breton." + +Breton brought the cup to Rachel and then stood there, with his back to +Roddy, his eyes upon Rachel's face, trying to tell her what he was +feeling. Quietly Roddy's voice came to them both. + +"There _is_ one little thing--one reason why I wanted you to come this +afternoon, Mr. Breton." + +Rachel got up, her eyes fixed intently upon Roddy's face. "No, Rachel, +don't go. It concerns us all three." Roddy laughed. "I don't want any of +us to take it very seriously. It is entirely between ourselves. I do +hope," he went on more gravely, "that I haven't been takin' any liberty +in arrangin' things like this, but it seemed to me the only way--just to +stop, you know, the thing once and for all." + +Breton had left the table and was standing in the middle of the room. A +thousand wild thoughts had come to him. This was a trap--a trap that +Rachel.... + +The room whirled about him--he put his hand on to the back of a chair to +steady himself, then turned to Rachel, seeking her with his eyes. + +He saw instantly in her white face and eyes, that never left, for an +instant, her husband, that there was nothing here of which she had had +any foreknowledge. + +"It's only," said Roddy, "that somebody came to me, a few days ago, and +told me that you, Mr. Breton, and my wife were on friendlier terms than +I--well, than I would, if I had known, have cared for----" + +Breton started forward. "I----" he began. + +"No, please," said Roddy. "It isn't anythin' that I myself have taken, +don't you know, for a second, seriously. I have only arranged that we +three should come like this because--for all our sakes--if people are +sayin' those things it ought to be stopped. It's hard for me, you see, +bein' like this to know quite _how_ to stop it, so I thought we'd just +meet and talk it over." + +Roddy drew a deep breath. He hated explaining things, he disliked +intensely having to say much about anything. He looked round at Rachel +with a reassuring smile to tell her that she need not really be alarmed. + +She had left the table and stood facing both the men. Full at her heart, +was a deep, glad relief that, at last, at last, the moment had come when +she could tell everything, when she might face Roddy with all +concealment cleared, when she might, above all, meet her grandmother's +definite challenge and withstand it. + +But, indeed, she was to meet it, more immediately and more dramatically +than she had expected. Even as she prepared to speak, she caught, beyond +the door, strange shuffling sounds. + +The door, rather clumsily, as though handled with muffled fingers, +slowly opened. + +Framed in it, leaning partly upon Peters, and partly upon a footman, +staring at the room and its occupants from beneath the sinister covering +of a black high-peaked bonnet, was the Duchess. + +The old lady caught, for a second, the vision of her grandchildren, beat +down from her face the effect that their presence had upon her, then +moved slowly, between her supporters, towards the nearest chair. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +A QUARTETTE + + "Her dignity consisted, I do believe, in her recognition, + always sure and prompt, of the dramatic moment."--HENRY + GALLEON. + + +I + +Rachel came forward: Roddy from his sofa said something. + +She was, it seemed, unconscious of them all, fixing her eyes upon a +large black-leather arm-chair, settling slowly down into it, dismissing +Peters and the footman with "Thank you--That is very kind": then, at +last leaning her hands upon her ebony cane, raised her eyes and smiled +grimly, almost triumphantly, at Roddy. + +He had been aware, at that first glimpse of her in the doorway, that he +was ashamed of himself. He should not have done it. + +She was older, feebler, more of a victim than he had ever conceived her +possibly to be, and in some way the situation that awaited her changed +her entirely from the old tyrant who had sat there talking to him only a +week ago into someone who demanded of one's chivalry, of one's courtesy, +protection. + +Roddy had also caught the light of fierce recognition that had leapt up +into Breton's face as he had realized who it was that stood before him. +Breton must have many old scores to pay.... Roddy was suddenly +frightened of the emotions, the fierce resentments, the angry rebellions +that he had brought so lightly into collision. + +But the smile that the Duchess flung to him had in it no fear. It said +to him: "Oh, young man, _this_ is your little plot, is it? Oh, Roddy, my +friend, _how_ young you are and _how_ little you know me if you think +that I am in the least embarrassed by this little gathering. I'm glad +that you've given me a chance of showing what I can do." + +She dominated the room; she was, from the minute of her appearance, +mistress of the situation. They realized her power as they had never +realized it before. + +Sitting there, leaning forward upon her cane, she remarkably resembled +Yale Ross's portrait. She was even wearing the green jade pendant, and +her black dress, her bonnet, her fine white wrists, a gold chain with +its jangling cluster of things--a gold pencil, a card case, a netted +purse--these flung into fine relief the sharp white face lit now with an +amused, an ironic vitality. + +She was old, she was ill, she was being trodden down by generations +hungrier than any that she had ever known, but she was as indomitable as +she had ever been. + +She looked about the room; her glance passed, without any flash of +recognition, without sign or signal that she had realized his presence, +over the fierce figure of her grandson. + +"Well, my dear," she said to Rachel, "I'm sure this is all very pleasant +and most unexpected. Let's have some tea." + +"I'm afraid," said Rachel, "that it's been standing some time. Let me +ring for some fresh." + +"No--I like it strong. It used always to be strong when I was younger. +This new generation likes things weak, I believe." + +Rachel, looking at her grandmother, felt nothing of Roddy's compunction. +She did not, even now, grasp entirely Roddy's intention; she had no sure +conviction of the climax that he intended; but she _did_ know that here, +at last, was her chance; she should lift, once and for all, out from all +the lies and confusion that had shrouded them, her attempts at courage +and honesty, attempts that had wretchedly, most forlornly failed. + +Breton should know, Roddy should know, the Duchess should know, and she +herself should never again go back. + +Breton did not move from the corner where he was sitting; he waited +there, his hand pressing hard upon his knee. + +Roddy said, "Most awfully good of you, Duchess, to come out again. I +wouldn't have dared to ask you to come if Christopher hadn't said that +last time did you no harm." + +"Only for you, Roddy," she answered him almost gaily, "and Rachel of +course. To-day's a nice day. All that thunder has cleared the air." + +What her voice must have seemed to Francis Breton, coming back to him +again after so vast a distance, bringing to him a thousand memories, +scenes and faces that had been buried, a whole world of regrets, and +disappointments. + +Rachel gave her her tea; brought a little table to her side. + +"Thank you, my dear. How _are_ you, Rachel? You're not looking very +well. Richard, who came in to see me this morning, told me that you were +ill at dinner last night. He seemed quite anxious." + +"It was nothing, thank you, grandmamma. That thunder always upsets me. I +was sorry to interfere with Lady Carloes' dinner-party." + +"Not much of a party from what Richard told me. And she had in a harpist +afterwards. Why a harpist? Poor Aggie Carloes! Always done the wrong +thing ever since she was a child. Yes, her little drawing-room's so +stuffy, they tell me--must have been intolerable last night." + +It was for all three of them a quite unbearable situation. Roddy had +never, even when he was a boy of sixteen, been afraid of her; now at +last he understood what the power was that had kept her family at her +feet for so many years, indeed, he seemed now to perceive in all of +them--in Breton, in Rachel, as well as in the Duchess--a strain of some +almost hysterical passion, that, held in check though it was, for the +moment, promised to flare into the frankest melodrama at the slightest +pretext. + +Anything better than this pause; he plunged. + +"You won't forgive me, Duchess," he said abruptly. "I believe I've done +a pretty rotten thing. I didn't intend it that way. I only meant just to +clear everything up and make it all straight for everybody, but if I've +been unpardonable just say so and give it me hot." + +He paused and cleared his throat. "I wonder if you'd mind, Rachel," said +the Duchess, "passing me that little stool that I see over there--that +little brown stool. Just put it under my feet, will you? Thank you." + +Roddy desperately proceeded. + +"It's only this. You said the last time you came that you had +heard--that you knew--that you were afraid that Rachel and your +grandson, Mr. Breton, were--had been--seein' too much of one another. +You just put it to me, you know--Well," he went on, trying to make his +voice cheerful and ordinary and failing completely, "lyin' on one's back +one gets thinkin' and broodin', specially a feller who hasn't been used +to it, like me. I got worried--not because I didn't trust Rachel--and +Mr. Breton, of course, all the way, because I do; but simply that, you +know, it's rotten for a feller to be lyin' helpless on his back, +thinkin' that people are talkin' about his wife--you know how malicious +people are, Duchess--and I thought it jolly well must be stopped, don't +you know, and I wanted it stopped quick and straight and clean, and I +didn't see how it was goin' to be stopped unless I'd got us all friendly +together here and just squashed it, all of us. And so--well, to +speak--well, here we are.... And," he concluded, trying to smile upon +everyone present, "I do hope it's all right. It didn't seem then a poor +sort of thing to do, but somehow gettin' you all here as a surprise...." +He broke off, made noises in his throat, and felt that the room was of a +burning heat. + +He remembered, vaguely, that he had designed this meeting as a +punishment to the old lady; he had only succeeded, however, in revealing +his own cowardice; the first glimpse of her had made a poor creature of +him. Oh! how he wished himself now well out of it! And yet, behind that +thought was the knowledge of the little speech that he was soon to make +and the way that, with it, he would win Rachel and hold her for ever! +After all, it came to that, absolutely: Rachel was the only thing in all +the world that mattered. + +The Duchess flung upon him a kindly satiric glance, then, turning from +him, bent her sharp little eyes upon Rachel, leaning forward upon her +cane so that it appeared that it was now only with Rachel that she had +any concern. + +"Had I known that my few careless words!"--She broke off with a little +impatient gesture. + +"Ah! Rachel, my dear, I'm truly sorry. My stupidity...." + +But Rachel, her eyes upon Roddy, had got up, had moved across to Roddy's +sofa, and stood there, above him. Her eyes moved, then, slowly to her +grandmother. + +"There was no need," she said, her voice low and trembling, "for this. +If I'd done, as I should, it couldn't have happened. I'm responsible for +all of it and only I. Roddy _has_ got you here on false pretences, +grandmamma. If you'd rather go now...." + +"Thank you," the Duchess said, "I'd much rather stay. It amuses me to +see you all together here." + +"Then," said Rachel, "I'll say what I ought to have said +before. Roddy," turning passionately round to him, "you shall +have everything--everything--from the very beginning. Mr. +Breton--Francis--will agree that that's what we should have done--long +ago." + +Breton made a movement as though he would rise, then stayed. + +"Aren't we, my dear Rachel," said the Duchess, "making a great deal of a +very small affair?" + +But Rachel, speaking only to Roddy, sinking her voice and bending a +little down to him, began, "Roddy, one thing you've got to know--it's +been from the beginning only myself that was to blame. Francis"--she +paused, for an instant, over the name--"Francis, please," as he moved +again from his corner, "let _me_ tell Roddy...." + +She went on then more firmly, turning a little round to her grandmother +again: "Roddy, I don't want to defend myself--it's the very last thing I +can try to do--I only want to tell you--all three of you--exactly the +truth. You know, Roddy, that when I said I'd marry you it wasn't a +question of love between us at all. We had that out quite straight from +the beginning. I was awfully young: I wanted safety and protection and +so I took you. You rather wanted me, and grandmother wanted you to marry +me, and so there you were too. Then I met my cousin--I'd heard about him +since I'd been a baby and he'd heard about me. We had a lot in common, +tastes and dislikes--all kinds of things. We met and he stirred in me +all those things that you, Roddy, had never touched. I had found +marriage wasn't the freedom I had thought that it would be. I was fond +of you, you were fond of me, but there was something always there +jogging both of us--just putting us out of patience with one another. +Things got worse. You never could explain what you felt. I tried, but +the whole trouble wouldn't go into words somehow. + +"Francis and I wrote to one another a little and then one day--as +grandmamma has so kindly told you--(here her voice was sharp for a +moment)--I went to his rooms." Rachel stopped. She was looking straight +in front of her, her hands clenched. She seemed to dive deep for +courage, to remain for an instant struggling, then to rise with it in +her hands. Her voice was strong and unfaltering. "We found that we loved +one another. We told each other ... it seemed to Francis then that the +only thing was for us to go away together. But I refused. Odd though it +may seem, Roddy, I cared for you then more than I'd ever cared for you +before, and I think it's gone on since then, getting stronger always. I +wouldn't go and I wouldn't see Francis again and we weren't to write +again--unless I found that our living together, Roddy--you and I--was +hopeless. Then I said I'd go to him." + +Her voice sank and faltered--"There did come a day when I thought +that--we couldn't get on any longer. You know what finally ... Lizzie +Rand found out. She knew that I intended to go away with Francis. She +fought to prevent it--she was splendid about it, splendid! We +quarrelled, and in the middle of it, came your accident.... I wrote +afterwards to Francis and told him that it was all over--absolutely--for +ever. Since then--only once...." She broke off, recovered: "Since then +there's been nothing--no letter, no meeting--nothing. My whole life now +is wrapped up in you, Roddy, and Francis knows that. I've told you the +whole truth!" She turned from him, fiercely, round to her grandmother. +"I don't know what _you_ told Roddy, what you made him believe--you've +wanted, always, to harm me with Roddy if you could. At least, now, you +can't tell him more than I've done." + +The Duchess stared first at Rachel, then at Roddy. She had behaved from +the beginning as though Breton did not exist. + +Some of her amiability had left her. Her lips were tightly drawn +together as she listened and her rings tapped one against the other. + +"This is all rather tiresome," she said sharply. "Very like you, Rachel, +to do these things in public. You get that from your mother. But you're +strangely lacking in humour. It all comes from my own very unfortunate +remark the other day. Not like you, Roddy dear, to arrange this kind of +thing. Stupid ... distinctly--I'm sure now, however, that you're +satisfied. Rachel's certainly been very frank--and now perhaps we might +leave it." + +It was then that Francis Breton came forward into the middle of the +room, his face grey with anger, something suddenly unrestrained and +savage in his eyes so that the room was filled with a wind of angry +agitation. + +He stood in front of his grandmother, but turned his head, sharply, now +and again, round to Roddy. So agitated was he that his words came in +little gasps, flung out, in little bundles together, and strangely +accented as though he were speaking in a language that was strange to +him. + +The sarcastic smile came back into the old lady's eyes and she leaned +forward on her stick again, looking up into his eyes. + +"I didn't know--I didn't know--that we were going to meet like this. You +didn't know either or you wouldn't have come, but I've been waiting for +years for this. It's been nice for me, hasn't it, to sit by whilst +you've done everything to make things wretched for me, to ruin me, to +push me back to where...." + +Roddy's voice interrupted. + +"Mr. Breton, I think you forget----" + +Instantly Breton stopped. He forced control upon his voice, he +stammered, "I'm ashamed--I oughtn't to have--But sitting there--not +being allowed to speak--you must excuse me----" + +He turned round to Roddy. "You must think me the most complete +blackguard. It's only a climax to everything that's happened since I +came back. I don't want to defend myself, but it isn't--it isn't all so +simple as just talking about it makes it look. You're the kind of man to +whom everything's just black or white--you do it or you don't--but +I--I've never found that. I've been in things without knowing I've been +in them. I've done things that would have turned out straight for any +other fellow, but they've always been crooked for me. Something always +blinds me just when I need to see straightest. That's no excuse, but +it's an awful handicap. + +"I won't hide or pretend about it. Why should I? I loved Rachel. We've +only met so little--really only that once in my rooms--that you can't +grudge us that. We had things--heaps of things--in common long before +we knew one another. It wasn't like any ordinary two people meeting, and +I knew so well that she could make all the difference to my life that I +took the chance of knowing her even though she wasn't ever going to +belong to me. I don't think I ever really believed that I'd be the man. +I know now that she's yours altogether and you ought to have her--now +that I've seen you I know that. And last night when I faced the fact +that I'd have to go all my life without her I realized what she told me +long ago, that it was much better just to have my idea of her and not to +have had my regret about having spoiled anything for her. I've no +confidence in myself, you see. If I thought I were the kind of man just +to carry her off and make her happy for ever and ever, then I suppose +I'd have been bolder about her long ago, but I know, even if she didn't +belong to you at all, that I should be afraid that I'd spoil her life +just as I've always spoiled my own. + +"I expect this is all very confused. It's all so difficult and you don't +want long explanations, but I'm only trying to say that you needn't ever +have any fear again that I'm going to step in or try to have any part in +her. We've got our things together that nobody can take from us. We've +seen each other so little that most people would say it wasn't much to +give up. But things don't happen only when you're together...." He +stopped suddenly, seemed to stand there confused, turned and flung a +fierce, defiant look at his grandmother--exactly the glance that an +angry small boy flings at someone in authority who has seen fit to +punish him--then went back to his corner and stood there in the shadow, +watching them all. + +Even as he finished speaking he had realized finally that his +relationship with Rachel was over, closed, done for. He had known it on +that afternoon in the park--He had realized it perhaps again in the +heart of the storm last night, but now, when he had seen the soul +pierce, through Rachel's eyes, to her husband, he knew that Roddy, one +way or another, had at last won her. + +Moreover, to anyone as impressionable as Breton, Roddy's helplessness, +his humour, his bravery had, on the score of Roddy alone, settled the +matter. Breton had his fierce moments, his high inspirations, his noble +resolves!... Now, as he looked this last time upon Rachel, his was no +mean spirit. + +Rachel drew a sharp breath and looked at Roddy with wide eyes, flooded +with fear. He had heard now everything that they had to say; although +she had watched him so closely she could not say what he would do. As +she saw the two men there before her she felt that she knew Francis +Breton exactly, that she could tell what he would say, how he would see +things, what would anger him or surprise him. + +But about Roddy she was always uncertain: she was only now, very slowly, +beginning to know him, but she was sure that if Roddy were to beat her +she would care for him the more, but if Francis Breton were to beat her +she would leave him for ever. + +A flush meanwhile was rising over Roddy's neck, up into his face, to the +very roots of his hair. + +"It's rather beastly," he said, speaking very slowly and trying to +choose his words, "all this talkin'. I might have known, if I'd been +able to think about it, what it would be like, but there, I never did. I +had a kind of idea that we'd all get it over sort of in five minutes and +then have tea, don't you know, and all go away comfortably. I don't feel +now that you've rightly got all that everybody thinks about it. It was +very decent of you, Mr. Breton, to say exactly--so plainly, you +know--how you felt. But I don't want to talk a lot--I can't you know, +anyhow. + +"It's only this. I wanted the Duchess to hear me say, amongst ourselves, +that I know _all_ about it, that we _all_ know all about it and that +there isn't anything for anyone to talk about because there isn't +anything in it, and if I hear of anyone sayin' a word they've just got +to reckon with me. Rachel and I know one another and, Mr. Breton, I hope +you'll go on bein' a friend of ours and come and see us often. Of course +you and Rachel have a lot in common and it's only natural you should +have. + +"Now Duchess, you can just tell anyone who's talkin' that Mr. Breton is +welcome here just as often as he pleases and he's a friend of mine and +my wife's--and they can jolly well shut their mouths. Thank God, all +_that's_ over." + + +II + +But he was very swiftly to realize that it was _not_ all over. Sharply, +quivering through the air like an arrow from a bow, came the Duchess's +words. + +"Good God, Roddy, are you completely insane?" + +She was twisted, distorted with anger, she seemed to take her rage and +fling it about her so that the chairs, the tables, Roddy's innocent +little sporting sketches and even the case of birds' eggs were saturated +with it. + +The gleaming park, the peaceful evening sky, the sharp curve of an +apricot-tinted moon, these things were blotted out and the noises of the +town deadened by this indignant fury. Rachel had known it in other days, +to Breton it evoked long-distant nursery hours, to Roddy it was +something utterly new and unsuspected. For the first time in his life he +caught a shadow of the terror that had darkened Rachel's young days. + +To the Duchess it was simply that she now clearly discovered that she +was the victim of an elaborate plot. The three of them! Oh! she saw it +all! and Roddy, Roddy--who had been the one living soul to whom her hard +independence had made concession! This came, the definite climax to the +year's accumulations, the final decision flung at her, before she died, +by those two--Rachel and Breton--from whom, of all living souls, she +could endure it least. + +With her rage rose her fighting spirit. She would show them, these young +fools, the kind of woman that an earlier and a finer generation than +theirs could produce! + +They had more there before them than one old woman, sick and ailing, and +they should see it. + +Her voice shook a little, but she gave no other sign, after that first +challenge: her little eyes flamed from the mask of her face like candles +behind holes in a screen. + +"This is your sense of fun, Roddy, I suppose," she said. "You always +_were_ lacking in that. I've told you so before. As you asked me here I +suppose you're ready for my opinion. You shall have it. I'll only ask +you to cast your eye over any friend of ours: see what you would say if +this--this idiotic folly committed by someone else had come to your +ears. I suppose you'd arranged this, the three of you. Well, you shall +know what I think. Your tenderness to Rachel is magnificent--she has +obviously reckoned on it, knew that her frankness would serve her well +enough. You've already been more patient with her than men would have +been in my day. I only hope that your patience may not be too severely +tried.... + +"As for my grandson, to whom you have so tenderly entrusted Rachel, your +acquaintance with him is quite recent, is it not? I am sure that if you +were to enquire of any man at one of your clubs he would give you quite +excellent reasons for my grandson's long unhappy absence from his +relations and his country. At any rate you don't know him as well as I +do. I could tell you, if you asked me, that it is a long time now since +any decent man or woman has sought his society. Do you suppose that his +family have not the best of reasons for trying to forget his +existence--an attempt that he makes unpleasantly difficult? + +"Have you heard _nothing_, Roddy? Do you really want a man who has been +kicked out of society for the most excellent reasons, who has disgraced +his name as no member of his family has ever disgraced it before him, +for your wife's lover? If she must have one...." + +Rachel, trembling, had come forward, Roddy had cried out, but quietly, +stronger than either of them, Breton had faced her. She had not, +throughout the afternoon, looked at him nor spoken one word to him. Now, +her anger carrying her beyond all physical control, she was compelled to +meet his gaze. + +He stood very quietly beside her chair, looking at the three of them. +"My grandmother is wrong," he said, "I am not quite as deserted as she +thinks. Just before I came here this afternoon Uncle John called upon +me. I had half an hour's very pleasant talk with him: he told me that, +although his mother had not altered her opinion of me, Uncle Vincent and +Aunt Adela and himself considered that I had earned"--he smiled a +little--"forgiveness. He hoped that I would understand that--while my +grandmother was alive--I could not be invited to 104 Portland Place, but +that he thought that I would like to know that they had realized +my--well, improvement, and that he hoped that we would be friends. I +said that I should be delighted." + +The Duchess spoke to him then, her voice shaking so that it was +difficult to catch her words. + +"John--came--said that--to _you_?" + +"Yes. It was a curious coincidence that to-day----" + +Her eyes had dropped. She murmured to herself: + +"John ... John ... Adela ... behind my back ... Adela ... Vincent----" + +They were all silent. She sat there, her head down, leaning on her +hands, brooding. Her anger seemed to have departed, her fire, her fury +had fled: she was a very old woman--and the room was suddenly chilly. +Before her were Rachel and Breton: they faced the ancient enemy. But as +Rachel stood there, realizing that there had flashed between them the +climax of all their lives together, yes, and a climax of forces greater +and more powerful than anything that their own small histories could +contain, she had no sense of drama nor of revenge nor of any triumphant +victory. A little while before she had been almost insane with anger.... +Now something had occurred. Rachel only knew that the three of +them--Roddy, Francis and herself--were young and immensely vigorous, +with all life before them; but that one day they would be old, as this +old woman, and would be deserted and sick and past anyone's need of +them. + +"Oh! I wish we hadn't! I wish we hadn't!" she thought. + +In that moment's silence they all might have heard the sound of the +soft, sharp click--the click that marked the supreme moment of their +relationship to the situation that had, for all of them, been so long +developing-- + +Breton surrendered Rachel, Roddy received her, and, beyond them all, the +Duchess definitely abandoned her world. + +For them all, grouped there so closely together, the heart of their +relations the one to the other had been revealed to them. + +Other dramas, other comedies, other tragedies--This had claimed its +moment and had passed.... + +After the silence the Duchess said, "My family--I no longer...." She +stopped, collected, with all her will, her words, then in a low voice +said, looking at Breton, "I owe you, I suppose--an apology. I owe that +perhaps to you all. My children are wiser in their own generation. I no +longer understand--the way things go--all too confused for my poor +intelligence." She pulled herself together as an old ship rights itself +after a roller's stinging blow. "This has lasted long enough.... We've +all talked--My family are--wiser--it seems." + +But she could not go on. "Please, Roddy," she said at length, "I think +it's time--if you'd ring." + +"I'm sorry----" he said and then stopped. + +Soon Peters and a footman appeared. She leaned heavily upon them and, +staring before her at the door, slowly went out. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +RACHEL AND RODDY + + "Tell me, Praise, and tell me, Love, + What you both are thinking of? + O, we think, said Love, said Praise, + Now of children and their ways." + + WILLIAM BRIGHTY RAND. + + +I + +Breton had gone; the room was empty. + +Rachel came and, kneeling on the floor, hid her face in Roddy's coat. He +put his hands about hers. + +His only desire now was that there should be peaceful silence. His +hatred for scenes had always been with him an instinct, natural, alert, +untiring, so that he would undertake many labours, forgo many pleasant +prizes, if only emotional crises might be avoided. + +This afternoon had showered upon him a relentless succession of +reverberating displays, he had perceived one human being after another +reveal quite nakedly their tumultuous feelings. It was, for him, +precisely as though the Duchess, Rachel, Breton had stripped there +before him and expected him to display no astonishment at their so +doing--that he should have been the author of the business made it no +better; he reflected that he had even looked forward with excitement to +the affair. "If I had only known how beastly...." + +He was ashamed--ashamed of his own action in provoking these things, +ashamed of his own lack of understanding, ashamed to have watched the +sharpened tempers of his friends. + +He would never, Heaven help him, take part in any such scene again! + +But out of it all one good thing had come--he had got Rachel! As she +had looked across the room, meeting his eyes, he had known that at last +his long pursuit of her was at an end.... + +It never occurred to him that most husbands, after such a declaration as +Rachel had just made, would have stormed, reproached, ridden, for a long +time to come, the high horse of conscious superior virtue. + +It did not seem odd to him that at the very moment of Rachel's +confession he should feel more sure of her than he had ever been before. +At last the Nita Raseley debt was paid off. At last he knew, beyond +question, that Rachel loved him. Best of all, perhaps, he had seen +Breton and felt his own superiority. + +That being so, he wanted no words about the matter. He would like to lie +there on his sofa, with her hands enclosed in his and nothing said +between either of them--very pleasant and quiet there in the dusk. He +hoped that he would never again have to explain anything or speak to +anyone about his feelings--no, not even to Rachel. + +Then he discovered that she was sobbing as she knelt there, and his face +crimsoned with confusion and alarm. Rachel, the proudest woman he had +ever known, kneeling to him, crying! + +He tried to lift her, pressing her hands. + +"Rachel dear ... Rachel."--Her words came between her sobs. + +"I should have told you ... long ago ... I tried to--I did +indeed ... but it was because I was frightened ... because I ... Oh! +Roddy! you'll never trust me again!" + +He was burning hot with the confusion of it: he was almost angry both +with himself and her. + +"Please, Rachel ... please ... don't ... it's all over, dear. There's +nothing the matter." + +"It's fine of you ... to take it like that ... But you'll never forgive +me, really, you can't--It isn't possible. This very afternoon ... I was +going to tell you--if all this ... hadn't happened. You'll be different +now--you must be ... just when I want you so much." + +He glanced in despair about the room. He looked at the sporting prints +and the case of birds' eggs and at last at Rachel's photograph. How +proud and splendid she was there! This dreadful abasement! + +He stroked her hair. + +"See here, old girl--we've had a rotten afternoon, haven't we? Awfully +rotten--never remember to have spent a worse. All my fault, too--poor +old Duchess!... but look here, it's all right now. I understand +everythin' and--and--dash it all--do stop cryin', Rachel, old girl." + +"It's been bad enough," she said, her voice steadier now, "the +way I've been to you all this time, but I thought--at least--I was +honest--I've tried--I've made a miserable failure--But, Roddy, you +need--never--never--be afraid of anything again--I'm yours altogether, +Roddy, to do anything with.... + +"All about Francis--I was mad somehow--It was grandmamma--feeling she +had driven me into marrying you. And then Nita ... and then I didn't +know you a bit--all there was in you--but now," and she raised her eyes +and looked at him, "I love you with all my heart and soul and strength." + +He bent down his head and rather clumsily kissed her. + +"You know, Rachel, I was a bit frightened myself this afternoon--thought +you might be angry because I took you by surprise. You bet, if I'd known +what it was going to be like ... Well, thank the Lord, it's done, and +we'll never have another like it--I'll see to that. Scenes are rotten +things, aren't they?--I always loathed 'em even when I was tiny--so did +the governor.... If he had me up for lickin' all he ever said was, 'Down +with your bags!' That was all there was about it." + +She leant her cheek against his. + +"You've forgiven me all, everything--absolutely?" she asked. + +"There isn't any forgiveness in it," he answered. "It's all the other +way, if it's anythin'.... You see, I've been thinkin' a lot while I was +lyin' here. When there was that business over Nita I said you should +always be free just as I told you I ought to be. Well, since--since I +got that old tumble--I haven't any right to hold you at all. I'm just an +old log here, no good, anyway, and only a nuisance. And if I thought I +was keepin' you tied I'd be miserable. You see, I know you're fond of me +now. I've got that.... Don't let's talk any more about it. You've got me +and I've got you--and we aren't afraid of any old woman in the world." + +He held her closely to him, his arms strong about her. + +"There's something else to tell you." + +"Something else?" + +"Yes. We're going to have a child, you and I, Roddy. And now that you've +forgiven me it's all right--but that's partly what's made me afraid all +these last weeks. As it is, you've got me, got me, got me, safe for ever +and ever!" + +"Well, I'm damned!" said Roddy. + +She could feel his hand trembling upon hers. + +"Oh," she whispered, "I was frightened this afternoon--terrified. I +thought you'd never see me again." + +Roddy was turning things over in his mind. + +"A kid ... my word. Just the thing. A boy ... it'll be jolly for the +Place and I can teach him a lot. It'll be somethin' to go back to the +house for. Gosh! There's news!" + +His eyes wandered round the room. + +"Good thing I kept all those eggs--nearly broke 'em up too. They're a +jolly fine collection. I'd have prized 'em like anything if they'd come +to me when I was small." He caught her hand so fiercely that she gave a +little cry. + +"What a day! We'll have to see about the shootin' down at Seddon again, +old girl ... Lord, what an afternoon!" + + + + +CHAPTER X + +LIZZIE BECOMES MISS RAND AGAIN + + "So she put the handkerchief, and the pin, and the lock of hair + back into the box, turned the key, and went resolutely about + her everyday duties again."--Mrs. Ewing. + + +I + +Lizzie was waiting for Lady Adela. She had finished her work for the +day, had come from her own room to Lady Adela's and now stood at one of +the high windows looking down upon the April sunshine that coloured the +dignities of Portland Place. + +The room was spacious and lofty, but curiously uncomfortable and +lifeless. High book-cases with glass shutters revealed rows of +"Cornhill" and "Blackwood" volumes, a long rather low table covered with +a green cloth held a silver inkstand, a blotting-pad, pens and a +calendar. There were stiff mahogany chairs ranged against the wall and +old prints of Beaminster House (white-pillared, spacious with sloping +lawns) and Eton College chapel faced the windows. + +This was where Lady Adela spent several hours of every morning and she +had never attempted to "do" anything with it. A large marble clock on +the mantelpiece ticked out its sublime indifference to time and change. +"We're the same, thank God," it said, "as we've always been." + +Lady Adela had told Lizzie that she would come in from a drive at +quarter to four and she would like then to speak to her. + +Lizzie's eyes were fixed upon Portland Place, deserted for the moment +and catching in its shining surface some hint of the blue sky above it. +There was a great deal just then to occupy her thoughts. Ten days ago, +in the middle of a little dinner-party that Lady Adela was giving, +upstairs the Duchess had had a stroke. Lizzie had, of course, not been +there, but, coming next morning she had been told of it. Her Grace was +soon well again, no unhappy effects could be discovered, she had not, +herself, been apparently disturbed by it, but it had rung, like a +warning bell, through the house. "The beginning of the end.... We've +been watching, we've been waiting--soon these walls will be ours again," +said the portraits of those stiff and superior Beaminsters. + +News ran through the Beaminster camp--"The Duchess has had a stroke.... +The Duchess has had a stroke." + +But, for many weeks now, Lizzie had been aware that some crisis had +found its hour. Rachel and her husband, Lady Adela and Lord John, even +the Duke and Lord Richard had been involved. It was not her business to +ask questions, but every morning that saw her sitting down to her day's +work saw her also wondering whether it would be her last in that +house.... + +Lady Adela, however sharply she may have changed in herself, had never +permitted her relationship to Lizzie to be drawn any closer. When Lizzie +had returned from that terrible Christmas at Seddon, Lady Adela had +asked her no questions, had shown no sign of human anxiety or +tenderness. She had never, during all the years that Lizzie had been +with her, expressed gratitude or satisfaction. She had, on the other +hand, never bullied nor lost her temper with her. She had separated +herself from all expression or human emotion. And yet Lizzie liked her. +She would miss her when their association ended: yes, she would miss +her, and the house and the whole Beaminster interest when the end came. + +She wondered, as she stood at the window, whether that old woman +upstairs were suffering, what her struggle against extinction was +costing her, how urgently she was protesting against the passing of time +and the death of her generation. Flying galleons of silver clouds caught +the sun and Portland Place passed into shadow; the bell of the Round +Church began to ring. "Poor old thing," thought Lizzie; she would not +have considered her thus, a year ago. + +Lady Adela came in; she reminded Lizzie of Mrs. Noah in her stiff wooden +hat, her stiff wooden clothes, her anxiety to prevent any mobility that +might give her away. She looked, as she always did, carefully about the +room, at the "Cornhills" and "Blackwoods," at the marble clock, at the +prints of Beaminster House and Eton College Chapel, a little as though +she would ascertain that no enemy, no robber, no brigand, no outlaw, was +concealed about the premises, a little as though she would say--"Well, +these things are all right anyway, nothing wrong here." + +"I'm sorry, Miss Rand," she said. "I hope that I haven't kept you." + +"No, thank you, Lady Adela, I have only just finished." + +Lady Adela sat down; they discussed correspondence, trivial things that +were, Lizzie knew, placed as a barrier against something that frightened +her. + +At length it came. + +"Miss Rand, I wonder whether--the fact is, my mother has just decided +that she wishes to be moved to Beaminster House. I must of course go +with her. I hope that this will not inconvenience you. You can, if you +prefer not to leave your mother, come down every day by train; it only +takes an hour. Just as you please...." + +Lizzie's heart was strangely, poignantly stirred. The moment had come +then; the house was to be deserted. This could only mean the end. She +herself would never return here, her little room, the large solemn +house, that walk from Saxton Square, the Round Church, the Queen's Hall, +Regent's Park.... + +But she gave no sign. + +Gravely she replied: "I think I'd better come down with you, Lady Adela, +if you don't mind. My mother has my sister. Perhaps I might come up for +the week-ends." + +"Yes. That would be quite easy. The other places, you know, are let, +but Beaminster has always been kept. The Duke has been there a good +deal. It reminds me ... I was there for some years as a girl." + +Lizzie realized that Lady Adela was very near to tears; she had never +before seen her, in any way, moved. She was distressed and +uncomfortable. It was as though Lady Adela were, suddenly, after all +these years, about to be driven from a position that had seemed, in its +day, impregnable. + +"Oh! don't, please don't, now!" was Lizzie's silent cry. "It will spoil +it all--all these years." + +Lady Adela didn't. Her voice became dry and hard, her eyes without +expression. + +"We shall go down, I expect, on Monday if Dr. Christopher thinks that a +good day." + +"I hope that the Duchess----" + +"My mother's very well to-day--quite her old self. I have just been up +with her. It is odd, but for thirty years she has never expressed any +interest in Beaminster. Now she is impatient to be there." + +"One often, I think, has a sudden longing for places." + +"Yes. I shall be glad myself to be there again." + +"This house?" + +"Oh! we shall shut it up--for the time Lord John will come down to +Beaminster with us. I have spoken to Norris, but to-morrow morning, if +you don't mind, we will go through things." + +"Certainly." + +"The house has not been shut for a great number of years--a very great +number. During the last thirty years through the hottest weather my +mother was here. + +"It will seem strange ..." Her voice trembled. + +"Is there anything more this afternoon?" Lizzie turned to the door. + +"No, I think not. Except--perhaps ..." Lady Adela was in great +agitation. Her eyes sought Lizzie, beseeching her help. + +"Miss Rand--I think it only right to say. I'm afraid one cannot--in the +nature of things--it's impossible, I fear, to expect--my mother to live +very much longer." Her voice caught in a dry strangled cough. "Dr. +Christopher has warned us. After my mother's death my life, of course, +will be very different. I shall live very quietly--a good deal in the +country and abroad, I expect. + +"I shall not, of course, have a secretary." + +"I quite understand," said Lizzie quietly. + +"I want you to know, Miss Rand," Lady Adela continued, "that although +during all these years I have seemed very unappreciative.... It is not +my way--I find it difficult to express--But I have, nevertheless, been +very conscious--we have all been--of the things that you have done for +me, indeed for the whole house. You have been admirable; quite +admirable." + +"I have been very happy here," said Lizzie. + +"I am very glad of that. I must have seemed often very blind to all that +you were doing. But I should like you to know that it is more--it is +more--than simply your duty to the house--it is the many things that you +have done personally for me. You have not yourself been, I dare say, +aware of the effect that your company has had upon me. It has been very +great." + +Lizzie smiled. "I've loved the house and the work. It has meant a very +important part of my life. I shall never forget it." + +Their embarrassment was terrible. After a moment of struggle Lady +Adela's voice was hard and unconcerned again. "You know, Miss Rand, +that--when the time comes for this change--anything that I, or any of +us, can do ... I do not know what your own plans may be, but you need +have no fear, I think." + +"Thank you very much, Lady Adela. That is very kind." + +There was a little pause--then they said good night. + +As Lizzie went down the great staircase, on every side of her, the +stones of the house were whispering, "You're all going--you're all +going--you're all going." + +Her heart was very sad. + + +II + +As she passed the Regent Street Post Office Francis Breton came out of +it. They had not met often lately, but she was conscious that ever since +that interview in Regent's Park, they had been very good friends. Her +absorption with Rachel and affairs in the Portland Place house had +assisted her own resolution and she had thought that she could meet him +now without a tremor. Nevertheless the tremor came as she caught sight +of him there and, for a moment, the traffic and the shouting died away +and there was a great stillness. + +He was very glad to see her. He stood on the post office steps looking +richer and smarter than she had ever known him. He wore a dark blue suit +and a black tie and a bowler hat--all ordinary garments enough--but they +surrounded him with an air of prosperity that had not been his before. +He seemed to her to gleam and glitter and shine with confidence and +assurance. One hurried glimpse she had had of him some weeks before, +miserable, unkempt, almost furtive. She was glad for his sake that all +was well with him, but he needed her more when he was unhappy.... + +But he was delighted. "Miss Rand. That's splendid! Are you going back to +Saxton Square now? The very thing! I've been wanting badly to see you!" +It was always, she thought, in little hurried and occasional walks that +they exchanged their confidences. There was not much to show for all the +elaborate palace that she had once been building--snatches of +conversation, clutches at words and movements, even eloquent +interpretation of silences--well, she was wiser than all that now! + +But, when they started off together, she found that she was caught up +instantly into that fine assumption of intimacy that was one of his most +alluring qualities. Radiant though he was he still needed her; he was +more eager to talk to _her_ than to anyone else even though he had +forgotten her very existence until he saw her standing there. + +"I am glad to see you. I should have come down and tried to find you, +anyway, in a day or two. I've been through a rotten time--really +rotten--and one doesn't want to see anyone--even one's best friends--in +that sort of condition, does one?" + +"That's just the time your _real_ friends--if they're worth +anything--want to see you. If they can be of any use----" + +"But you'd been such a tremendous help to me. I was ashamed to come to +you any more. Besides, you'd showed me, in a way, that I ought to get +through on my own without asking help from anyone. You'd taught me that +I did try." + +She saw that he was shining with the glory of one who had come, +rather mightily, unaided through times of stress. A pleasant +self-congratulatory pathos stirred behind his words. "It _was_ a bad +time--but it's all right now. And I expect it was good for me," was +really what he said. + +"I do want to tell you," he went on eagerly, "about Rachel. It's all +been so strange--wonderful in a way. After that talk I had with you in +the park I was absolutely broken up. Oh! but done for! I simply went +under. I tried to go back to some of that old set I've told you about +before, but the awful thing was that Rachel wouldn't let me. Thinking of +her, wanting her when all those other women were about. It simply wasn't +possible.... + +"It got worse and worse. I thought I'd go off my head. Then--do you +remember that awful thunderstorm we had?" + +"Yes," said Lizzie, "I remember it very well." + +"That night was a kind of climax. I'd dined with Christopher, then got +wandering about--it was horribly close and heavy--got into some music +hall. I suppose I'd been drinking--anyway, I had suddenly a kind of +vision, there in the music hall. I thought Rachel was dead, that I'd +lost her altogether. And then--it's all so hard to explain--but when I +came to myself I seemed to understand that the only way I could keep her +was by giving her up.... I've got it all muddled, but that was what it +came to." + +"You were quite right," said Lizzie. + +"Well, then--what do you think happened? The very next day my uncle, +John Beaminster, came to see me--yes, came himself. Talked and was most +pleasant and wanted to be friends. At the same time--now just listen to +this--came a note from Seddon asking me to go and see him. I went, found +Rachel there. Apparently my delightful grandmother had been telling him +stories about Rachel and me, and he wanted to put things straight. As +though this weren't enough, right upon us, without a word of warning, +dropped my grandmother herself!" + +He stopped that he might convey fully to Lizzie the drama of the +occasion. + +There was, in his words, just that touch of absurdity and exaggeration +that she had noticed at her very first meeting with him. He was always +too passionately anxious to thrill his audience! + +"There _was_ a scene! You can imagine it! We all tried to behave at +first, although of course it was immensely difficult. I don't think +Seddon had in the least realized the kind of thing it would be. Then +she--the old tyrant--could contain herself no longer and burst out +concerning me, the blackguard I was and the rest of it. She was furious, +you see, at Seddon taking my friendship with Rachel so quietly. He was +_splendid_ about it! + +"Well, when she burst out about all the family cutting me and everybody +casting me out, the opportunity was too good. I _couldn't_ help it. I +had to tell her that Uncle John had been round that very afternoon to +see me and that the family was holding out its arms." + +"What happened?" said Lizzie, as he paused. + +"She collapsed--altogether, completely. She never said another word--she +just went." + +"You shouldn't have done it!" Lizzie cried, turning almost furiously +upon him. "Oh! it was cruel--she was so old and all of you so young and +strong." + +"Yes!" he answered her--"But think of the years that I've waited--the +times she's given me, the suffering----" + +"No," interrupted Lizzie, quiet again now. "If you're weak enough to be +pushed down by anybody like that, then you're weak enough to sink by +your own fault, whether there's anyone there or no. She's been hard in +her time, I dare say, but everything's left her now and she's ill and +lonely. It was wrong of all of you. I shouldn't have thought Sir +Roderick----" + +"He only wanted things to be straightened out," Breton said eagerly. "He +didn't _intend_ to have a scene. But I expect you're right, Miss Rand, +as you always are. I've been a brute, the most howling cad. But there's +one thing--I don't think it's hurt my grandmother. She likes those +scenes, and she's been none the worse since." + +"She's been much worse," said Lizzie gravely. "She's dying--She's going +down to Beaminster on Monday." + +He stopped. "Oh! but I'm sorry ... That's dreadful ... I'd no idea. I'm +always responsible----" + +He had sunk to such depths that she was compelled to raise him. + +"I don't think you need be disturbed, Mr. Breton. Something of the sort +would have been certain to happen very soon. She would have found out in +any case ... and there were other things, I know. Rachel----" + +"Ah!" he broke in, eager again and almost cheerful. "That was the +wonderful thing. When I saw her there first with Seddon--I'd never met +him before, you know--I felt angry and impatient. I wanted to carry her +off--away from everybody. And then, when Seddon began to speak I lost +all sense of Rachel's belonging to me. She seemed older, ever so far +away from him, and he was so fine, so splendid about it all that I +felt--I felt--well, that I'd do anything in the world for both of +them--but never anything that could separate them or make him unhappy." + +"You can't separate them now," said Lizzie, "nobody can." + +"No. It was just finished--our episode together that wasn't really an +episode at all if you consider the little that we saw one another.... +Besides, I've never got near Rachel, and I felt in some way that the +nearer I got to her the farther away she was. Why, the only time that I +kissed her she was the farthest away of all!" + +They were walking up the grey, peaceful square. + +"You don't mind my telling you all this, do you, Miss Rand? You've seen +it all from the beginning. But I'm odd in a way.... + +"Uncle John coming to me, Seddon being friendly to me, the family taking +me back ... that seems to have made all the difference to me. Although +I'd never confess it, even to myself, I know that if Rachel and I had +gone off together I'd never have been happy. You see, we're both alike +that way. We're restless, one half of us, but oh! we're Beaminster the +other, and even Rachel, who's been fighting the family all her days, has +one part of her that's happy to be married to Seddon and to be quiet and +proper and English. That's why neither I nor Seddon ever could hold +her--because to be with me she'd have had to give up the other. If she +had a child, that might----" + +"She's going to have a child!" said Lizzie. + +He stopped and stared at her. + +"Miss Rand!... Is that certain?" + +"Quite." + +"Ah, well, Seddon's got her all right. They'll be happy as anything." He +sighed. "You know, Miss Rand, Rachel and I have been fighting the old +lady, and we seem to have won ... but I'm not sure whether, after all, +she hasn't!" + +On the step he paused. + +"I'm sticking to Candles, I've got work. I'm recognized again. I've got +that little bit of Rachel that she gave me and that nobody else can +have, and--I've got you for a friend--Not so bad after all!" + +He laughed, opened the door for her, and then as they stood in the dark +little hall he said: + +"All along you've been _such_ a friend for me. I want someone like +you--someone strong and sensible, without my rotten sentiment and +impulses. We'll always be friends, won't we?" + +He held her hand. + +"Always," she said, smiling at him. + +But, perhaps, to both of them there came, just then, sighing through the +dark still hall, a breath, a whisper, of that hour when life had been at +its intensest, that hour when Breton had held Rachel in his arms, that +hour when Lizzie had dressed, with trembling hands, for the theatre.... + +For Breton his place once again in the world, for Lizzie work and peace +of heart, but once on a day life had flamed before both of them and they +would never forget-- + +"Well, good night, Mr. Breton." + +"Good night, Miss Rand." + +When he had gone, she stood in the hall a moment. + +Their little dialogue had closed, with the sound of a closing door, a +stage in her life. She would never be the same as she had been before +that episode. It had shown her that she was as romantic as the rest of +the world. It had made her kinder, tenderer, wiser. And now once again +she was independent--once again her soul was her own. She could be, once +more, his friend, seeing him with all his faults, his impetuosities, his +weak impulses. + +Her place was there for her to fill. It was not the place that she would +once have chosen. But she had regained her soul, had once more control +of her spirit. She was free. + +There stretched before her a world of work, of thrilling and +ever-changing interest. There were Rachel and Rachel's baby.... + +"You seem in very good spirits, Lizzie," said Mrs. Rand as she came in. +"I'm sure I'm very glad because it's too tiresome. Here's Daisy gone +off...." + + +III + +Afterwards she said to her mother: + +"I'm going down to Beaminster on Monday. I'm afraid I shall be away some +time." + +"Oh! Lizzie!" said Mrs. Rand reproachfully. "Well, now--That _is_ a +pity. Why must you?" + +"The Duchess is going and Lady Adela must go with her and I must go with +Lady Adela." + +"Dear, dear. Whatever shall we do, Daisy and I? Daisy gets idler every +day. It's always clothes with her now.... I suppose we shall manage." + +"I shall come up for week-ends." + +"What a way you speak of it! Of course you don't care! If you went away +for years you wouldn't miss us, I dare say. I can't think why it is, +Lizzie, that you're always so hard. Daisy and I have got plenty of +feeling and emotion and your father, poor man, had more than he could +manage. But I'm sure more's better than none at all, where feelings are +concerned." + +"I suppose," said Lizzie, speaking to more than her mother, "that if +everyone had so much feeling there'd be nobody to give the advice. +Feelings don't suit everybody." + +"You're a strange girl," said Mrs. Rand, "and you're like no one in our +family. All your aunts and uncles are kind and friendly. I don't suggest +that you don't do your best, Lizzie. You do, I'm sure--and nobody could +deny that you've got a head for figures and running a house. But a +little heart...." + +"I've come to the conclusion I'm better without any," Lizzie laughed. "I +expect I'm more like you and Daisy, mother, than you know----" + +"Well, you're a strange girl," said Mrs. Rand again, "and I never +understand half you say." + +Lizzie came to her and kissed her. + +"You always miss me, you know, mother, when I'm away, in spite of my +hard heart." + +"Well, that's true," said Mrs. Rand, looking at her daughter with wide +and rather tearful eyes. "But I'm sure I don't know why I do." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE LAST VIEW FROM HIGH WINDOWS + + "Not without fortitude I wait ... + ... I, in this house so rifted, marr'd, + So ill to live in, hard to leave; + I, so star-weary, over-warr'd, + That have no joy in this your day." + + _Francis Thompson._ + + +I + +Rachel, on the morning of April 28th, received this letter from Lady +Adela: + + "BEAMINSTER HOUSE, + + _April 27th._ + + MY DEAR RACHEL, + + Mother suddenly last night expressed an urgent wish to see you. + She has not been at all well during the last few days and Dr. + Christopher, who has been here since last Saturday, says that + if you can come down and see her he thinks that it would be a + comfort to her. She is sleeping very badly, but is wonderfully + tranquil and seems to like to be here again. + + If you can come down to-morrow afternoon I will send to meet + the 5.32 at Ryston. That is quicker than going round to + Munckston. If I don't hear I conclude that you are coming by + that train. + + My love to Roddy. + + Your affectionate aunt, + + ADELA BEAMINSTER." + +Rachel showed the letter to Roddy. + +"I'm so glad," she said, "I've been hoping that she'd send for me. I've +felt, ever since that day, that I should never be easy again if I +hadn't the chance to tell her that I see now that I--that we--were +wrong." + +"She's never answered my letter," said Roddy. "Perhaps she wasn't well +enough to write. Yes, I'm glad you're going, Rachel." + +She was moved by many emotions, the old lady dying, the house in whose +shadow she had spent so many of her timid, angry, adventurous young +years, the thrill that the thought of her child gave her now at every +vision of the world, the knowledge that in Roddy she, at last, had +someone in her life to whom, after every absence, however short, she was +eager to return--these things shone with new, wonderful lights around +her journey. + +The April evenings were lengthening and the dusks were warm and scented. +The little station lay peacefully in the heart of green fields; across +the sky, washed clean of every colour, a dark train of birds slowly, +lazily took their flight, trees were dim with edges sharp against the +sky-line, a dog barking in the distance gave rhythm to the stillness. +Rachel, driving through the falling dark, felt, as she had felt it when +she was a small child, the august colour and space and dignity of the +first vision of the great house, white as a ghost now under the first +stars, speaking to her with the old voice, fountains that splashed in +gardens, the river that ran at the end of the sloping lawns, the chiming +clock that rang out the hour as she drove up to the door. + +Aunt Adela, Uncle John, Dr. Chris, Lizzie, they were all there, and +their presences made less chill the dominating reason for their +assembly. + +Over all the house the shadow fell. The wide, high rooms, the long +picture gallery, the comfortless grandeur of a house that had not found, +for some years, many human creatures to lighten it, these echoed and +flung forwards and backwards the note of suspense, of pause, of +impending crisis. + +But Rachel spent one of the happiest evenings of her life with Uncle +John and Christopher. She knew that Uncle John had had a short but +terrible interview with her grandmother, that he had been charged with +treachery and dishonour and every traitorous wickedness. + +A week ago, when he had told her this, he had been the picture of +despair and shame. "I hadn't meant her to know. She wasn't to come into +it at all. And then that she should meet him at Roddy's on that very +afternoon.... There's nothing bad enough for me." But he had added with +a strange note of defiance so unlike the old Uncle John: "I had felt it +my duty, Rachel ... to speak to Francis. I had felt it the right thing +to do. I had felt it very strongly." + +Then he had been overwhelmed, now he was once more at peace, and +tranquil. + +"It's all right," he told Rachel. "I've been forgiven. I think she's +forgiven all of us. + +"She wouldn't listen when I wanted to tell her how sorry I was. She +seems now not to care." + +"She's never forgiven anyone anything before," said + +Rachel. + +"Hush, my dear, I don't think you ought to say that. We've never +understood her, any of us. She's always been beyond us. You'll realize +to-morrow, Rachel, how wonderful, how _wonderful_ she is!" + +But he was very happy. He had his old Rachel back, the old Rachel whom +he had expected never to see again. She sat between him and Christopher, +at dinner, no longer fierce and ironical, with sudden silences and swift +angers, but affectionate, sympathetic, happy. + +"Mother will see you to-morrow," Adela told her. "She's glad that you've +come. The morning's rather a bad time for her. Could you stay for the +whole day?" + +"Of course," Rachel said. + +At the end of the evening she went up to Lizzie's room; when midnight +rang from the tower they parted, but first, Rachel said: + +"Lizzie, I wonder whether you realize what you've been--to all of us--to +me of course ... but to the others--to the whole family." + +"Oh! Nonsense!" + +"Roddy was speaking about it yesterday. He said that you were the most +wonderful person in all the world for making all the difference without +saying or doing anything--by just being there." + +"Oh, Roddy thinks everybody----" + +"But this is what I'm coming to. You can't yourself know how much +difference you make to everyone. But there's just this.... Roddy feels +and I feel that when--He--comes (of course it'll be a boy) we'd rather +have you for his friend than anyone in the whole world. You will--you +will be, won't you?" + +"My dear--I should _think_ so. I'll whack him and bath him and snub him +and teach him his letters--anything you like." Then she added, rather +gravely: + +"There's one thing, Rachel, I've wanted to say for some time. I want you +to know definitely, that all wounds are closed now, everything's +healed--about Mr. Breton, I mean. I was afraid that you might think I +still cared.... That's all ended, closed up, that little episode. + +"You needn't be afraid, Rachel. I'm happier, I'm freer than I've ever +been in my life.... Good night, my dear. Your friendship is more to me +than any number of heart-burnings.... I was always meant to be +independent, you know...." + + +II + +It was very strange to Rachel, who had been, on so many, many evenings, +to that other room, to pause now outside this new door, to knock with +the house solemn and still around her, to hear Dorchester's voice, then, +with the old hesitation and--yes--with some of the old fear, to enter. + +She had considered what she would say. Coming down in the train she had +turned it over and over--her apology, her submission, her cry: "See, I'm +different--utterly different from the Rachel whom you knew.... I was a +prig of the very worst. I deserved everything you thought of me. Just +say you forgive me even though you can't like me." This was the kind of +thing that, in the train, had seemed possible enough; now, with the +opening of the door and that sharp recurrence of the old thrill, she was +not at all sure that she wanted to be submissive and affectionate. "I +don't feel fond of her--nothing could make me--there are too many +things...." + +Space and silence saluted Rachel. Two great mirrors ran from floor to +ceiling, high windows flooded the room with light and everything seemed +to be intended only for such a situation as this--the very house, the +grounds, the colour of the day had arranged themselves, in their purity +and air and silence, about the central figure. The Duchess lay in a long +low chair before the window; she was wrapped in white shawls and thick +rugs covered her body; Dorchester, the same stern, unbending Dorchester, +said gravely to Rachel, "Good afternoon, my lady. I hope that you are +well," then moved into another room. + +The Duchess had not stirred at the sound of the closing doors, nor at +Dorchester's voice, nor at Rachel's approach. She was gazing out, beyond +the windows, to the expanse of sunlit country, fields that sloped +towards the river, an orchard, white with blossom, running down the +hill, its colour, dazzling, almost visibly trembling against the sky. + +Rachel had only seen her in the Portland Place rooms, with the china +dragons, the gold ornaments, the red lacquer bed, the blazing +wall-paper. It had seemed then that she must have those things around +her, that she needed the colour and extravagance to support her flaming +passion for life, so curbed and shackled by disease. + +Their absence made her older, feebler, more human, but also grander and +more impressive. Rachel had always feared her, but despised herself for +her fear; now she was in the presence of something that made her proud +to be afraid. + +She thought that she might be asleep, so she moved, very quietly, a +chair forward near the window and, sitting down, waited. The only sound +in all the world was the steady splash--splash--splash of the fountain +below, the only movement the stealthy creeping of the long shadows, +flung by white boulder clouds, across the shining fields. + +Suddenly, without turning her head, the Duchess spoke. + +"Very good of you, Rachel. I hoped that you would come." + +Her voice was weak, her words indistinct as though she were speaking +through muffled shawls, but, nevertheless, behind them the presence of +the old dominating will was to be discerned, but now it was a will +quiescent, struggling no longer for power. + +"I would have come before if you had sent for me. I'm so glad that you +did." + +"I can't talk for very long, my dear, and I don't suppose that you want +to spend hours in my company any more than you've ever done. No, you +needn't protest. We're neither of us here for compliments.... But +there's something that I must say to you. Christopher allows me half an +hour." + +"I hope you're better--that being here has done you good." + +"Better? Nonsense. I don't want to be better. That's all over and done +with. I had another stroke three days ago and the next one will finish +me. So don't pretend. You used to be honest enough. I've asked you to +come because I want to speak to you about Roddy." + +"He wrote," Rachel said. + +"Yes. I got his letter. I couldn't reply. I can't write myself and I +won't have anyone else do it for me. Besides, there was nothing to write +about. He said he was sorry about that little conversation we all had +together the other day." + +"And I--" Rachel began eagerly, "I was so sorry. I've been longing to +tell you--it was all wrong, but Roddy has no imagination. He didn't +realize in the least----" + +"Ah, my dear. I expect I know Roddy a great deal better than you do. +He'll do the same sort of thing to you, one day. He's got the devil in +him and will always have it, however much you coddle him or let him lie +there thinking over his sins. Do you suppose I'd have been so fond of +Roddy all these years if I hadn't known him capable of such little +revenges? I liked it. There was no need to write to me and he knew +it--but I'm afraid you influence him a good deal." + +Rachel coloured. "I hope----" + +"Oh yes, you do, and that's exactly why I wanted to see you." + +She turned then and, very carefully, very slowly, her eyes searched +Rachel's face. + +"I let him marry you, you know. I thought it would be good for you. If +I'd guessed the effect that you'd have had upon him I'd have prevented +it." + +Rachel's anger was rising. + +"What effect?" + +"He's begun to worry about other people--a fatal thing with a man like +Roddy who was meant to do things, not think about them. But, anyway, +that's all too late now.... Waste of time discussing it.... What I +wanted you for is this----" + +Her eyes left Rachel's face and returned to the window. + +"You're the one person now that influences him and you will always be +so. I can see ahead well enough. Poor Roddy ... and he might have been a +fine man. All the same, I admire him for it; there are things about you +I could have liked if I'd wanted to find them, but we've been fighting +from the beginning until now--when it's the end ..." She caught her +breath, stayed for an instant struggling for words, then went on: + +"We can call a truce now. We don't like one another, but just at the +moment you're moved a little because I'm feeble and shall be dead in a +fortnight. That disturbs you.... It needn't. Some months ago a moment +did come when I realized that I should die soon. I hated it--I fought +and struggled with all my might ... but now that it has come it doesn't +matter. Nothing matters. I regret nothing. I've had my time. I hate the +new generation, the manly woman and the soft man with all this +sentimental nonsense about caring for other people. Think of yourself, +fight for yourself, keep up your pride--that's the only way the world's +ever been run. You're a sentimentalist and you're making one of +Roddy.... Nonsense it all is.... But all this isn't what I really wanted +to say." She turned back and her eyes, as again they held Rachel, were +softer. + +"Roddy's been my only weakness. I've loved that boy and he's far too +good and fine for a wobbler like yourself. That's why I hated it the +other day. I couldn't bear that he should see me beaten by the pair of +you, both of you thinking yourself so noble with your fine +confessions--not that I believe a word that you said--but it was clever +of you. You _are_ clever and know how to manage men. + +"Yes, that hurt me, but afterwards I loved him all the better, I +believe. I'd rather he hadn't written me that soppy letter, but that was +your doing, of course.... But listen. After I'm gone, I want Roddy to +think of me kindly. He's going to think very much what you make him. +It's in your hands. You, when you've got past this sentimental moment, +will hate the memory of me. It's natural that you should and I'm sure I +don't mind. But I want you to leave Roddy alone. If he likes to think of +me kindly, let him. Don't blacken his mind to me. I wish to feel--my +only weakness I do believe--that Roddy will be fond of my memory. That +rests with you." + +She stopped with a little final movement of her head as though, having +said what had been in her mind for a long while, she was finished, +absolutely, with it all, and wanted no word more with any human being. + +Rachel answered quietly: "You've said some rather hard things. You +mustn't feel that I'd ever try to make Roddy think badly of you. That's +not fair.... I'm not very proud of myself, but you don't understand me. +You've always been determined not to--and perhaps, in the same way, I've +not understood you. We're different generations, that's what it really +is. + +"But over Roddy we _can_ meet. I didn't love him when I married him, but +I do now, and we're going to have a child.... That will make us both +very happy, I expect. You love Roddy and I love him. You needn't be +afraid that I'll harm his memory of you." + +Her voice was trembling and she was very near to tears. She would have +liked to have said something that would have offered some terms of peace +between them, something upon which, afterwards, she might look back with +comfort. For her that hostility seemed, in the face of death, so small +and poor a thing. + +But no words would come. + +Her grandmother, in a voice that was very weak, said: + +"Thank you, Rachel; that's a great relief to me. That's good of +you ... and now, my dear, I think Christopher would say that I'd talked +enough. Good night." + +Rachel knew that this was their last meeting, that here was the absolute +conclusion of all the years of warfare that there had been between them. + +There was nothing to say.... She bent down and kissed the dry cheek, +waited for an instant, but there was no movement. + +"Good night, grandmamma," she said. "I hope that you'll be better +to-morrow," then softly stole away. + + +III + +The Duchess lay very still, watching the shadows as they crept across +the fields. They were evening shadows now, for the sky, pink like the +inside of a shell, had no clouds upon its surface. + +She would not get up again; this evening should be the last to see her +gaze upon the world. It was too fatiguing and all energy had flowed from +her, leaving her without desire, without passion, without regret, without +fear. Very dreamily and at a great distance figures and scenes from her +past life hovered, halted, and passed. But she was not interested, she +had forgotten their purpose and meaning, she did not want to think any +more. + +The splashing of the fountain was phantasmal and very far away. + +The long black shadow crept up the field. She watched it. At the top of +the red ridge of field, against the sky-line, very sharp and clear, was +a gate, golden now in the sun. When the shadow caught it she would go to +bed ... and she would never get up again. + +She waited lazily, indifferently. The gate was caught; the last gleams +of the sun had left the orchard and the evening star glittered in a sky +very faintly green. + +She touched a bell at her side and Dorchester appeared. + +"I'll go to bed, Dorchester." + +"Very well, Your Grace." + +"I shan't get up again. Too much trouble." She turned away from the +window and closed her eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +RACHEL, RODDY, LORD JOHN, CHRISTOPHER + + "'Everybody came in to dinner in the best of spirits.... + Everything was discussed.'"--_Inheritance._ + + +I + +The Duchess of Wrexe died on the morning of May 2nd at a quarter-past +three o'clock. The evening papers of that day and the morning papers of +the next had long columns concerning her, and these were picturesque and +almost romantic. She appealed as a figure veiled but significant, hidden +but the landmark of a period--"Nothing was more remarkable than the +influence that she exercised over English Society during the thirty +years that she was completely hidden from it"--or again, "Although +disease compelled her, for thirty years, to retire from the world, her +influence during that period increased rather than diminished." + +It must be confessed, however, that London Society was not moved to its +foundations by the news of her death. People said, "Oh! that old woman; +gone at last, I see. She's been dying for years, hasn't she? Quite a +power in her day ..." Or, "Oh, the Duchess of Wrexe is dead, I see. I +must write to Addie Beaminster. Don't expect the family will miss her +much--awful old tyrant, I believe ..." or "I say, see Johnnie +Beaminster's old lady's gone? She kept the whip-hand of _him_ in his +time.... Damned glad he'll be, I bet." + +Two years earlier and it would not have been thus, but now there was the +War (daily the relief of Mafeking was frantically anticipated) and fine +regal majesty, sitting dignified in a solemn room, irritated the world +by its quiescence. + +"What we're needing now is for everyone to get a move on. No use sitting +around." A few carefully selected American phrases can very swiftly +kill a great deal of dignity and tradition. + +In the Beaminster camp itself there was an unexpressed disappointment. +They had grown accustomed to thinking of her as a fine figure, sitting +there where, rather fortunately, they were not compelled to visit her, +but where, nevertheless, she had a grand effect. They had known, for a +long time now, that she was not so well, but they had expected, in a +vague way, that she would go on living for ever. They had been making, +during the last two years, a succession of enforced compromises and now +the crisis of her death showed them how far they had gone without +knowing it. + +"Things will never be the same as they were...." And in their hearts +they said, "We're getting old--we aren't wanted as we once were." + +Meanwhile there was a fine funeral down at Beaminster. The Queen was +represented, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, all the +heads of all the old families in England, artists and one or two very +distinguished actor-managers (who looked far more sumptuous than anyone +else present).... Everyone was there. + +Christopher detected Mrs. Bronson and wondered what the Duchess would +think of it if she knew: Brun, also, although Christopher did not see +him, flashed upon them from the Continent, was present, neat and solemn +and immensely observant. It was all admirable and worthy of the best +English traditions. + +"She was a fine figure," said the Prime Minister, who had known her and +disliked her intensely. "We shall never see her like again," but his +sigh was nearer relief than regret. + + +II + +Christopher, three days after the funeral, went to have tea with Roddy +and Rachel. He was a man of great physical strength and had never had +"nerves" in his life, but he was feeling, just now, tired out. He had +not realized, in the least, during all these years, the part that that +old woman played in his life, and he found that his whole scheme of +things was now disorganized and without vitality. It was vitality that +she had given him, a tiresome, troublesome, irritating vitality perhaps, +but, nevertheless a fire, an energy, a driving curiosity. + +He would capture it again, his eagerness to investigate, to assist, to +prophesy, but it would never any more be quite the same energy--everyone +with whom she had had anything to do would find life now a little +different.... + +Some weeks before her death Roddy had sent for him. "I'm awfully upset, +Christopher," he said and then he had told him about the scene in his +rooms and had begged to know the truth. "I hear she's much worse--she's +had a stroke--I wrote to her and she hasn't answered me. Christopher, +tell me truthfully, was it her comin' to me that day and all the kick-up +and everythin' that made her so much worse?" + +Christopher had reassured him--"Quite honestly, if she'd asked my leave +to let her go out that afternoon I'd not have granted it. But as it +turned out she wasn't a bit the worse. I saw her directly +afterwards--she told me all about it. She was rather grimly pleased. +Mind you, it marked, I think, a kind of crisis. As she put it to me she +saw that afternoon that the whole scheme of things had gone out of her +hands and that the new generation didn't want her--But I think she was +glad to have it settled for her, she was tired of it all, her struggle +to keep it had been much earlier. + +"She just wasn't going to bother any more and she might have gone on in +that sort of way for years." + +But although he had thus reassured Roddy he was not, in his heart, so +certain. He seemed to see a long chain of events (he dated his own +observation of them from the time of Rachel's coming out), that had led +both Rachel and the Duchess to the climax of their actual challenge one +to another. It was not that that meeting in Roddy's house had been of +itself so important, it was rather that the fates had selected it as a +definite culmination of the struggle. That meeting stood for a sharp +visualization of much more than the personal conflict. + +She had been glad to go, he did not in any way see her death as a +tragedy, but her departure had marked the opening of a new period, a new +personal history for the remaining characters, ultimately perhaps a new +social epoch for everybody-- + +Meanwhile he was happy about Roddy and Rachel for the first time since +their marriage and, as he was a man who lived in the lives of his +friends, their happiness meant his own. + +He found Lord John with Roddy, Rachel was with Aunt Adela, but "would be +back for tea." Lord John, rather solemn and awkward in black clothes, +was demanding comfort and assistance from his friends. His trouble was +that he did not miss his mother as fundamentally as he desired, and +that, at the same time, life was now most terribly different. His +brothers, Vincent and Richard, had instantly after the funeral adapted +themselves, with gravity and assurance, to the new conditions. + +Lord John had never adapted himself to anything, but had fitted his +stout body into the soft places that life had offered to him and had +been placidly grateful for their softness. Only once had he shown energy +of his own initiative and that had been in the matter of his nephew +Francis, and of that now he did not dare to think. + +He could never, so long as he lived, forget the slightest detail of that +horrible quarter of an hour with his mother when she discovered his +iniquity--and yet, even now, he felt, obscurely but obstinately, that he +had done right. Nevertheless he would never again take life into his own +hands: upon that he was absolutely resolved. What he needed now was +reassurance from his friends. He had always before found that life +arranged itself about him in a comfortable way and he confidently +expected that it would do so now, but meanwhile he must have kind looks +and words from somebody. He was a man who hailed with joy the +opportunity of bestowing affection upon a friend who was not likely, at +a later time, to rebuff him. He had never been quite sure of Rachel--she +was so strange and uncertain--but upon Roddy, helpless, good-natured, +and a man of his own world, he felt that he could rely. He spent +therefore many hours at Roddy's side, rather silent, smiling a great +deal, playing chess with him, sticking little flags on the War Map. + +At times, as he sat there, he would think of his mother, of the Portland +Place house shortly to be sold, of a world altered and alarming, and +then he would wonder how long the time would be before he might again +take up his old habits, his old houses, his old comforts, and then his +fat cheerful face would gather wrinkles upon its surface. "It's after a +thing like this that a feller gets old--Richard and Adela and I--We'll +have to make up our minds to it." + +Christopher found them busied with the map, discussing the probable hour +of Mafeking's relief. Lord John looked at Christopher a little +anxiously, perhaps _he_ was going to be down upon _him_! But Christopher +was a very quiet and genial Christopher. He sank down into a chair with +a sigh of comfort, waved his hand to them. + +"Don't you mind me. I'm tired to death. Was up all last night with a +case----" + +"You see," said Roddy, "there's Ramathlabama. Well--Plumer lost a lot o' +men there and they say his crowd have had fever too and there ain't much +to hope for there--now Roberts----" + +But Lord John's attention was distracted. He wished to be quite sure +that Christopher did not regard him with severity. + +"You look fagged out, Christopher." + +"I am!" said Christopher, smiling. + +"I'm feeling a bit done up, too. Think I'll take Adela abroad somewhere +for a little." + +"I should," said Christopher. "Excellent thing for both of you." + +"Now where do you suggest?" + +"Oh, anywhere different from London. Go on a cruise----" + +"Adela's a bad sailor--wretched. I'm not very good myself." + +They discussed places. Christopher was more than friendly. There had +been occasions when he had been the stern family physician and had +treated Lord John with some severity. Now there was implied a new +comradeship as though they had passed through perils together and would +have always between them in the future a strong bond of friendship. + +John felt that the atmosphere at this moment was so friendly and +comforting that he would not risk the disturbance of it. + +He got up. + +"Think I'll be going on, Roddy. Don't like leaving Adela alone. Rachel +will be on her way here now, so I'll be getting back." + +He was staying with Adela at a quiet little hotel in Dover Street. + +"Well, good-bye for the moment, Christopher. Adela'd be very glad if +you'd come in and see her. Come and have lunch with us to-morrow." + +"Thanks, I will." + +He stood, for a moment, looking out upon the park, warm and comfortable +under the sun. He thought of Rachel. He had regained the old Rachel the +other night at Beaminster--dear Rachel! + +Rachel, Roddy, Christopher--how nice they all were! There was, he felt, +a new feeling of security amongst them all. Yes, he really _did_ +believe that life, now, was going to be very comfortable and safe and +easy.... + +"So long, Roddy." + +He beamed happily upon them and went. + +Jacob, the dog, came in from his afternoon walk, very grave, paying no +attention to Christopher, but going at once and lying, full length, near +Roddy's sofa, his head between his paws, his eyes fixed upon his master. + +"What's happened to all your other dogs?" asked Christopher. "They must +be missing you very badly." + +"Oh, they're down at Seddon, got a jolly good man there whom I can +trust--don't think they miss me. _This_ beggar would though. Funny +thing, Christopher--when I was goin' about and all the rest of it I +thought nothin' of this dog, couldn't see why Rachel made such a fuss of +it--now--why I don't know how I'd ever get on without it, so +understandin' and quiet with it all too. Nothin' like a trouble of some +sort for showin' who's worth what, whether they're dogs or people...." + +"I hope the funeral did Rachel no harm," Christopher said. + +"Not a bit of it. She'd had a last interview with the old lady and knew, +after that, she'd never see her again. In a way she hasn't felt it, but +in a way too I believe she'd like to have all the old time over again +and see whether she couldn't manage it better ... she said to me she'd +never understood the old woman until that last talk with her, not that +there was much love lost between 'em even then. Was Breton there?" + +"No--He scarcely could go, in the circumstances." + +"Funny feller, Breton. What puzzles me is what did he go and give up +Rachel so easily for? I couldn't tell you why, but that day he came here +I was as sure as I was lyin' here that whatever there was between them +was finished. I wouldn't have said what I did, seemed to take it so +quietly, if I hadn't seen in a minute it was all over." + +"Ah, you don't know Francis," said Christopher. "It's all romantic +impulses that set him going--Rachel romantic impulse on one side, +getting back to the family romantic impulse on the other. He knew if he +went off with her that getting back to the family would be over for ever +as far as he was concerned. He knew that he'd never cease to regret +it.... John Beaminster coming to him gave him what he'd been waiting +for, longing for. He seized it----" + +"Yes, but it was more than that," said Roddy slowly. "It all lies with +Rachel. He never got close to her any more than I've done. I know now +that she's fond of me, but it's by the child I'll hold her and by my +helplessness, nothin' else. And she'll have her wild moments when myself +and everythin' about me will seem simply impossible, just as if she'd +gone off with Breton she'd have had her comfortable domestic sort of +longin's and hated _him_ and everythin' about _him_. I believe Breton +knew--just as I knew--that never tryin' to hold her was the way to keep +her, and he'd have _had_ to have her if he'd gone off with her.... + +"Anyway, Rachel wouldn't be so adorable if there wasn't a lot of her +that no one man could master. But I've been given all the tricks in the +game by bein' laid up like this--just when I thought I'd lost all worth +havin' in life and never a chance of a kid again!... Funny thing, Life! + +"But she's mine! Christopher, and no one can take her. Breton's got his +idea of her; there _is_ a bit of her that he stirred that I never could +touch, but it don't matter--she's the most wonderful creature on this +earth and I'm the luckiest beggar." + +"She'll be quieter," said Christopher, "now that the Duchess is gone. +They were always conscious of one another...." + +"And now there'll be the kid instead. If he's a boy I swear he shall be +the best rider, the best sportsman in this bloomin' old world--not that +I'd mind a girl, either. I'd like to have a girl--just the time for a +woman nowadays. Whichever way it is I'll be contented. Not, you know," +he added hastily, "that I'm going to be a sort o' blessed angel with +domestic bliss and never wantin' to get off this old sofa and the +rest--not a _bit_ of it--it's damned tryin' and I curse hours together +often enough. Peters has the benefit of it. I wasn't born an angel and I +shan't die one...." + +"Nobody wants you to," said Christopher. + +"Well, you needn't worry. But it's funny how I get talkin' +nowadays--never used to say a word--now I gas away.... Well, cheers for +the new generation, cheers for young Roddy Secundus.... Long life to +him!" + +"There's one thing," said Christopher, looking at him. "Whatever +inspired you, that day you had the scene here, to behave to Frank Breton +as you did? To give them both carte blanche--it wouldn't be the way of +most husbands confronted with such a question--it was the _only_ way for +Rachel ... but how did you know her well enough? You'll forgive my +saying so, your method as a rule is to drive straight in, let fly all +round, and then count the bits." + +"If you love anybody," said Roddy, with confusion and hesitation, "as +much as I love Rachel you become wonderfully understandin'.... Look +here," he broke off, "don't let's talk any more rot. Just drop all jaw +about feelin's and such. There's been an awful lot of it lately." + +He would say no more; they got the war map and, very happily for the +next quarter of an hour, moved flags up and down its surface. + +Then came Rachel and, after her, tea. They were a quiet but very happy +company during the next half-hour. + +"How's Aunt Adela?" asked Roddy. + +"Very well, considering," said Rachel. "Of course she's confused and +lost her bearings rather. She misses the Portland Place house more than +anything, I think--she was there so long. But Uncle Vincent was right; +it would have been very bad for her if she'd stayed in it.... She's +quiet and depending a lot upon Lizzie----" + +When tea was ended Rachel said, "Dr. Chris, I've got something to say to +you. I'm going to tear you away from Roddy for five minutes if you'll +come upstairs." + +"Well, that's a nice sort of thing----" protested Roddy. + +"I won't keep him." She took him up to the little drawing-room and as +they sat there by the window together he thought of that day when he had +told her the Duchess was downstairs with Roddy. They had all travelled a +long way since then. + +"There's a favour I want you to grant me." + +"Anything in the world." + +"It's about Francis--" She gave him the name with a little hesitation +and with an air of restraint as though about the very whisper penalties +could linger. + +"You're the best friend that he's got--the best friend any man could +have--and I want you to care for him, to look after him, to watch over +him. I know," she went on hurriedly, "that you always have done that, +but I want you to feel now that you're doing it a little for my sake as +well as your own. I want you to be the one link that I've still got with +him." + +"But Roddy asked him----" began Christopher. + +"Oh yes! I know--Roddy was splendid. But of course that can't be. We +can't meet, at any rate for years. Besides, that time is so utterly done +with. There's only Roddy now for me in all the world. But I know, +better, I expect, than you think, how weak Francis is, how much he +depends upon what the people whom he cares for say to him--and so I want +you----" + +"But of course," Christopher said. "He knows that he can count on me +whatever happens--he's always known that." + +He stopped and waited for her to continue; he saw that she had more to +say. + +"It's so strange," she said, staring, her eyes deep and black seeing +into sacred places that were known only to her, "how grandmother's +death has cleared, amazingly, the air. The motive for almost everything +has gone. I didn't see--I hadn't the least idea--how all my thoughts and +actions and wishes and impulses came from my sense of opposition to her. +Francis saw that--knowing that we both hated her--and that was why I was +so difficult with Roddy, because I thought that grandmother had arranged +the marriage and had him under her thumb--I had no idea of the kind of +person Roddy was." + +"Nor had I--nor had anyone," said Christopher. + +"That whole affair with Francis was in idea--always--more than in fact. +I knew, and I believe that he knew, that it was simply a piece of wild +rebellion on my part; and on his--well, he's like that, romantic, +rebellious, responding in a minute to everything, but wanting, really, +all the time to be safe and proper. That day we met in his rooms, we +both knew, at heart, that something was missing--something one had to +have if one was going to break away altogether. He was always a rebel by +force of circumstances, never by real inclination." + +She put her hand on Christopher's knee and drew very close to him. +"Chris dear, I'm terrified now when I think of how near I was to +absolute, complete disaster. If it hadn't been for Roddy's accident and +for Lizzie ... Lizzie's been to all of us everything in the world. + +"Do you remember once telling me about Mr. Brun's Tiger? I've often +thought of it since and it seems to me now that to all of us--for Roddy +and Francis and Lizzie and me--the moment of our consciousness came. +Ever since that day when they carried Roddy back to Seddon each one of +us has had to wait, just holding ourselves in.... But, you know, Dr. +Chris, that's the secret of the whole matter. It wasn't I, or Breton, or +even Lizzie or Roddy that defeated grandmother--it was simply Real Life. +First the War, then Roddy's accident--Roddy's accident most of all. We +had, all five of us, been leading sham lives, then suddenly God, Fate, +Providence, what you will, steps in, jerks us all back, takes away from +all of us what we thought we wanted most, puts us in line with the real +thing--our Tiger, if you like. Grandmother simply couldn't stand it. +Lizzie and Roddy are real--half of Breton and me, and most of +grandmother unreal--Well, Lizzie and Roddy have just put things straight +quietly.... Grandmother's generation saw things 'through a glass +darkly'--They're gone. It's all going to be 'face to face' now." + +Christopher looked at her, smiling. She was so young, so adorably young +with her seriousness. + +She broke in--"What rot I'm talking! It only comes to this, that I wish +now, like anything, that I'd been nicer to grandmamma. One sees things +always too late.... I'd like to have another try, to begin with +grandmamma again, to be more tolerant, to hate her less. But I expect in +the end it would be the same. She'd have had me tied up, without a will +of my own, without a word to say!... that was her idea of controlling us +all. It's over, it's done with--no one, I expect, will have her kind of +power again.... But she was fine! I only see now how fine she was! + +"No one, I expect, will have her kind of power again...." + +Now she stood away from Christopher, looking at him and also beyond him, +as though she were finally, once and for all, surveying, cataloguing +that same power-- + +"She wasn't terrible, she wasn't fine, she wasn't really anything except +a kind of peg for all sorts of traditions to hang on to. In herself she +was just a plucky, theatrical, obstinate old woman. It was simply the +idea of her that frightened us all. I remember the first time that I saw +Yale Ross's picture of her--He'd caught all the ceremony and the terror. +It was then that I had the first faint suspicion that she didn't, in +herself, live up to the picture in the least. + +"I suppose," she went on, coming up closer to him, "that that's why no +one will ever be like her again--because no one will ever be taken in so +completely by shams again, never by the empty shell of anything. But +that's just how she influenced us--all of us. Myself, you, Lizzie, +Roddy, Francis ... we were all mixed up in it-- + +"And then the first moment that we really came into contact with her she +wasn't anything--wasn't simply there. Do you know, Dr. Chris, seeing her +now, just an old sick woman, conscious that everyone was escaping her, I +almost love her!... I do indeed!" + +She sprang up and stood before him and laughed, crying-- + +"I'm grown up, Dr. Chris, I'm grown up! It's taken a time, but it's +happened at last! Meanwhile I shall be the most perfect wife, the most +perfect mother, and when the Tiger is restive there'll be the youngest +Seddon to put it all into. Oh! What a child that child will be! Roddy +and his impatience, me and my tempers----" + +She laughed and for an instant her old fierce defiance was there then, +as though some spirit had flashed, before his eyes, through the window +into space and freedom it was gone. She herself proclaimed its +dismissal. + +"It's gone--it's all gone--Dr. Chris. I'm the happiest woman in +England!" + +But even as she spoke her eyes were wistful; half-seen, half-recalled, +eloquent with a colour, a flame that was too fierce for her present +world, hung before her the memory of a moment when, in a darkened room, +she had caught a letter to her lips, had sunk upon her knees before a +passion whose face she had scarcely seen but whose voice she had +heard and still now, in her new life, remembered. She had had her +moment ... the last strains of its dying music were still in her ears. +She caught her breath, then, turning, dismissed it; and, standing back +from Christopher, gave him her last word-- + +"But look after Francis. Be with him as much as you can.... He needs all +that you can spare--He's got to be--he's simply _got_ to be--the success +of the family!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +EPILOGUE--PROLOGUE + + "Third Apparition--A Child Crowned ..." + + _Macbeth_. + + +I + +Late on the evening of May 17th Christopher heard of the relief of +Mafeking. It was too advanced an hour, he understood, for the town to +display its triumph that evening. Let Christopher wait. + +The following night Brun, whom he had not seen for many months, +appeared. The clocks had struck nine and Christopher was finishing his +dinner, when the little man, shining and dapper, pleased and impersonal, +was shown in. + +"Hullo!" cried Christopher; "thought you were abroad somewhere." + +"I saw you at the Duchess's funeral. Of course I was there. What do you +suppose? Meanwhile come out now and see your fine people make +manifestations." + +"Is there a noise?" + +"A noise! _Mon Dieu!_ But come and look!" + +They went out together. Harley Street was silent and deserted and above +it a night sky, scattered with stars, was serenely still. But, beyond +the further roofs and chimneys, golden light hovered and a confused +murmur, like the buzzing of bees, hummed upon space. + +Through Oxford Street a great crowd of people was passing, but it was a +crowd hurrying to find some other crowd. Oxford Street was plainly not +the meeting-place. There was a good deal of shouting and singing; young +men, five abreast, passed, girls with "ticklers" and whistles screamed +and laughed and sang; merry bells were ringing, lights flared in the +windows and now and again a rocket with a whiz and a shriek flashed +into the sky and broke with a little angry splutter into coloured stars. + +They crossed into Bond Street, down which other people were hurrying; +sometimes a roaring echo of a multitude of discordant voices would be +carried to them and then would be hidden again as though some huge door +in front of them were swinging to and fro. + +At the end of Bond Street, suddenly, as they might turn the corner of +some sea road and, instantly, be confronted with the crash of a plunging +surf, they met the crowd. + +"Look out!" cried Brun, clutching hold of Christopher's arm. "We don't +want to get drawn into this!" + +Although they had apparently been walking quietly down Bond Street with +no crowd about them, they now were pursued, upon all sides, by people. +They raised themselves on to a doorstep, hanging there, bending their +feet forward, and feeling that if the crowd in front of them were for a +moment to give way down they would go! + +Meanwhile, along Piccadilly, towards the clubs and Hyde Park Corner, a +thick mass of human beings was pressing. This gathering seemed, of +itself, to lack all human quality. + +A face, a voice, a hand, a cry----these things might now and again, as +fish flash in a stream, detach themselves; sometimes a light from a +flaring window or an illumination would fling into pale, unreal relief a +bundle of faces that represented, at that instant, a piece of human +history, but sank instantly back again into chaos. + +One might fancy that this was no crowd of human beings, but some new, +unknown creature, dragging its coils from the sluggish bed of some +hidden river, stamping to destruction as it went. + +Then as though one were watching a show, with a click, the human element +was back again. There two girls, their hats pushed aside, their hair +half uncoiled, their cheeks flushed, their eyes partly bold and partly +frightened, were screaming: + +"Oo're yer 'itting? Don't again then. Good old England! Gawd save----" + +It was not on the whole a crowd stirred only by national joy and pride. +It may, in its units, when it first left its many homes, have announced +its intention of giving "a jolly 'ooray" for our splendid country and +our Beloved Queen, but, once in a position from which there was no +returning, once in the hands of a force that was stronger than any felt +before, it had forgotten the country and its defeats and successes. Only +two courses open. Either admit fear, feel that the breath of you is +slowly but quite surely in process of being crushed out of you, feel +that your arms and legs are being torn from you, that your ribs are +being smashed into powder and that your heart is being pressed as flat +as a pancake, let then panic overwhelm you, fight and scream to get out +and away from it, see yourself finally falling, trampled, kicked, your +face squashed to pulp, your eyes torn out, your breath strangled in your +body ... so much for Fear. Or, on the other hand arouse Frenzy! + +Be above and beyond your body, scream and shout, rattle rattles and blow +whistles, trample upon everything that is near you, smack faces with +your hand, pull off clothing and scatter hats and bonnets, scream aloud, +no matter what it is that you are screaming, let your voice exclaim that +at length, at length, you, a miserable clerk on nothing a week, in the +City, are, for the first time in your existence, the Captain of your +soul, the ruthless master of a wretched, law-making tyrannous world.... +So much for Frenzy! + +Either way, be it Frenzy or Fear, the Country has not much to say to it +at all. With every moment it seems that from the Circus more bodies, +more arms and legs are being pressed and crushed and packed; with every +moment the clanging of the bells is louder, the fire in the sky higher +and wilder, the singing, the screaming, the oaths and the curses are +nearer, the defiance that loss of individuality gives. + +"Let's get back," said Brun. He turned, but, at that moment, someone +from behind him cried, "Oo are yer shoving there?" He was pushed, with +Christopher, half falling, half clutching at arms and shoulders, forward +into the street. + +They righted themselves, Brun fastened upon Christopher's arm, shouting +into his ear, "We'd better go along with the crowd for a bit. We'll get +a chance of cutting up Half Moon Street. Can't do anything else." + +They were pressed forward. Now, received into the bosom of the crowd, +they were conscious both of the human element and of the stronger +composite spirit that was mightier than anything human, a creation of +the City against whose walls they were now so riotously shouting. + +Next to Christopher was a young man in evening dress; his hat had +disappeared, his collar was torn, sweat was pouring down his forehead +and at the top of his voice he screamed again and again: + +"Good old England! Good old England! Good old Bobs! Good old Bobs!" +Squeezed up against Christopher's arm was a stout body that looked as +though it had once belonged to some elderly gentleman who liked white +waistcoats and brass buttons. From somewhere, in obvious connection with +these buttons, came a weak, breathless voice: "You'll excuse me hanging +on so, sir. It's familiar--not my way--but this crowd ..." + +A girl, with crimson face, leant against Christopher, put her arm round +his neck, tickled his face with a feather; she screamed with laughter: +"Oo-ray! Oo-ray--Oo-bloody-ray!" + +"Look out, you swine!" somebody shouted. + + "And 'e shouted out, did Bobs + Come along, you stinking nobs, + We will show you--" + +Around them, above them, below them there tossed a whirlpool of noise, +something outside and beyond the immediate sounds that they were making. +Bells, voices, shouts that seemed to have no human origin, the very +walls and stones of the City crying aloud. + +Then, opposite the entrance to Half Moon Street another crowd seemed to +meet them. There was pause. "Get out of it!" "Go the other way." "Damn +yer eyes, step off it." "Go back, carn't yer?" + +It was then that for the briefest moment and for the first time in his +life Christopher was afraid. Someone was pressing into his back until +surely it would break, some other was leaning, and driving his chest in, +driving it so that the breath flooded his face, his eyes, his nose. +Colours rose and fell; someone's evil breath burnt upon his cheeks. +Light flashed before him in broad, steady flares. + +"Brun, Brun," he cried. + +"All right," a voice from many miles away answered him. + +He was seized with the determination to survive. They thought that they +could "down" him, but they should see that they were mistaken; his rage +rising, he was no longer Dr. Christopher of Harley Street, but something +savage, lawless beyond even his own control. He drove with his arms; +curses met him and someone drove back into him and a ridiculous face +with staring eyes that stupidly pleaded and a nose that was white and +trembling and a mouth that dribbled at the corners came up against his. + +"Keep back, can't you?" someone shouted. + +"Brun, Brun," he called again, and then was conscious that bodies were +giving way before him. His hand met a stomach covered with cloth and +little hard buttons, and then coming against a woman's arm soft and +warm, Christopher had instantly gained possession of his soul once more. + +"Hope I didn't hurt you," he heard himself saying, then, some barrier of +legs and bodies yielding, found that he was flung out, away, stumbling, +in spite of himself, on to his knee. + +He caught someone by the arm, and it was Brun. + +"Good Lord!" said Christopher. + +"It's all right," answered Brun. "We're in Half Moon Street. We're out +of it." + + +II + +Somewhere in the peaceful retirement behind the clubs they surveyed one +another and then laughed. Brun--the dapper perfect Brun--had a bleeding +cheek, a torn waistcoat, and a large and very unbecoming tear in his +trousers. He was half angry and half amused--finally a survey of +Christopher, with mud on his nose and his collar hanging from one button +and revealing a fat red neck, restored his good temper. + +"You'd better come back with me," said Christopher, "and be cleaned up." + +They went back to Harley Street and half an hour later were sitting +quietly in easy chairs, with the house as though it were made of +cotton-wool, so silent and hidden was it, about them. + +Both men were excited; Christopher had been changed by the events of the +last few weeks, and Brun, if he had not been so personally involved, had +seen enough to excite his most eager curiosity and speculation. + +Brun's sharp little eyes, flashing across the tip of his cigar, sought +Christopher's large comfortable face, fell from there over his large +comfortable body, down at last to his large comfortable boots. + +"Well ... First time I've seen a Continental crowd in England." + +"Continental?" + +"Always your Englishman, however excited and of whatever rank, knows +there are things a gentleman doesn't do. Those people to-night had not +that knowledge. Very interesting," he added. + +Christopher peacefully smoked, his body well spread out in the chair, +his broad rather clumsy-looking fingers clutching devotedly at his +pipe. + +"So you were at the funeral the other day?" + +"I was. I expect I mourned her more sincerely than any of you. I'd never +seen her, but she meant a lot to me--as a symbol. And I like symbols +better than human beings." + +He pulled his body together with a little jerk and leaned forward: +"Christopher, do you remember, a long while ago, going into a gallery in +Bond Street and meeting Lady Adela Beaminster there and Lady Seddon? It +was just after Ross's portrait was first shown." + +"I remember," said Christopher, nodding his head. "You were there." + +"I was. I was there with Arkwright the African explorer man. I only +mention the day because Arkwright was interested in Lady Seddon, wanted +to know all about her, and I talked a bit, I remember. My point to him +was that there was a situation between that girl and her grandmother +that would be worth anybody's watching. I followed it myself for a while +and then I lost it. But you're a friend of the family--tell me, +Christopher, what happened between those two." + +"Nothing," Christopher said, laughing. + +"Oh, nonsense," Brun answered. "They were all in it. Something went on. +Then Seddon had that accident ... Breton was in it." + +But Christopher only smiled. + +"Well, if you won't--_n'importe_--I have my own idea of it all. That +girl was a fine girl, and the old woman was fine too-- + +"But how they must have hated one another!" + +He chuckled; then sitting back in his chair, his little eyes on the +ceiling, he said almost to himself--"Once, years ago, when I was very, +very young and romantic--almost--just for a year or two I loved your +Shelley. He was everything--I could quote him by the page.... He's gone +from me now, or most of him has, but there was one line that seemed to +me then the most romantic thing I had ever read and has remained with +me always. It went--'And we'll have fires out of the Grand Duke's +wood'--It's in the letter to Maria Gisborne, I think--I've quite +forgotten what the context is now--it's all pretty trivial and +unimportant, but those were the days when I made pictures--I saw it! +Lord, Christopher, how it comes back! The wood, very thick, very large, +very black, no sun--very still, and the great house behind it, huge and +white, with long gardens and green lawns and peacocks, and the Grand +Duke, with his powdered wig, and diamond-buckled shoes, his gorgeous +suit, his jewelled sword, his snuff and his wine, his silly little +dried-up yellow face. + +"Then the rabble--dirty, smelling, ill-conditioned fellows--breaking +through the silence, tearing up the Wood, knocking down the palace, +hanging the Grand Duke from a tree, last of all, setting the whole thing +into the most splendid blaze!... Oh! of course that wasn't Shelley's +context--_his_ was all about boiling a kettle or something--but that's +the way I saw it--just like that." Nothing stirred Brun like the sound +of his own voice and now he was getting very excited indeed and was +waving his hands. + +"Yes," said Christopher placidly. "Very dramatic. What does it all +mean?" + +"Well, this. It seems to me that that's just what's been happening over +here. Your Duchess is dead and instead there is to-night's crowd. The +Grand Duke is gone and all that was his--now for the fires!" + +Christopher, filling his pipe, paused, and then, his voice grave and +serious: "Romantics aside, Brun, for a minute. Do you remember your +Tiger idea you delivered to me once? I've often thought of it since. You +said then that the reason why the Duchess and her times--the Grand Duke +and his wood--had got to go was because their policy had been to give +the Tigers of the world no liberty--to pretend indeed that they weren't +there, and that now the time had come when every man should declare his +Tiger, should give it liberty and, whether he restrained it or no, +acknowledge its existence.... Well, now--what I want to know is this. +What to your thinking is going to come of it all? I'm old-fashioned. I +like the old settled laws and customs and the rest of it, and yet I'm +not afraid of this new Individualism; but what I expect and what you +expect to come of it all are sure to be mightily different things." + +"They are," said Brun, laughing. "You see, Christopher, as I've often +said to you before, you're a sentimentalist--people matter to you; +you're concerned in their individual good or bad luck. Now none of that +is worth anything to me. I observe from the outside--always. What I want +to see is less muddle, more brain, less waste of time, more progress. I +believe the loosing of the Tiger is going to bring that about. That's +why I welcome it--I don't care one little damn about your +individual--let him be sacrificed every time for the general wisdom. +Your Duchess, she was good for her age. Now she is against progress. She +vanishes. That crowd of to-night has swept her away.... There'll be a +chaos here for a time--people like the Ruddards will mix things up; a +woman like Mrs. Strode will destroy as many good people as she can. But +the time will come; out of that crowd that we got into to-night a world, +ruled by brain, by common sense, by understanding, not by sentiment and +confusion, will arise.... May I not be with the good God!" + +"'Sentiment and confusion,'" said Christopher, smiling. "That's me, I +suppose." + +"Well, you _are_ sentimental," said Brun. "You're stuffed with it." + +"Do you yourself ..." asked Christopher, "is there no one--no one in the +world--who matters to you?" + +"Nobody," said Brun. "No one in the world. I think I like you better +than anybody; you're the honestest man I know and yet one of the most +wrong-headed. Yes, I like you very much; but it would not be true to say +that it would leave any great blank in my life if you were to die. +Women! Yes, there have been women! But--thank the good God! for the +moment only. The Heart--no--The Brain--yes----" + +"Well, then," said Christopher, "that's all clear enough. It isn't very +wonderful that we differ. People are to me everything. Love the only +power in the world to make change, to work miracles; I don't mean only +sensual love, or even sexual love, but simply the love of one human +being for another, the love that leads to thinking more of your +neighbour than yourself--self-denial. + +"Self-denial; the only curb for your Tiger, Brun. I've been watching it +in a piece of private history, all this last year and a half. There +might have been the most horrible mess; self-denial saved it all the +time. You'll say that all this is so vague and loose that it's worth +nothing." + +"Not at all," said Brun politely. "Go ahead." + +"Well, then, the reason why I, old-fashioned and Philistine as I am, +hail the passing of the Grand Duke with joy--and I cared for the old +woman, mind you--is just this. I see some chance at last for the plain +man--not the clever man, or the especially spiritual man or the wealthy +man--but simply the ordinary man. When I say Brotherhood I don't mean +anything to do with associations or meetings or rules--Simply that I +believe in an age when a man's neighbour will matter to a man more than +himself, when it won't be priggish or weak to help someone in worse +plight than yourself, when it will simply be the obvious thing ... when, +above all, there'll be no jealousy, no getting in a man's way because he +does better than you, no knocking a man down because he sees the +world--this world and the next--differently. That's my Individualism, my +Rising City, and if you had watched the lives of a few friends of mine +during the last year or two as I've watched them you'd know that 'Love +thy neighbour as thyself' is the fire that's going to burn all the +Grand-Ducal woods in the world in time." + +Brun laughed. "You'll be taken in horribly one of these days, +Christopher." + +"You speak as though I were a chicken," Christopher broke out +indignantly. "Man alive, haven't I lived all these years? Haven't I seen +the poorest and rottenest and feeblest side of human nature time and +time again? But this I know: That it's losing the thing you prize most +that pays, it's the pursuit, the self-denial, the forgetting of self +that scores in the material, practical world as well as the spiritual, +heavenly one. That's where the Millennium's coming from. Brains as well +perhaps, but souls first." + +"We'll see," said Brun. "A bit of both, I dare say. Anyhow, it's the +next generation that's going to be interesting. All kinds of people free +who've never been free before, all sorts of creeds and doctrines smashed +that seemed like Eternity. The old woods flaming already. _Après la +Duchesse!..._ But as for your Love, your Brotherhood, Christopher, I've +a shrewd suspicion that human nature will change very little. +Unselfishness? Very fine to talk about--but who's going to practise it? +Every man for his own hand, now as ever." + +"We'll see," answered Christopher. "I'm not clever at putting things +into words. If I were to go along to the man in the street and say, +'Look here, I've made a discovery--I've got something that's going to +make everything straight in the world,' and he were to say, 'What's +that?' and then I were to answer, 'Self-denial. Unselfishness--Love of +your neighbour,' he would, of course, instantly remind me that Someone +greater than myself had made the same remark a few thousand years ago. +He'd be right.... There's nothing new in it. But it's coming new to the +world just because the laws and conventions that covered it are +breaking. The Tiger in Every Man and Self-denial to curb it ... That's +my prophecy, Brun." + +Brun gave himself a whisky-and-soda. "No idea you were such a talker, +Christopher.... But I'm right all the same." + +He held up his glass. + +"Here's to the Tiger in the next generation." He drank, then held it up +again. "And here," he cried, "to the memory of the last Great lady in +England!" + + +III + +When Brim had gone it seemed that he had left that last toast of his in +the air behind him. + +Christopher was haunted by the thought of the Duchess, he felt her with +him in the room; she stirred him to restlessness so that at last, +desperately, he took his hat and went out. + +His steps took him, round the corner, to Portland Place; here all was +very quiet, a few cabs in the middle of the street, a few lights in the +windows, the silver field of stars, in the distance the sky golden, +fired now and again into life as a rocket rose shielding beneath its +glow all that stirring multitude. Sounds rose--a cry, a shout, +singing--then died down again. + +He was outside No. 104. He thought that he would ring and see whether +Mrs. Newton were in; perhaps she had gone to bed, it was after eleven, +but, if she were there, he would take one last look at the Portrait +before it was packed up and sent down to Beaminster. + +Mrs. Newton unbolted the door and smiled when she saw him--"I was just +going to bed--There's only myself and Louisa here--and the watchman." + +"I won't keep you, Mrs. Newton," he said. "The fancy just took me to +look at some of the pictures once more before they're packed up. Lady +Seddon told me that a good many of them were to be packed up to-morrow; +they won't look quite the same at Beaminster." + +"No, that they won't, sir," said Mrs. Newton. "I shall miss the old +house. Just to think of the years; and now, all of us scattered!" + +She lit a lamp for him and he went up the stone staircase, found the +long drawing-room, and there, on the farther wall, the Portrait. + +The furniture, shrouded in brown holland, waited like ghostly watchers +on every side of him. The huge house, always a place of strange silences +and vast disturbances, multiplied now in its long mirrors and its air of +cold suspense as though it were waiting for something to happen, showed +its recognition of death and death's consequences. + +But the Portrait was alive! As he held the lamp up to it the face leapt +into agitation, the eyes were bent once again sharply upon him, the +mouth curved to speak, the black silk rustled against the chair. + +A host of memories crowded the room, he was filled with a regret more +poignant than anything that he had felt since her death. + +"She _was_ fine! I miss her more than I had any notion that I would! She +stirred one up, she made one alive!" + +He put the lamp upon the floor and sat down for a minute amongst the +shrouded furniture. + +His mind passed from Brun's generalizations to the little bundle of +people whom he knew--Rachel, Francis, Roddy, Lizzie Rand. To all of them +the Tiger's moment had come; and out of it all, out of the stress and +suffering and struggle, Rachel's child was to be born--instead of the +Duchess the new generation. Instead of this old house, the hooded +furniture, the anger at all freedom of thought, the jealousy of all +enterprise, the slander and the malice, an age of a universal +Brotherhood, of unselfishness, restraint, charity, tolerance ... + +Perhaps after all, he _was_ an old, sentimental fool. There had always +been those at every birth and every death who had had their dreams of +new human nature, new worlds, new virtues and moralities.... + +He looked his last at the Portrait-- + +"I'm nearly as old as you. I shall go soon. But I miss you ... you'd be +yourself surprised if you knew how much!" + +He took up the lamp and left her.... He said good night to Mrs. Newton +and closed the door behind him. + +Standing on the steps of the house he looked about him. Portland Place +was like a broad river running silently into the dark trees at the end +of it. There was a great rest and quiet here. + +Southwards the sky flamed, the noise of a great multitude of people came +muffled across space with the rhythm in it of a beating song. Rockets +slashed the sky, broke into golden stars; the bells from all the +churches in the town clashed and, from some great distance, guns +solemnly booming rolled through the air. + +Christopher, standing there, smiled as he thought of Brun's little +picture. + +Brun springing up, of course, at the right moment, to point his moral. +Brun, who appeared, like some Jack-in-the-box, in city after city, with +his conclusion, his prophecy, neat and prepared. + +"And we'll have fires out of the Grand Duke's Wood..." + +There was the Wood, there the mob, there the Grand Duke, dead and +buried-- + +Christopher shrugged his shoulders; whatever Brun might say human beings +were more than summaries, prophecies, conclusions. + +As he looked towards the trees and felt a little breeze caress his face +with, he could swear, some salt of the sea, he thought of the human +beings who were his friends--Rachel, Roddy, Lizzie, Francis. + +And then it seemed to him that, out of the trees, down the shining +surface of Portland Place, a figure came towards him--the figure of +Rachel's child. + + + * * * * * + + +NOVELS BY HUGH WALPOLE + +_STUDIES IN PLACE_ + + THE WOODEN HORSE + MARADICK AT FORTY + THE GODS AND MR. PERRIN + +_TWO PROLOGUES_ + + THE PRELUDE TO ADVENTURE + FORTITUDE + +_THE RISING CITY_ + + 1. THE DUCHESS OF WREXE + 2. THE GREEN MIRROR + (_In preparation_) + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUCHESS OF WREXE*** + + +******* This file should be named 33086-8.txt or 33086-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/3/0/8/33086 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: The Duchess of Wrexe</p> +<p> Her Decline and Death; A Romantic Commentary</p> +<p>Author: Hugh Walpole</p> +<p>Release Date: July 5, 2010 [eBook #33086]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUCHESS OF WREXE***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Suzanne Lybarger, Mary Meehan,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1>THE DUCHESS OF WREXE</h1> + +<h3>HER DECLINE AND DEATH</h3> + +<h3>A ROMANTIC COMMENTARY</h3> + +<h2>BY HUGH WALPOLE</h2> + +<h3>Author of "Fortitude," etc.</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + +<h3>NEW YORK<br /> +GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</h3> + +<h3>Copyright, 1914,<br /> +<span class="smcap">By George H. Doran Company</span></h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3>TO<br /> +MY MOTHER<br /> +A SMALL EXPRESSION OF GRATITUDE<br /> +BEYOND WORDS</h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"And we'll have fires out of the Grand Duke's Wood."<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Letter to Maria Gisborne</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3>THE RISING CITY: I</h3> + +<h3>THE DUCHESS OF WREXE</h3> + +<p><i>NOTE: This is an age of Trilogies and Sequels. The title at the +beginning of this book, "The Rising City: I," may lead nervous readers +to fear yet another attempt in that extended and discursive direction</i>.</p> + +<p><i>To reassure them I wish to emphasize this point—that</i> The Duchess of +Wrexe <i>is entirely a novel complete and independent in itself. It is +grouped, with the two stories that will follow it, under the heading of +"The Rising City" because the three novels will be connected in place, +in idea, and in sequence of time. Also certain of the same characters +will appear in all three books. But the novels are not intended as +sequels of one another, nor is "The Rising City" a Trilogy.—H. W.</i></p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#BOOK_I">BOOK I. THE DUCHESS</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I. <span class="smcap">Felix Brun, Dr. Christopher, Rachel Beaminster—They Are Surveyed by +the Portrait</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II. <span class="smcap">Rachel</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III. <span class="smcap">Lady Adela</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV. <span class="smcap">The Pool</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V. <span class="smcap">She Comes Out</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI. <span class="smcap">Fans</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII. <span class="smcap">In the Heart of the House</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII. <span class="smcap">The Tiger</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX. <span class="smcap">The Golden Cage</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X. <span class="smcap">Lizzie and Breton</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI. <span class="smcap">Her Grace's Day</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII. <span class="smcap">Defiance of the Tiger—I</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII. <span class="smcap">Defiance of the Tiger—II</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#BOOK_II">BOOK II: RACHEL</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IA">CHAPTER I. <span class="smcap">The Pool and the Snow</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IIA">CHAPTER II. <span class="smcap">A Little House</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IIIA">CHAPTER III. <span class="smcap">First Sequel to Defiance</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IVA">CHAPTER IV. <span class="smcap">Rachel—and Christopher and Roddy</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VA">CHAPTER V. <span class="smcap">Lizzie's Journey—I</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIA">CHAPTER VI. <span class="smcap">All the Beaminsters</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIIA">CHAPTER VII. <span class="smcap">Rachel and Breton</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIIIA">CHAPTER VIII. <span class="smcap">Christopher's Day</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IXA">CHAPTER IX. <span class="smcap">The Darkest Hour</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XA">CHAPTER X. <span class="smcap">Lizzie's Journey—II</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIA">CHAPTER XI. <span class="smcap">Roddy Is Master</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIIA">CHAPTER XII. <span class="smcap">Lizzie's Journey—III</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#BOOK_III">BOOK III: RODDY</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IB">CHAPTER I. <span class="smcap">Regent's Park—Breton and Lizzie</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IIB">CHAPTER II. <span class="smcap">The Duchess Moves</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IIIB">CHAPTER III. <span class="smcap">Roddy Moves</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IVB">CHAPTER IV. <span class="smcap">March 13th: Breton's Tiger</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VB">CHAPTER V. <span class="smcap">March 13th: Rachel's Heart</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIB">CHAPTER VI. <span class="smcap">March 13th: Roddy Talks to the Devil and the Duchess Denies God</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIIB">CHAPTER VII. <span class="smcap">Chamber Music—A Trio</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIIIB">CHAPTER VIII. <span class="smcap">A Quartette</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IXB">CHAPTER IX. <span class="smcap">Rachel and Roddy</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XB">CHAPTER X. <span class="smcap">Lizzie Becomes Miss Rand Again</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIB">CHAPTER XI. <span class="smcap">The Last View from High Windows</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIIB">CHAPTER XII. <span class="smcap">Rachel, Roddy, Lord John, Christopher</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIIIB">CHAPTER XIII. <span class="smcap">Epilogue—Prologue</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#NOVELS_BY_HUGH_WALPOLE">NOVELS BY HUGH WALPOLE</a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BOOK_I" id="BOOK_I"></a>BOOK I</h2> + + +<h3>THE DUCHESS</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>FELIX BRUN, DR. CHRISTOPHER, RACHEL BEAMINSTER—THEY ARE SURVEYED BY THE +PORTRAIT.</h3> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Felix Brun, perched like a little bird, on the steps of the Rede Art +Gallery, gazed up and down Bond Street, with his sharp eyes for someone +to whom he might show Yale Ross's portrait of the Duchess of Wrexe. The +afternoon was warm, the date May of the year 1898, and the occasion was +the Young Portrait Painters' first show with Ross's "Duchess" as its +principal attraction.</p> + +<p>Brun was thrilled with excitement, with emotion, and he must have his +audience. There must be somebody to whom he might talk, to whom he might +explain exactly why this occasion was of so stirring an importance.</p> + +<p>His eyes lighted with satisfaction. Coming towards him was a tall, gaunt +man with a bronzed face, loose ill-fitting clothes, a stride that had +little of the town about it. This was Arkwright, the explorer, a man who +had been lost in African jungles during the last five years, the very +creature for Brun's purposes.</p> + +<p>Here was someone who, knowing nothing about Art, would listen all the +more readily to Brun's pronouncement upon it, a homely simple soul, +fitted for the killing of lions and tigers, but pliable as wax in the +hands of a master of civilization like Brun. At the same time Arkwright +was no fool; a psychologist in his way, he had written two books about +the East that had aroused considerable interest.</p> + +<p>No fool, Arkwright.... He would be able to appreciate Brun's subtleties +and perhaps add some of his own.</p> + +<p>He had, however, been away from England for so long a time that +anything that Brun had to tell him about the London world would be +pleasantly fresh and stimulating.</p> + +<p>Brun, round and neat, and a citizen of the world from the crown of his +head to the top of his shining toes, tapped Arkwright on his shoulder:</p> + +<p>"Hallo! Brun. How are you? It <i>is</i> good to see you! Haven't seen a soul +I know for the last ever so long."</p> + +<p>"Good—good. Excellent. Come along in here."</p> + +<p>"In there? Pictures? What's the use of me looking at pictures?"</p> + +<p>"We can talk in here. I'll tell you all the news. Besides, there's +something that even you will appreciate."</p> + +<p>"Well?" Arkwright laughed good-humouredly and moved towards the door. +"What is it?"</p> + +<p>"The Duchess," Brun answered him. "Yale Ross's portrait of the Duchess +of Wrexe. At last," he triumphantly cried, "at last we've got her!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>The Duchess had a small corner wall for her own individual possession. +The thin glowing May sunlight fell about her and the dull gold of her +frame received it and gave it back with a rich solemnity as though it +had said, "You have been gay and unrestrained enough with all those +crowds, but here, let me tell you, is something that requires a very +different attitude."</p> + +<p>The Duchess received the colour and the sunlight, but made no response. +She sat, leaning forward a little, bending with one of her dry wrinkled +hands over a black ebony cane, a high carved chair supporting and +surrounding her. She seemed, herself, to be carved there, stone, marble, +anything lifeless save for her eyes, the tense clutch of her fingers +about the cane, and the dull but brooding gleam that a large jade +pendant, the only colour against the black of her dress, flung at the +observer. Her mouth was a thin hard line, her nose small but sharp, her +colour so white that it seemed to cut into the paper, and the skin +drawn so tightly over her bones that a breath, a sigh, might snap it.</p> + +<p>Her little body was, one might suppose, shrivelled with age, with the +business and pleasure of the world, with the pursuit of some great +ambition or prize, with the battle, unceasing and unyielding, over some +weakness or softness.</p> + +<p>Indomitable, remorseless, unhumorous, proud, the pose of the body was +absolutely, one felt, the justest possible.</p> + +<p>On either side of the chair were two white and green Chinese dragons, +grotesque with open mouths and large flat feet; a hanging tapestry of +dull gold filled in the background.</p> + +<p>Out upon these dull colours the little body, with the white face, the +shining eyes, the clenched hand, was flung, poised, sustained by its +very force and will.</p> + +<p>Nothing in the world could be so fierce as that determined absence of +ferocity, nothing so energetic as that negation of all energy, nothing +so proud as that contemptuous rejection of all that had to do with +pride.</p> + +<p>It was as though she had said: "They shall see nothing of me, these +people. I will give them nothing" ... and then the green jade on her +bosom had betrayed her.</p> + +<p>Maliciously the dragons grinned behind her back.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Arkwright, as he watched, was conscious suddenly of an overwhelming +curiosity. He had in earlier days seen her portrait, and always it had +been interesting, suggestive, provocative; but now, as he stood there, +he was aware that something quite definite, something uncomfortably +disconcerting had occurred; life absurdly seemed to warn him that he +must prepare for some new development.</p> + +<p>The Duchess had, he was aware, taken notice of him for the first time.</p> + +<p>Little Felix Brun watched Arkwright with interest. They were, at that +moment, the only persons in the room, and it was as though they had +begged for a private interview and had been granted it. The other +portraits of the exhibition had vanished into the mild May afternoon.</p> + +<p>"She doesn't like us," Brun said, laughing. "She'd turn the dragons on +to us if she could."</p> + +<p>"It's wonderful." Arkwright moved back a little. "Young Ross has done it +this time. No other portrait has ever given one the least idea of her. +She <i>must</i> be that."</p> + +<p>Brun stood regarding her. "There'll never be anything like her again. As +far as your England is concerned she's the very, very last, and when she +goes a heap of things will go with her. There'll be other Principalities +and Powers, but never <i>that</i> Power."</p> + +<p>"She's asked us to come," said Arkwright, "or, at any rate, asked <i>me</i>. +I wonder what she wants."</p> + +<p>"She's only asked you," said Brun, "to tell you how she hates you. And +doesn't she, my word!"</p> + +<p>There were voices behind him; Brun turned, and Arkwright heard him +exclaim beneath his breath. Then in a moment the little man was received +with: "Why, Mr. Brun! How fortunate! We've come to see my mother's +portrait."</p> + +<p>Arkwright caught these words, and knew that the lady standing there must +be Lady Adela Beaminster, the Duchess's only daughter. He had never seen +Lady Adela before, but it amused him now that she should resemble so +exactly the figure that he had imagined—it showed, after all, that one +could take the world's verdict about these things.</p> + +<p>The world's verdict about Lady Adela was that she was dull, but +important, bearing her tall dried body as a kind of flag for the right +people to range themselves behind her—and range themselves they did. +Standing now, with Felix Brun in front of her demanding a display of +graciousness, she extended her patronage. Thin, with her sharp nose and +tight mouth, she was like an exclamation mark that had left off +exclaiming, and it was only her ability to be gracious, and the sense +that she conveyed of having any number of rights and possessions to +stand for, that gave her claim to attention.</p> + +<p>Her black hat was harsh, her hair iron-grey, her eyes cold with lack of +intelligence. Arkwright thought her unpleasant.</p> + +<p>Standing a little behind her was a tall thin girl who was obviously +determined to be as ungracious as a protest against her companion's +amiability should require. The girl's thinness was accentuated by her +rather tightly clinging white dress, and beneath her long black gloves +her hands moved a little awkwardly, as though she were not quite sure +what she should do with them. A large black hat overshadowed her face, +but Arkwright could see that her eyes, large and dark, were more +beautiful than anything else about her. Her nose was too thin, her mouth +too large, her face too white and pinched.</p> + +<p>Her body as she stood there was graceful, but not yet disciplined, so +that she made movements and then checked them, giving the impression +that she wished to do a number of things, but was uncertain of the +correctness of any of them.</p> + +<p>She was of foreign blood Arkwright decided—much too black and white for +England. But it was her expression that demanded his attention. As she +watched Felix Brun talking to Lady Adela, she seemed to be longing to +express the contempt that she felt for both of them, and yet to have +behind that desire a pathetic hesitation as to whether she had a right +to be contemptuous of anyone.</p> + +<p>It was the pathos, Arkwright decided, that one ultimately felt +concerning her. She looked lonely, she looked frightened, and she looked +"in the devil of a temper." Her black eyes would be beautiful, whether +they were filled with tears or with anger, and it seemed that they must +very often be filled with both. "I wouldn't like to have the handling of +her," thought Arkwright, and then instantly after, "I'd like to take +away some of that loneliness."</p> + +<p>"She'll have a fine old time," he thought, "if she isn't too sensitive."</p> + +<p>Lady Adela had now moved forward with Brun to look at the picture, but +the girl did not move with them. She did not look at the portrait nor +did she appear to take any interest in the other pictures. She stood +there, making, every now and again, little nervous movements with her +black gloves.</p> + +<p>Arkwright moved about the gallery by himself a little, and he was +conscious that the girl's large black eyes followed him. He fancied, as, +for an instant he glanced back, that the Duchess from her high wall +leaned forward on her cane just a little further, so that she might +force the girl to give her attention. "That girl's got plenty of +spirit," thought Arkwright, "I'd like to see a battle between her and +the old lady. It would be tooth and nail."</p> + +<p>Then once again the door opened—there was again an addition to the +company. Arkwright was, at that moment, facing the girl, and as he heard +the sharp closing of the door he saw in her eyes the welcome that the +new-comer had received.</p> + +<p>She was transformed. The pallor of her face was now flooded with colour, +and she seemed almost beautiful as the hostility left her, and her mouth +curved in a smile of so immense a relief that it emphasized indeed her +earlier burden. Her whole body expressed the intensity of her pleasure; +her awkwardness had departed; she was suddenly in possession of herself. +Arkwright's gaze went past her to the door. The man who stood there was +greeting the girl with a smile that had in it both surprise and +intimacy, as though they were the two oldest friends in the world, and +yet he was astonished to see her there. The man was large, roughly +built, with big limbs and a face that, without being good-looking, +beamed kindness and good-nature. His eyes and mouth were sensitive and +less ragged than the rest of him, his nose the plainest thing about him, +was square and too large for his mouth. His hair was white, although he +looked between forty and fifty years of age. His dress was correct, but +he obviously did not give his clothes more consideration than the +feelings of his friends required of him. Ruddy of face, with his white +hair and large limbs and smiling good-humour, he was pleasant to look +upon, and Arkwright did not wonder at the girl's welcome; he would be, +precisely, the kind of friend that she would need—benevolent, +understanding, strong.</p> + +<p>They greeted one another, and then they moved forward and spoke to Lady +Adela and Brun.</p> + +<p>Arkwright watched them. There they all were, gathered together under the +sharp eyes of the Duchess, and she seemed, so Arkwright fancied, to hold +them with her gaze. Little Brun was neater than ever, and Lady Adela +drier than ever by the side of the stranger. They talked; they were +discussing the picture—their eyes travelled up to it, and for an +instant there was silence as though they were all charging it with their +challenge or surrender, as the case might be. The girl's eyes moved up +to it with a sudden sharpened, thinning of the face that brought back +the gleam of hostility that it had worn before. Then her eyes fell, and, +with a smile, they sought her friend.</p> + +<p>Arkwright did not know any reason for his interest, but he watched them +breathlessly, and the sense that he had had, on first entering the room, +of being on the verge of some new experience, deepened with him.</p> + +<p>Brun was apparently suddenly conscious that he had left his friend alone +long enough, for he detached himself from the group, shook hands with +Lady Adela and the girl, bowed stiffly to the man and joined Arkwright.</p> + +<p>"Seen enough?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Arkwright.</p> + +<p>They went out together.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>Felix Brun and Arkwright were not intimate friends. No one was intimate +with Brun, and the little man came and disappeared, was there and was +not there, was absent for a year, and then back again as though he had +been away a week, was, indeed, simply a succession of explanatory +footnotes to the social history of Europe.</p> + +<p>It was for the social history of Europe that he lived, for the eager +penetrating gaze into this capital and that, something suddenly noted, +some case examined and dismissed. Life is discovered most accurately by +those who learn to watch for its accidents rather than its intentions, +and it was always the things that occurred by change that gave Brun his +discoveries. He was a cosmopolitan of a multitude of acquaintances, no +friends, no occupation, an enthusiasm only for cynical and pessimistic +observation, invaluable as a commentator, useless as a human being.</p> + +<p>When, as was now the case, some chance meeting had assisted his theories +his neat little body shone like a celluloid ball. If, having made his +discovery, he might also have his audience to whom he might declare it, +then his very fingers quivered with the excitement of it. His hands, +white and thin and tapering, waved now. His eyes were on fire. As they +walked up Bond Street one might have imagined air-bladders at his +armpits, Mercury's wings at his heels. The quiet evening air was charged +with him.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Arkwright, smiling and looking down at his companion. "Who +are they all?"</p> + +<p>"Lady Adela Beaminster, Rachel Beaminster, Christopher——"</p> + +<p>"Christopher?"</p> + +<p>"Dr. Christopher, the Harley Street man. He's the Duchess' doctor, has +been for years. The girl was the Duchess' granddaughter—Lady Adela's +niece."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"The girl's coming out in three days' time. They're giving a ball in +Portland Place for her. Nobody knows much about her. She's been educated +abroad, and always kept very close when she's here. I shouldn't think +the old Duchess loves her much. She loved the girl's father, but he +married a Russian actress, bolted to Russia with her, and the old lady +never forgave him. He and the actress were both killed in a Petersburg +fire, and the child was sent home—only tiny then——"</p> + +<p>"Ah! that explains the foreign air she had. She didn't look as though +she loved her aunt very much either."</p> + +<p>"No—don't suppose she does. But that's not it—that's not it."</p> + +<p>They had arrived now at the top of Bond Street, and they paused for a +moment to allow the Oxford Street traffic to sweep past them.</p> + +<p>It was an hour of stir and clatter—hansoms, carts, lumbering omnibuses, +bicycles, all were hurled along as though by some impatient hand, and +the evening light crept higher and higher along the walls of the street, +leaving grey-purple shadows beneath it.</p> + +<p>They crossed over, and were instantly in a dim, golden, voiceless +square. It was as though a door had been closed.</p> + +<p>Brun still held Arkwright's arm. "Now we can talk—no noise. Francis +Breton has come back."</p> + +<p>To Arkwright this name, unfortunately, conveyed nothing.</p> + +<p>"You don't know?" Brun was disappointed.</p> + +<p>"Never heard of him."</p> + +<p>"Fancy that. World of wonders; what have you been doing with your time? +He is the Duchess's grandson, son of the beautiful, the wonderful Iris +Beaminster, who eloped with Kit Breton thirty years ago. I believe the +old Duchess pursued her relentlessly until the end. They were married +only a few years and then Iris Breton committed suicide. Kit Breton beat +her and was always drunk; an absolute rascal. There was one boy, and he +wandered about Europe with his father until he was twenty or so. Then +Kit Breton died, and the boy came home. Revenge on his grandmother was +his one idea. He was taken up by her enemies, of whom she always had a +goodly store, and they might have made something out of him, if he +hadn't developed his father's habits and finally been mixed up in some +gambling scandal, and forced to leave the country.</p> + +<p>"You can imagine what all this was to the Beaminsters—the great +immaculate Beaminsters—you can picture the Duchess.... He went and saw +her once ... but that's another story. Well, abroad he went, and abroad +he stayed—just now, coming out of the Gallery, I saw him——"</p> + +<p>"You are sure?"</p> + +<p>"Positive. There could be no mistake. He's just the same, a trifle +tireder, a trifle lower down—but the same, oh yes."</p> + +<p>It was when Brun was most excited that he was unmistakably the +foreigner. Now little exclamations that escaped him revealed him. As a +rule in England he was more English than the English.</p> + +<p>They had left the square and were passing up Harley Street. The houses +wore their accustomed air of profitable secrecy. The doors, the windows, +the brass knockers, the white and chastened steps were so discreet that +Sunday morning was the only time in the week when they were really +comfortable and at home. In every muffled hall there was lying in wait a +muffled man-servant, beyond every muffled man-servant there was a +muffled waiting-room with muffled illustrated papers: only the tinkling, +at long intervals, of some sharp little bell from some inner secrecy +would pierce that horrible discretion. Upon both men that shining +succession of little brass plates produced its solemnity.</p> + +<p>Arkwright was nevertheless interested by Brun's discoveries. He was +accompanied, as they talked, by that picture of the thin, dark girl +moving restlessly her long, gloved hands. He could see now that look +that she had flung at the picture.... Oh! she was interesting!</p> + +<p>"But tell me, Brun," he said, "you go on so fast. As I understand you +there are these two, Breton and the girl, both of them the result of +tragedies.... Do they know one another, do you suppose?"</p> + +<p>"No. The girl was only a small child when Breton was in England, and you +can be sure that she was carefully kept out of his way. But now that +he's back ... now that he's back!"</p> + +<p>"It's the girl that interests me!" said Arkwright.</p> + +<p>"Oh! the girl!" Brun was almost contemptuous. "There you go—English +sentiment—missing all the time the great thing, the splendid thing."</p> + +<p>"Explain," Arkwright said, laughing; "I know you won't be happy until +you have."</p> + +<p>"Why—it's the Duchess, the Duchess, the Duchess all the time. She's the +centre of the picture; she <i>is</i> the picture. <i>She's</i> the subject."</p> + +<p>Arkwright said nothing. Brun tossed his hands in the air.</p> + +<p>"Oh—you English! No wonder you're centuries behind everything—you miss +the very things under your nose. There's the Duchess, sitting there—a +great figure as she has been these sixty years, but a figure hidden, +veiled. There she has been for the last thirty years, shut up in that +great house, wrapped about and concealed. Nobody knows what the matter +was—I don't know. I should think Christopher's the only man who can +tell. At any rate, thirty years ago she retired altogether from the +world, and sees only the fewest of people. But all the ceremony goes on, +dressing up, receiving, and the influence she has! She was powerful +enough before she disappeared, but since! Why, there's no pie she hasn't +her finger in: politics, society, revolution, life, death; nothing goes +on without her knowledge, her approval, her disapproval——"</p> + +<p>"Her family, poor dears!"</p> + +<p>"Oh; they love it—at any rate, the ones who are left do. The rebels are +the younger generation. Society in England, my dear Arkwright, is +dissolved into three divisions—the Autocrats, the Aristocrats, and the +Democrats. I take my hat off to the Aristocrats—the Chichesters, the +Medleys, the Darrants, the Weddons. All those quiet, decorous people, +poor as mice many of them, standing aside altogether from any movements +or war-cries of the day, living in their quiet little houses, or their +empty big ones, clever some of them, charitable all of them, but never +asserting their position or estimating it. They never look about them +and see where they are. They've no need to. They're just there.</p> + +<p>"The Democrats are quite a new development—not much of them at +present—the Ruddards, the Denisons, the Oaks—but we shall hear a lot +of them in the future, I'm sure. They'll sacrifice anything for +cleverness; they must be amused; life must be entertaining. They embrace +everybody: actors, Americans, writers; they're quite clever, mind you, +and it's all perfectly genuine. They're not snobs—they say, 'Here are +our lands and our titles. You're common and vulgar, but you've got +brains—you're amusing and we're well born—let's make an exchange. Life +must be fun for us, so we'll have anyone with money or talent."</p> + +<p>"Then, last of all, the Autocrats—the Beaminsters, the Gutterils, the +Ministers. I'm using Autocrat in its broadest sense, but that's just +what they are. You <i>must</i> have your quarterings, and you must look down +on those who haven't. But, more than that, everything must be preserved, +and continual ceremonies, dignities, chastities, restraints, pomps, and +circumstances. Above all, no one must be admitted within the company who +is not of the noblest, the stupidest, the narrowest.</p> + +<p>"The Beaminsters are the bodyguard of this little army, and the Duchess +is their general. There, behind her shut doors, she keeps it all going; +an American like Mrs. Bronson, a democrat like George Lent, she spoils +their games here, there, everywhere. So far all has been well. But at +last there are enemies within her gates—that girl, Breton. Now, at +last, for the first time in her life, she must look out."</p> + +<p>He paused. They had reached Portland Place. To right and left of them +the broad road was golden in the sun—dark trees guarded one end of it, +bronzed roofs the other.</p> + +<p>Two carriages stood like sentinels at the upper end.</p> + +<p>Brun raised his hand as though he would invoke the spirit of it. "There, +Arkwright, there's your subject. The Duchess, tiny, indomitable, +brooding over this place. This square of London round the Circus, your +prostituted street, this splendour, Harley Street, Morris Square with +its respectability, Ferris Street with its boarding-houses, over them +all the Duchess is ruling. There's not one of them, I dare fancy, that +is not conscious of her existence, not one of them that will not see +life differently when she is gone. Meanwhile, she'll fight for her +Autocrats to the last breath, and she's got a battle in front of her +that will take her all her time. And when she goes the Autocrats will go +with her, the Beaminsters as Beaminsters will be done for; life here +round the Circus will never be the same again. There's a new city +rising, Arkwright, and the new citizens may forget, the Aristocrats may +compromise with the Democrats, but they'll turn out the Autocrats. A lot +of good things will go with them—good old things—but a lot of fine new +things will come in."</p> + +<p>As they passed out of Portland Place the wooden-legged crossing-sweeper +touched his hat to them.</p> + +<p>"Will <i>he</i> come in?" said Arkwright, laughing.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," said Brun gravely.</p> + +<p>Arkwright shook his head. "You can talk, Brun, you can say a lot. But +it's artificial the whole of it. Your subject, as you call it, is in the +air. We're realists nowadays, you know."</p> + +<p>Brun's flat stared at them with its hideous red brick and ugly +shapelessness. No romance for Dent Street; the glittering expanse of +Portland Place was gone.</p> + +<p>"You can't be a realist only, if you're to do the Duchess properly," +said Brun. "There's more than that wanted."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>RACHEL</h3> + +<blockquote><p>"My dear thing, it all comes back, as everything always does, +simply to personal pluck. It's only a question, no matter when +or where, of having enough."—<span class="smcap">Henry James.</span></p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>No. 104 Portland Place was the house where the Duchess of Wrexe had +lived now for sixty years. On the left as you go towards the park it had +an air that no other house in the Place had ever been able to catch. +There were certain buildings, Nos. 31, 26, 42, for instance, that were +obviously doing their little best to present a successful imitation, but +they were left a long, a very long way behind. The interesting thing +would be to know whether No. 104 had had that wonderful "note" sixty +years ago, when the Duchess came to it. Probably not; it was, beyond +question, her presence that had thus given it its distinction. Its grim +facade, without her, would not so strangely have hinted at beauties and +wonders and glories within, nor would the windows have gleamed so +finely, nor the great hall-door have symbolized such rich dark depths.</p> + +<p>Here the temple of the Beaminsters, here, therefore, the shrine of all +that is best and finest in English aristocracy. It was indeed the +largest house in Portland Place, and most of the houses there were +large, but, across that blank austere front more was written than mere +size. It was Age at its most scornful, but observant Age, an Age that +could compare one period with another, an Age that had not forgotten the +things that belonged to its Youth.</p> + +<p>There was very little, up and down Portland Place, at morning, at +midday, at night, that the house did not perceive. Those high, broad, +shining windows were not as other windows—there was assertion in their +very bland stupidity.</p> + +<p>Within the house was dark and cold, with high square rooms, wide stone +staircase, and a curious capacity for clutching any boisterous or seedy +humanity on the very threshold and strangling it.</p> + +<p>From the hall the great stone staircase was the feature. It struck a +chill, at once, into the heart of the visitor so vast was it, so cold +and white, so uncompromising, so scornful of other less solid +staircases. Very ancient, too—went back a long, long way and would +last, just like that, for ever!</p> + +<p>What people it must have known, what scenes, what catastrophes +encountered! About it, on either side, the hall vanished into blackness; +here a gleaming portrait, there some antlers, here again an +eighteenth-century gentleman with a full wig and the Beaminster nose and +comfortable contempt in his eyes ... and, around and about it all, +silence; no sound from any part of the house penetrated here.</p> + +<p>Up the stone staircase, passages, doors, more family portraits, more +staircase, more passages, more doors and, somewhere, in some hidden +solemnity, the ticking of a clock, so lonely in all that silence that +every now and again it would catch its breath with a little whir, as +though it wondered whether it really could go on in the teeth of so +contemptuous an indifference.</p> + +<p>Rachel Beaminster's sitting-room overlooked Portland Place, and caught +the sun on lucky days for quite a time. It was small, square of shape, +like a box with a high window, a tiny fireplace, an arm-chair, and a +squat table with a bright blue cloth.</p> + +<p>Always during the two years that had been devoted to "finishing" in +Munich she had had that little room, cosy, compact, before her. Now did +it seem a little shabby, the carpet and tablecloth and curtains a little +faded; it yet had its cosiness, there in the heart of the great waste +and desert that the house presented to her.</p> + +<p>The little silver clock on the mantelpiece had struck five: she had come +back with Aunt Adela from the picture gallery, and, hearing voices in +the Long Drawing-room (the voices said, "My dear Adela, we just +came...." "Adela dear, how well...."), she slipped up the stairs and +secured her own refuge, and rang for tea to be brought to her there.</p> + +<p>She wanted to think: she wanted to lie in the arm-chair there with the +window a little open and the evening air coming from the park across +Portland Place curiously scented like the sea.</p> + +<p>As she lay back in her chair her body seemed fragile, and, almost, in +its abandonment, exhausted. Under the black eyes her cheeks and neck +were very white, and her black hair gave it all the intensest setting.</p> + +<p>She <i>was</i> tired, horribly tired, and she wondered, vaguely, as she lay +there how she was ever to manage this life that, in three days' time, +she must take up and carry, a life that offered, perhaps, a little +freedom, a little release, but so many, so many terrors.</p> + +<p>As her gaze took in the little room—its grey paper, a photograph of +Uncle John, a book-case with poets, some miscellaneous and +untidy-looking novels, and a number of little red Carlyles, a china +cockatoo with an impertinent stare, a copy of Furze's "Ride," and a +water-colour of red Munich roofs signed "Mary," a tiny writing-table +with one old yellow photograph of a sad dark woman in a silver +frame—these things were, it seemed the only friendly things she knew. +Outside this room there was her grandmother, the house, London, the +world—more and more horrible as the circles grew wider and wider.</p> + +<p>At the mere thought of the things that she must, in three days' time, +face, her heart began to beat so that she could scarcely breathe, and, +with that beating, came the iron determination that no one should ever +know.</p> + +<p>She could not remember a time when these two emotions had not come +together. She saw, as though it had happened only an hour ago, a tiny +child in a black frock stumbling across endless deserts of carpet +towards someone who looked older and more curious than anything one +could have conceived possible. Someone sitting in a high carved chair, +someone leaning on a stick, with two terrifying great dragons behind +her.</p> + +<p>The child was seized with such a panic that her breath came in little +pumping gasps, her legs quivered and trembled, her mouth was open, her +eyes like saucers. And then, suddenly, after what had seemed a century +of time, there came the thin trembling voice: "Why, the child's an +idiot!"</p> + +<p>Since that awful day Rachel had determined that "no one should ever +know." There had come to her, at that moment, the knowledge that round +every corner there might lurk dragons and a witch. Sometimes they were +there, sometimes they were not, but always there was the terror before +the corner was turned.</p> + +<p>Life for Rachel during those early years was one long determination to +meet bravely that half-hour, from six to half-past. Every evening at +five minutes before six down the long passages she would be led, then +would come the short pause before the dark door, a pause when the +beating of the child's heart seemed the only sound in the vast house; +then the knock, someone's voice "Come in," then the slow opening of the +door, the revelation of the strange dim room with the old mirrors, the +purple carpet, the china dragons, and grandmother in the high carved +chair. There was always, in the hottest weather, a fire burning, always +Dorchester, a large ugly woman, behind the chair, always the cockatoo +see-sawing on a golden perch and crying out every now and again with +shrill, hostile cries. And then, in the centre of this, grandmother, +with her terrible hands, her terrible nose, her terrible eyes, and, most +terrible of all, her voice.</p> + +<p>Rachel would sit upright on her chair, and very often nothing would be +said throughout the half-hour. Sometimes Dorchester would ask questions, +such as: "And what has Miss Rachel been doing to-day?" "Did Miss Rachel +enjoy her walk in the park this afternoon?" "Has Miss Rachel enjoyed her +lessons to-day?" Sometimes, and these were the terrible occasions, her +grandmother would speak: "Well, have you been a good little girl?" or +"Tell me what you have been doing, child."</p> + +<p>At the sound of that voice the room would flood with terror: the child +would still, by an effort of will, her body. She could feel now, from +all that distance of years, the discipline that it had needed to steady +her little black legs that dangled from her chair. She learnt, in time, +to control herself so that she could give long answers in a grave, +reserved tone.</p> + +<p>The old lady never moved as she spoke, only bent forward and stared at +her, as though she would see whether it were the truth that she were +speaking.</p> + +<p>As the days passed and Rachel grew older it was around this half-hour +that the house ranged itself. The things in it—the rooms, the passages, +the stairs, the high, cold schoolroom with its shining maps and large +frigid table, the tapestry room, long and dark and mysterious with +strange beasts and horsemen waving in the dusk, the white drawing-room +so delicate and fragile that the furniture seemed to be all holding its +breath as though a little motion in the air would dissipate it, the vast +dining-room with the great hanging candelabra, and the family portraits +and the stone fireplace—all these things existed only that that +terrible half-hour might fling its shadow about the day.</p> + +<p>The child was much alone; she had governesses, a music master, a drawing +master, but from these persons, however friendly they might be, she held +aloof. She told them nothing of her thoughts. She had behind her her +very early years that were now to her like a dream; she did not know +that it had ever really existed, that picture of snow and some dark kind +figure that was always beside her protecting her, and in the air always +a noise of bells. As she grew older that picture was not dimmed in the +vision of it, but only she doubted its authenticity. Nevertheless, the +memory provided a standard and before that standard these governesses +were compelled to yield.</p> + +<p>There were, of course, her uncles and her aunt. Aunt Adela was more +immediately concerned in the duty of her niece's progress than any +other, but as a duty she always, from the first, represented it. From +that first morning, when she had given her cold dry cheek to the little +girl to kiss until now, three days before Rachel's freedom, she had made +no suggestion nor provocation of affection. "It is a business, my dear +niece," she seemed to say, "that, for the sake of our family, we must go +through. Let us be honest and deny all foolish sentiment."</p> + +<p>To this Rachel was only too ready to agree. She did not like her Aunt +Adela. Aunt Adela resembled a dry, wintry tree, a tree whose branches +cracked and snapped, a tree that gave no hope of any spring. Rachel +always saw Aunt Adela as an ugly necessity; she was not a thing of +terror, but merely something unpleasant, something frigid and of a +lukewarm hostility.</p> + +<p>Then there were the uncles—Uncle Vincent, Uncle John, and Uncle +Richard.</p> + +<p>Uncle Vincent, the Duke, was over sixty now and very like his mother, +withered and sharp and shrivelled, but he was without her terror, being +merely dapper and insignificant, and his sleek hair (there was only a +little of it very carefully spread out) and his white spats were the +most prominent things about him. He was fond, Rachel gathered, of his +racing and his club and his meals, and he was unmarried.</p> + +<p>Uncle Richard had been twice Prime Minister and was a widower. He lived +in a beautiful house in Grosvenor Street, and collected wine and fans +and first editions. He was always very kind to Rachel, and she liked his +tall thin figure, bent a little, with his high white forehead, +gold-rimmed pince-nez on the Beaminster nose, and beautiful long white +hands. She went to have tea with him sometimes, and this was an hour of +freedom and delight, because he talked to her about the Elizabethans and +Homer, and, when she was older, Nietzsche and Kant. She liked the warm +rooms, with their thick curtains and soft carpets and rows and rows of +gleaming glittering books, and he always had tea in such beautiful china +and the silver teapot shone like a mirror. But she never felt that she +was of the same value to him as a first edition would be, and he talked +to her of the Elizabethans for their sake, and not for hers.</p> + +<p>Lastly, there was Uncle John, and her heart was divided between Uncle +John and Dr. Christopher. Uncle John was a dear. He was round and fat, +with snow-white hair that had waves in it, and his face resembled that +of a very, very good-natured pig. His nose was not in the least a +Beaminster nose, being round and snub and his eyes beamed kindliness. +Rachel, although she had always loved him, had long learnt to place no +reliance upon him. His aim in life was to make it as comfortable, as +free from all vulgar squabble and dispute, as pleasant for everyone +everywhere as it could possibly be. He was a Beaminster in so far as he +thought the Beaminsters were a splendid and ancient family, and that +there was no other family to which a man might count himself so +fortunate to belong. But he was kind and pleasant about the rest of the +world. He would like everyone to have a good time, and it was vaguely a +puzzle to him that it should be so arranged that life should have any +difficulties—it would be so much easier if everything were pleasant. +When, however, difficulties did arise they must at all costs be +dismissed. There had been no time in his life when he had not been in +love with some woman or other, but the hazards and difficulties of +marriage had always frightened him too much.</p> + +<p>He was not entirely selfish, for he thought a great deal about the +wishes and comforts of other people, but unpleasantness frightened him, +like a rabbit, into his hole. He lived the life of the "Compleat +Bachelor" at 93 Portland Place, having a multitude of friends of both +sexes, spending hours in his clubs with some of them, week-ends in +country houses with others of them, and months in delightful places +abroad with one or two of them.</p> + +<p>He was very popular, always smiling and good-natured, and cared more for +Rachel than for anyone else in the world ... but even for Rachel he +would not risk discomfort.</p> + +<p>There they all were, then.</p> + +<p>Gradually they had emerged, for her, out of the mists and shadows, +arranging themselves about her as possible protections against that +horrible half-hour of hers. She soon found that, in that, at any rate, +they would, none of them, be of use to her except Uncle John. Uncle +Vincent did not count at all. Uncle Richard only counted as china or +pictures counted.</p> + +<p>Uncle John could not count as a very strong defence, it was true, but he +was fond of her; he showed it in a thousand ways, and although he might +never actually stand up for her, yet he would always be there to comfort +her.</p> + +<p>Not that she wanted comfort. From a very early age indeed she +resolutely flung from her all props and sympathies and sentiments. She +hated the house, she hated the loneliness, most of all she hated +grandmother ... but she would go through with it, and no one should know +that she suffered.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Then, when she was seventeen, came Munich.</p> + +<p>On the day that she first heard that she was to go to Germany to be +"finished" the flashing thought that came to her was that, for a time at +any rate, the "half-hour" would be suspended. Standing there thinking of +the days passing without the shadow of that interview about them was +like emerging from some black and screaming, banging, shouting tunnel +into the clear serenity of a shining landscape. Two years might count +for her escape, and perhaps, on her return, she would be old enough for +her grandmother to have lost her terrors—perhaps....</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, that Germany, with its music and forests and toys and +fairies, danced before her. Her two years in it gave her all that she +had expected; it gave her Wagner and Mozart and Beethoven, it gave her +Goethe and Heine, Jean Paul and Heyse, Hauptmann and Mörike, it gave her +a perception of life that admitted physical and spiritual emotions on +precisely the same level, so that a sausage and the <i>Unfinished +Symphony</i> gave you the same ecstatic crawl down your spine and did not, +for an instant, object to sharing that honour.</p> + +<p>Munich also gave her the experience and revelations of May Eversley.</p> + +<p>There were some twenty or thirty girls who were, with Rachel, under the +finishing care of Frau Bebel, but Rachel held herself apart from them +all. She could not herself have explained why she did so. It was partly +because she felt that she had nothing, whether experience or discovery, +to give to them, partly because they seemed already so happy and +comfortable amongst themselves that they had surely no need of her, and +partly because she feared that from some person or some place, suddenly +round the corner there would spring the terror again. She could even +fancy that her grandmother, watching her, had placed horrors behind +curtains, closed doors, grimed and shuttered windows.—"If you think, my +dear," she might perhaps be saying, "that you've escaped by this year or +two in Germany, you're mightily mistaken.—Back to me you're coming."</p> + +<p>But May Eversley was different from the other girls. She was different +because she saw things without a muddle, knew what she wanted, knew what +she disliked, knew what was delightful, knew what was intolerable.</p> + +<p>To Rachel this clear-cut decision was more enviable than any other +quality that one could have. At this stage of her experience it was the +assent, so it seemed to her, that could give life its intensest value. +"Sit down and see, without any exaggeration or false colouring, what +you've got. Take away, ruthlessly, anything that you imagine that you've +got but haven't. See what you want. Take away ruthlessly everything +that you imagine that you would like to have but are not confident of +securing. See what's happened to you in the past. Take away ruthlessly +any sentimental repentances or sloppy regrets, but learn quite +resolutely from your ugly mistakes."</p> + +<p>Rachel's world had hitherto been limited very largely to the schoolroom +in Portland Place, the park and Beaminster House, the country +place-in-chief (three others, one in Leicestershire, one in +Northumberland, one in Norfolk), but even within this limited country +the terrific importance of those rules was driven in upon her.</p> + +<p>She felt that her grandmother was clear-headed, but, no, none of the +others—not Aunt Adela, nor the uncles, nor any of the governesses. She +was allowed to meet one or two little boys and girls of her own age. She +walked with them in the park, played with them at Beaminster House, had +tea with them occasionally, but they were, none of them, clear-headed.</p> + +<p>She was not priggish about this discovery of hers. She did not despise +other people because their definite rules did not seem to them of +importance. She did not talk about these things.</p> + +<p>To see facts very steadily without blinking was impelled upon her by the +necessity for courage. It was the only weapon wherewith to fight her +grandmother. "Now," she might say to herself, "this half-hour of yours. +Is it so bad? What definitely do you fear about it? Is it the knock at +the door? Is it the crossing the room? Is it answering questions?"</p> + +<p>So challenged her terror did fall, a little, away from her, ashamed at +its inadequate cause. So she went to face every peril—"Is the danger +really so bad? What exactly is it?..."</p> + +<p>May Eversley was thin and spare, small with sharp features, pince-nez, +hair brushed sternly back, and every inch of her body trained to the +purpose that it was meant to fulfil. She rang her sentences on the air +like coin on a plate. Meanwhile, as she explained to Rachel, she had +been fighting since she was five. Her mother, Lady Eversley, was the +widow of Tom Eversley, now happily deceased, once the most dissolute +scamp in Europe. He had died leaving nothing but debts behind him. Since +then his widow and his daughter had lived in three little rooms above a +public house off Shepherd's Market, and the widow had battled to keep up +the gayest of appearances. May had been, at a very early age, introduced +to the struggle. "My silver mug and rattle were pawned to get a dress +for mother to go to a drawing-room in. I shouldn't be here now if it +weren't for an uncle, and it's the last thing he'll do for us. So back I +go in two year's time—to do my damnedest."</p> + +<p>Of course she was clear-headed—she had to be.</p> + +<p>"There are only two sorts of people," she said to Rachel. "Like +soup—thick and clear—the Clear ones get on and the Thick don't."</p> + +<p>May obviously liked Rachel, but was amused by her. Nobody, it seemed to +May, showed so nakedly her emotions as Rachel, and yet, also, nobody +could produce, more suddenly, the closest of reserves. May, to whom the +world had been, since she was six, a measured plain of contest, +marvelled at the poignancy of Rachel's contact with it. "If she's going +to be hurt as easily as this by everything, how on earth is she going to +get through?"</p> + +<p>Then, as the Munich days passed, May found, to her own delight, Rachel's +keen sense of humour. Munich afforded enough food for it, and finally +one discovered that Rachel smiled more readily than she trembled, but +she hid her smile because, as yet, she was not sure of it.</p> + +<p>"All she wants," May Eversley concluded, "is to be told things."</p> + +<p>Nobody in the world could be better adapted to give out these +revelations. London, to May Eversley, was an open book; moreover, the +most stormy of battle-fields on which the combatants fought, were +wounded, were slain, were gloriously victorious.</p> + +<p>She told Rachel a great deal—a great deal about people, a great deal +about sets and parties, a great deal about likes and dislikes. She had +on her side one burning curiosity to know about Rachel's Duchess. "Is +she as terrible, so tremendous as people say? Has she such a brain even +now? Old Lady Grandon, who was a great friend when they were both girls, +says that she wasn't clever then a bit—rather stupid and shy—but you +never know. Jealousy on old Grandon's part, I expect. They say she's +wonderful still."</p> + +<p>Questions of taste never worried May Eversley, and it did not worry her +now that Rachel might dislike so penetrating an inquisition. But at +least May got nothing for her trouble. Rachel told her nothing.</p> + +<p>May's final word was, "You care too much about it all—care whether it's +going to hurt, whether it's going to be frightening or not. My advice to +you is, just dash in, snatch what you can, and dash out again. It +doesn't matter a hair-pin what anyone says. Everyone says everything in +London, and nobody minds. They've all got the shortest memories."</p> + +<p>Rachel, sitting now in her little room and thinking of Munich wondered +how completely her own discovery of London would coincide with May's. +May's idea of it was certainly not Aunt Adela's. Aunt Adela, Rachel +thought, was far too dried and brittle to risk any sharp contact with +anything. None of her uncles, she further reflected, liked sharp +contacts, and yet, how continually grandmother provided them!</p> + +<p>How comfortable all of them—Aunt Adela and the uncles—would be without +their mother, and yet how proud they were of having her! For herself, +Rachel faced her approaching deliverance with a tightening of all the +muscles of her body. "I won't care. It shall be as May says—and there +are sure to be some comfortable people about, some people who want to +make it pleasant for one."</p> + +<p>Then there was a tap at the door and Uncle John came in. Uncle John +often came in about half-past five. It was a convenient time for him to +come, but also, perhaps, he recognized that that approaching half-hour +that Rachel was to have with his mother demanded, beforehand, some kind +of easy, amiable prologue.</p> + +<p>To-day, however, there was more in his comfortable smiling countenance +than merely paying a visit warranted. He stood for a moment at the door +looking over at her, rather fat but not very, his white hair, his pearl +pin, his white spats all gleaming, a rosiness and a cleanliness always +about him so that he seemed, at any moment of the day, to have come +straight from his tub, having jumped, in his eagerness to see you, into +his beautiful clothes, and hurried, all in a glow, to get to you.</p> + +<p>"They're all chattering downstairs—chattering like anything. There's +Roddy Seddon, old Lady Carloes and Crewner and some young ass Crewner's +brought with him and your Uncle Dick looking bored and your Aunt Adela +looking nothing at all—and so out of it I came."</p> + +<p>He came over and sat on the broad, fat arm of her chair and looked out, +in his contented, amiable way, over the light, salmon-coloured and pale, +that now had persuaded Portland Place into silence. His eyes seemed to +say: "Now this is how I like things—all pink and quiet and +comfortable."</p> + +<p>Rachel leant a little against his shoulder, and put her hand on his +knee—</p> + +<p>"You've had tea down there?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, thank you—all I wanted. What have you been doing all the +afternoon?"</p> + +<p>He put his own hand down upon hers.</p> + +<p>"Oh! Aunt Adela and I went to look at grandmother's portrait."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"It's as clever as it can be. To anyone who doesn't know her, it's the +most wonderful likeness. It's what grandmother would like herself."</p> + +<p>He caught the note in her voice that threatened the pink security of +Portland Place. He held her hand a little tighter.</p> + +<p>"In what way?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's got the dragons and the tapestry and the purple carpet. All +the coloured things that grandmother like so much and that help her so. +Why, imagine her for a second in an ordinary room, in an old arm-chair +with a worn-out carpet and everlastings on the mantelpiece; what <i>would</i> +she do? The young man, whoever he is, has helped her all he can."</p> + +<p>Rachel felt his grasp of her hand slacken a little.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know it's wrong of me to talk like that. But it's all so sham. +It's like someone in one of those absurd fantastic novels that people +write nowadays when half the characters are out of Dickens only put into +a real background. I'm frightened of grandmother—you know I always have +been—but sometimes I wonder whether——"</p> + +<p>She paused.</p> + +<p>"Whether there's anything really to be frightened of. And yet the relief +when I can get off this half-hour every evening—the relief even now +when I'm even grown up—oh! it's absurd!"</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear, you're coming out, you're going to break away from all +of us—you'll have your own life now to make what you like of."</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's all very well. But I've been brought up all wrong. Most +girls begin to come out when they're about ten and go on, more and more, +until, when the time actually comes, well, there's simply nothing in it. +I've never known anyone intimately except May, and now at the thought of +crowds and crowds of people, at one moment I'd like to fly into a +convent somewhere, and at the next I want to go and be rude to the lot +of them—to get in quickly you know, lest they should be rude to me +first."</p> + +<p>Now that she had begun, it came out in a flood. "Oh! I shall make such a +mess of it all. What on earth am I to talk about to these people? What +do they want with me or I with them? What have I ever to say to anybody +except you and Dr. Chris, and even with you I'm as cross as possible +most of the time. Grandmother always thought me a complete fool, and so +I suppose I am. If people aren't kind I can't say a word, and if they +are I say far too much and blush afterwards for all the nonsense I've +poured out. It doesn't matter with you and Dr. Chris because you know +me, but the others! And always behind me there'd be grandmother! She +knows I'm going to be a failure, and she wants me to be—but just to +prove to her, just to prove!"</p> + +<p>She jumped up, and standing in front of the window, met, furiously, a +hostile world. Her hands were clenched, her face white, her eyes +desperate.</p> + +<p>"—Just to prove I'll be a success—I'll marry the most magnificent +husband, I'll be the most magnificent person—I'll bring it off——"</p> + +<p>Suddenly her agitation was gone—she was laughing, looking down on her +uncle half humorously, half tenderly.</p> + +<p>"Just because I love you and Dr. Chris, I'll do my best not to shame +you. I'll be the most decorous and amiable of Beaminsters.—No one shall +have a word to say——"</p> + +<p>She bent down, put her arms round his neck, and kissed him. Then she sat +down on the edge of the arm-chair with her hands clasped over his knee. +Uncle John would not have loved her so dearly had he not been, on so +many occasions, frightened of her. She was often hostile in the most +curious way—so militant that he could only console himself by thinking +that her mother had been Russian, and from Russia one might expect +anything. And then, in a moment, the hostility would break into a +tenderness, an affection that touched him to the heart and made the +tears come into his eyes. But for one who loved comfort above everything +Rachel was an agitating person.</p> + +<p>Now as he felt the pressure of her hands on his knees, he knew that he +would do anything, anything for her.</p> + +<p>"That's all right, Rachel dear," was all that he could say. "You hold on +to me and Christopher. We'll see you through."</p> + +<p>The little silver clock struck six. She got up from the chair and smiled +down at him. "If I hadn't got you and Dr. Chris—well—I just don't +know what would happen to me."</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Uncle John had remembered what it was that he had come to say. +His expression was now one of puzzled distress as though he wondered how +people could be so provoking and inconsiderate.</p> + +<p>He looked up at her. "By the way," he said, "it's doubtful whether +mother will see you this evening. You'd better go and ask, but I +expect——"</p> + +<p>"What's happened?"</p> + +<p>"I may as well tell you. You're bound to hear sooner or later. Your +cousin Francis is back in London. He's written a most insulting letter +to your grandmother. It's upset her very much."</p> + +<p>"Cousin Frank?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. He's living apparently quite near here—in some cheap rooms."</p> + +<p>May Eversley had, long before, supplied Rachel with all details as to +that family scandal.</p> + +<p>Rachel now only said: "Well, I'll go and see whether she would like me +to come."</p> + +<p>For a moment she hesitated, then turned back and flung her arms again +about her uncle's neck.</p> + +<p>"Whatever happens, Uncle John, whatever happens, we'll stick together."</p> + +<p>"Whatever happens," he repeated, "we'll stick together."</p> + +<p>His eyes, as they followed her, were full of tenderness—but behind the +tenderness there lurked a shadow of alarm.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>LADY ADELA</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"At first it seemed a little speck,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And then it seemed a mist;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It moved and moved, and took at last<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A certain shape, I wist."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>The Ancient Mariner.</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Lady Adela had returned from that visit to her mother's portrait with a +confused mind. She was not used to confused minds and resented them; +whenever so great an infliction came upon her she solved the confusion +by dismissing it, by leaving her mind a blank until it should take upon +itself to be clear again. To obtain that blank an interval of reflection +was necessary, and now, to-day, that had been impossible. On returning, +she had been instantly confronted by a number of people who required to +be given tea and conversation, and no time had been allowed her in which +she might resolve that her mind should be cleared.</p> + +<p>Her confusion was that the portrait of her mother was precisely like, a +most brilliant affair, and yet wasn't like in the least. Further than +that, in some completely muddled way, it was in the back of her mind +that her mother, suddenly, this afternoon, presented herself to her as +not entirely living up to the portrait, as being less sharp, less +terrible, less magnificent. Horror lest she should in any way be +doubting her mother's terror and magnificence—both proved every day of +the week—lay, like a dark cloud, at the back of her confusion.</p> + +<p>She could not, however, extract anything definite from the little +cluster of discomforts; old Lady Carloes and Lord Crewner, a young thing +that Lord Crewner had brought with him, and her brother Richard were +all waiting for tea, and floods of conversation instantly covered Lady +Adela's poor mind and drowned it.</p> + +<p>The Long Drawing-room, where they now were, was long and narrow, with +two large open fireplaces, a great deal of old furniture rather faded +and very handsome, silver that gleamed against the dark wall-paper, one +big portrait of the Duchess, painted by Sargent twenty years ago, and +high windows shut off now by heavy dark green curtains.</p> + +<p>The Duchess, it was understood, did not approve of electric light and +the house therefore disdained it. Parts of the room were lighted by +candles placed in heavy old silver candlesticks. Round the fireplace at +the farther end of the light shone and glittered; there the tea-tables +stood, and round about them the company was gathered.</p> + +<p>The rest of the room, hung in dark shadow, stretched into black depths, +lit only now and again by the gleam of silver or glass as the light of +the more distant fire flashed and fell.</p> + +<p>The voices, the clatter of the tea-things, these sounds seemed to be +echoed by the darker depths of the farther stretches of the room.</p> + +<p>Lady Carlos was eighty, extremely vigorous, and believed in bright +colours. She was dressed now in purple, and wore a hat with a large +white feather. Her figure was bunched into a kind of bundle, so that her +waist was too near her bosom and her bosom too near her chin and her +chin too near her forehead.</p> + +<p>It was as though some spiteful person had pressed all of her too closely +together. But this very shapelessness added to her undoubted amiability; +her face was fat and smiling, her hair white and untidy, and she +maintained her dignity in spite of her figure. Nobody knew anything with +certainty as to her income, but she was charitable, and ran a little +house in Charles Street with a great deal of ceremony and hospitality. +Her husband had long been dead and her two daughters had long been +married, so that she was happy and independent. Many people considered +her tiresome because her curiosity was insatiable and her discretion +open to question, yet she was a staunch Beaminster adherent, an old +friend of the Duchess, and saw both this world and the next in the +proper Beaminster light.</p> + +<p>Lady Adela depended on her a good deal, at certain times: she had +forseen that the old lady would come to-day; she had heard of course of +Frank Breton's arrival in town, she would demand every detail; Lady +Adela knew that the account that she gave to Lady Carloes would be the +account that the town would receive.</p> + +<p>By the fire Lord Richard, Lord Crewner and the nondescript young man +were talking together. Lady Adela caught fragments. "But of course +Dilchester is incautious—when was he anything else? What these fellows +need——"</p> + +<p>That was her brother.</p> + +<p>And then Lord Crewner, who believed that the windows of White's and +Brook's were the only courts of Ultimate Judgment. "That's all very +well, Beaminster, but I assure you, they were saying last night at the +club——"</p> + +<p>As far as all that was concerned Lady Adela flung it aside. She must +attend to Lady Carloes, she must give to her the version of Frank +Breton's arrival that her mother would wish her to give. But what <i>was</i> +that version? And <i>was</i> her mother really to be depended upon?</p> + +<p>At so terrible a flash of disloyalty Lady Adela coloured.—Why were +things so difficult this afternoon? And why had she ever gone to that +picture-gallery?</p> + +<p>Lady Carloes had, however, not yet arrived at Frank Breton. She never +paid a visit anywhere without tabulating carefully in her mind the +things that she must know before leaving the house. Her theory was that +she was really very old indeed, and couldn't possibly live much longer, +and that no moment therefore must be wasted. The more news that she +could give and receive before her ultimate departure, the more value +would her life have in retrospect.</p> + +<p>She never went definitely into the exact worth that all the gossip that +she collected might have for anybody or anything; as with any other +collection it was pursuit rather than acquisition that fired the blood. +At the back of her old mind was a perfect lumber-room of muddle and +confusion—dusty gossip, cobwebs of scandal, windows thick with grime +and tightly closed. There was no time left now to do anything to that. +Meanwhile every day something was purchased or exchanged; muddle there +might be, but, thank God, nobody knew it.</p> + +<p>"You must be very busy about the ball, my dear."</p> + +<p>"Yes—it means a great deal of work. It's so long since we've had +anything here, but Norris is invaluable. You don't find servants like +that nowadays."</p> + +<p>"No, my dear, you don't. But, of course, it will go off splendidly. +We're all so anxious that Rachel shall have a good time. It's the least +we can do for your mother."</p> + +<p>At the mention of Rachel Lady Adela's thoughts straightened for a +second; <i>that</i> was where the confusion lay. It had been Rachel's +attitude to the portrait that had caused Lady Adela's own momentary +disloyalty. Of course Rachel hated her grandmother. Lady Adela made a +little sound with her fingers, a sound like the clicking of needles.</p> + +<p>"As far as Rachel is concerned nobody can tell possibly how she's going +to take it all. I don't pretend to understand her."</p> + +<p>Lady Carloes found this interesting—she bent forward a little. "We're +all greatly excited about her. You've kept her away from all of us and +one hears such different accounts of her. And of course her success is +most important—as things are just now."</p> + +<p>Lady Adela answered, "I can tell you nothing. She isn't in the least +like any of us, and I don't suppose for a moment that she'll listen to +anybody. She made a friend of May Eversley in Munich, and I don't think +that was the best thing for her. But you know—I've talked about this to +you before."</p> + +<p>Not only had Lady Adela talked; all of them had done so. In the +Beaminster camp this appearance that Rachel was about to make was of the +last importance. There were enemies, redoubtable enemies, in the field. +Rachel Beaminster's bow to the world was for the very reason that all +the world was watching, a responsibility for them all.</p> + +<p>But there were many rumours. Rachel was not to be relied upon—she hated +her grandmother, she was strange and foreign and morose. Lady Carloes +was not happy about it, and Lady Adela's attitude now was anything but +reassuring.</p> + +<p>John Beaminster came in. Lady Carloes liked him because he was +good-tempered and injudicious. He told her a number of things that +nobody else ever told her, and he had so simple a mind that extracting +news from it was as easy as taking plums from a pudding. He did not come +over to them at once, but stood laughing with Lord Crewner and his +brother. He would come, however, in a moment, so Lady Carloes made a +last hurried plunge at her friend.</p> + +<p>"What's this I hear, my dear, about Frank Breton?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's perfectly true. He's come back, and has taken rooms quite +near here. He wrote to mother——"</p> + +<p>Lady Carloes took this in with a gulp of delight. "My dear Adela! What +did he say?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! a very rude letter. He told mother that he knew that she would like +him to be near at hand and that they ought to let bygones be bygones, +and that he was sure that she would be glad to hear that he was a +reformed character. Of course he hates all of us."</p> + +<p>"What will you all do?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! Nothing, of course. We gave him up long ago. By a tiresome +coincidence he's taken rooms in the same house as my secretary, Miss +Rand. I would send her away if she weren't simply invaluable. But it +gives him a kind of a link with us."</p> + +<p>"Monty Carfax saw him yesterday. He's lost his left arm, Monty says, and +looks more of an adventurer than ever. So tiresome for your mother, my +dear."</p> + +<p>Then, as Lord John began to break away from the group at the fireplace +and move towards them——</p> + +<p>"Roddy Seddon told me he might look in this afternoon.... Your mother's +so devoted to him. He seems to understand her so well."</p> + +<p>The two ladies faced one another. Their eyes crossed. Lady Carloes +murmured, "Such a splendid fellow!" then, as Lord John's cheerful laugh +broke upon them——</p> + +<p>"Isn't Rachel coming down?" she asked.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Lady Adela left her brother and Lady Carloes together and crossed over +to the group at the fireplace. Of all her brothers, she liked Richard +best. He seemed to her to be precisely all that a Beaminster should be: +she liked his appearance—his fine domed forehead, his grey hair, his +long rather melancholy face, his austere and orderly figure.</p> + +<p>He had to perfection that reserve, that kind benignancy that a +Beaminster ought to have; whenever Lady Adela questioned the foundations +upon which the stability of her life depended he reassured her. Without +saying anything at all, he gravely comforted her. That is what a +Beaminster ought to do.</p> + +<p>She knew, as she saw him standing there by the fire, that <i>he</i> would +never doubt his mother. To him she would always be splendid and +magnificent, and with what determination would he expel from him any +base attacks on that loyalty! Lady Adela thought that power to expel +resolutely and firmly everything that attacked the settled assurance of +one's mind the finest thing in the world.</p> + +<p>Lord Crewner was a thin, handsome man of any age at all over forty and +under sixty. He was polished and brushed and scrubbed to such an extent +that he looked like an advertisement of some fine old English firm that +produced, at great cost and with wonderful completeness, Fine old +English gentlemen. He believed in not thinking about things very much, +because thinking let in Radicals and diseases and the poor, and made one +uncomfortable. He loved the London that he knew, a London bounded by +Sloane Square, the Marble Arch, Trafalgar Square and Westminster.</p> + +<p>He was a bachelor, but might have married Lady Adela had the Duchess not +refused to hear of Lady Adela leaving her; he adored the Duchess, +although he was scarcely ever allowed to see her because he bored her. +He always lowered his voice a little when talking to women, and +heightened it a little when talking to men; to his valet he spoke in the +voice that Nature had given him.</p> + +<p>Lady Adela was reassured as she came towards them. Although she did not +especially desire to marry Lord Crewner, the thought that he might, had +affairs been differently arranged, have asked her, placed him, in her +eyes, apart from other men. At any rate these two were comfortable to +her, and, for a moment, she was able to dismiss Rachel and Frank Breton +from her mind.</p> + +<p>They talked easily beside the fireplace. The voices of Lady Carloes and +Lord John, the pleasant murmur of the fire, the ticking clocks, all +helped that lazy swaying of time and space about one, that happy +reassurance that as the world had been so would it continue ever to be, +and that the old emotions and the old experiences and the old opinions +would always hold their own against all invasion and decay.</p> + +<p>Lord Richard talked of Chippendale and some wonderful Lowestoft, Lord +Crewner talked of Madeira and Lady Masters' new house; Lady Adela +listened and was soothed.</p> + +<p>Upon them all broke a voice:</p> + +<p>"Sir Roderick Seddon, my lady."</p> + +<p>There stood in the doorway the freshest, the most beaming of young men. +He was tall and broad; his face was of a red-brick colour, and his dark +London clothes, although they were well cut and handsome enough, were +obviously only worn to please a necessary convention. His hair was light +brown and cut close to his head, and his body had the healthy sturdiness +of someone whose every muscle was in proper training.</p> + +<p>He came forward to the group at the fireplace with the walk of a man +accustomed to space and air and freedom; his smiling face was so genial +and good-humoured that the whole room seemed to break away a little from +its decorous and shining propriety. They were all pleased to see him. +Lady Carloes and Lord John came over and joined the group, and they +stood all about him talking and laughing.</p> + +<p>Roddy Seddon was the only young man whom the Duchess permitted, and +people said that that was because he was the only young man who had +never shown any fear of her. The knowledge of this fact gave him in Lady +Adela's eyes a curious interest. She beheld him always rather as she +would have beheld anyone who had learnt an abstruse language that no one +else had ever mastered or some traveller who was reputed to have said or +done the most extraordinary things in some savage country. How <i>could</i> +he? What talisman had he discovered that protected him? And then, +swiftly on that, came the curious thought that she herself was glad that +she had her terror, that she was proud, in some strange, inverted way, +that any Beaminster could have the effect upon anyone that her mother +had upon her.</p> + +<p>But Roddy Seddon had another especial interest for her, for it was +Roddy, all the Beaminsters had decided, who was to marry Rachel. Roddy +was, in every way, the right person; not very wealthy, perhaps, but he +had one nice place in Sussex, and Rachel would not, herself, be a +pauper.</p> + +<p>Roddy would never let the Beaminsters down; he hated all these new +invaders as strongly as any Beaminster could. He hated this mixing of +the classes, this perpetual urging of the working man to think.</p> + +<p>"Lots of our fellows," Lady Adela had heard him say, "get along without +thinkin'—why not the other fellers?"</p> + +<p>She felt now that a conversation with Roddy would complete the soothing +process that Lord Crewner and her brother had begun. He would finally +reassure her.</p> + +<p>She had no difficulty in securing him. Lady Carloes sat by the fire and +talked to Lord Crewner, and the nondescript, and the two brothers +departed.</p> + +<p>When Roddy had drunk his tea, she led him away to the farther part of +the long dim room, and there by that more distant fireplace the two of +them sat, shadowy against the leaping light, their faces and their hands +white and sharp and definite.</p> + +<p>"Who else is dinin' on Thursday?"</p> + +<p>She gave him names. "The Prince and Princess are coming, you know, but +they aren't alarming. They've been often to see mother when they've been +over here before. They're getting old enough now to be comfortable. He +dances like anything still."</p> + +<p>"I always like dinin' in the place you're dancin' at. You don't get that +shivery feeling comin' up the stairs and puttin' your gloves on. You're +one up on the others if you've been dinin'."</p> + +<p>Lady Adela looked at him, and sighed a little impatiently. He was +incredibly young and might, after all, let them down.</p> + +<p>He was thirty now, but he looked not a day more than nineteen, and he +always talked and behaved as though he were still in his last year at +Eton. She opposed him, in her mind's eye, to that figure of Frank Breton +that had been before her all day. How could a mere boy stand up against +a scoundrel like that?</p> + +<p>Moreover, she had heard stories about Roddy. Women had terrible power +over him, she had been told, and then, with a glance at him, sighed +again at the thought that her own time had gone by for having power +over anybody, even Lord Crewner.</p> + +<p>Well, after all, her mother knew the boy better than anyone did and her +mother loved him—better than everyone else put together her mother +loved him.</p> + +<p>"How's Rachel takin' it?"</p> + +<p>"How does Rachel take anything? She never says anything, and one never +knows. She seems to have no curiosity, or eagerness."</p> + +<p>"I was talkin' to May Eversley about her the other night. May says +she'll be splendid."</p> + +<p>"I don't like May Eversley"—Lady Adela nervously moved her hands on her +lap. "I wish Rachel hadn't made such friends with her in Munich."</p> + +<p>"Oh, May's all right." Roddy's blue eyes were smiling. "Took her down to +Hurlingham yesterday and we had no end of a time."</p> + +<p>It was a pity, Lady Adela reflected, that Roddy was so absolutely on his +own.</p> + +<p>His mother had died at his birth, and his father had been dead for five +years now, and here it seemed to Lady Adela a curious coincidence that +both Rachel and Roddy were orphans—and both so young.</p> + +<p>She leant forward towards him—</p> + +<p>"You can do a lot for Rachel, Roddy. You can help her to understand her +grandmother, you can reconcile her to all of us."</p> + +<p>"Oh! I say," Roddy laughed. "Perhaps she won't have anythin' to say to +me, you know. My seein' your mother so often is quite enough——"</p> + +<p>"No. She likes cheerful people—Dr. Christopher and John. You're in the +same line of country, Roddy. She doesn't like me, and I haven't got the +things in me to draw affection out of her. I'm not that kind of woman."</p> + +<p>As a rule Lady Adela betrayed no emotion of any kind, but now, this +afternoon, both to Lady Carloes and Roddy she had made some vague, +indefinite appeal. Perhaps the news of Breton's arrival had alarmed her, +perhaps her visit to the gallery with Rachel had really disturbed her. +She seemed to beg for assistance.</p> + +<p>Roddy analysed neither his own emotions nor those of his friends, but, +this afternoon, Lady Adela did appear to him a little more human than +before. He was suddenly sorry for her.</p> + +<p>"Rachel'll be all right," he assured her. "Wait a bit. By the way, I met +that little feller Brun yesterday—said he was comin' on Thursday. He's +wild about your mother's picture——"</p> + +<p>"Yes—we saw him at the gallery this afternoon. Rachel and I were +there."</p> + +<p>"Rachel! What did she think of it?"</p> + +<p>"Seemed to take no interest in it at all. We were there only a few +minutes——"</p> + +<p>Silence fell between them, a silence filled with meaning. Lady Adela had +intended to speak about Breton—now, suddenly, she could say nothing. +The mention of the picture-gallery had brought back all her earlier +discomfort—she saw the picture, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the +white pinched cheeks. Then she saw the great bedroom upstairs, the high +white bed, the little shrivelled figure.</p> + +<p>Had Rachel pointed this contrast? Had Breton? Was it something that +Roddy had discovered already, something that had made his courage so +easy for him? What, what was going to be done with her if she were no +longer afraid? Why, on that terror, on that trembling service, were +built the foundations of all her life. How could she face that picture +that the world had of a splendid, historic, dominating figure if she +herself saw only a sick, miserable old woman tumbling to pieces, passing +to decay?</p> + +<p>The minutes had passed, and she had said nothing. Roddy must be +wondering at her silence. To her relief Lady Carloes came towards her to +say good-bye.</p> + +<p>Roddy's eyes were puzzled. For what had she carried him off if she had +nothing to say to him?</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>When they were all gone she went up to her mother. Before the door she +paused. The house was very still, and her heart was furiously beating.</p> + +<p>She opened the door, and at the sight of the room was instantly +reassured.</p> + +<p>Dorchester met her. "Her Grace went to bed early to-night. But she will +see you, my lady."</p> + +<p>Lady Adela stepped softly to the farther door. All was well. About her, +around her, within her, was that same splendid terror, that same +knowledge that she was approaching some great presence that had been +with her all her life——</p> + +<p>As she opened the bedroom door and saw the high white bed she knew that +her mother was more magnificent, more wonderful than any painted picture +could possibly make her.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>THE POOL</h3> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>On that same afternoon in another part of the house Miss Rand, Lady +Adela's secretary, finished her work for the day, and prepared to go +home.</p> + +<p>It was about a quarter-past six, and the May evening was sending through +the windows its pale glow suggesting soft blue skies and fading lights. +Miss Rand's room told you at once everything about Miss Rand. For +efficiency and neatness, for discipline and restraint, it could not be +beaten. Miss Rand herself was all these things, efficient and neat, +disciplined and restrained.</p> + +<p>Her room had against one white and shining wall a black and shining +typewriter. Against another wall was a table, and on this table were so +many contrivances for keeping letters and papers decent and docketed +that it made every other table the observer could remember seem untidy +and littered. There was nothing in the room superfluous or unnecessary, +and even some carnations in a green bowl near the window looked as +though they were numbered and ticketed.</p> + +<p>Miss Rand was a little woman who appeared thirty-five when she was busy, +and twenty-five when someone was pleasant to her. When she was at work +the broad dark belt that she wore at her waist was her most +characteristic feature. Then, in keeping with this, was her dark hair, +beautiful hair perhaps if it had been allowed some freedom, but now +ordered and sternly disciplined; she wore no ornaments, and about her +there was nothing out of place nor extravagant.</p> + +<p>Her face was full of light and colour and her eyes were beautiful, but +no one considered them: it was impossible to look beyond that stern +shining belt—one felt that Miss Rand herself would resent appreciation.</p> + +<p>From ten o'clock in the morning until five o'clock in the evening the +huge Portland Place house absorbed her energies. She saw it sometimes in +her dreams, as a great unwieldy machine kept in place by her hand, but +leaping, did she leave it for an instant, trembling, soaring, carrying +destruction with it into the heart of the city.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile her hand was upon it. From Norris the butler, from Dorchester +the guardian of the Duchess's apartments, down to the smallest, most +insignificant kitchen-maid, Miss Rand knew them all. There was, of +course, Mrs. Newton, the most splendid and elevating of housekeepers, +but when matters below stairs went beyond her control Miss Rand could +always arrange them. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, that, in the +way of managing her fellow-creatures, Miss Rand could not do.</p> + +<p>But it was because Miss Rand never occurred to any single creature in +the Portland Place house as a sentient breathing human being that she +succeeded as she did. She had no prejudices, no angers, no rebellions, +no rejoicings. She was the little engine at the heart of the house that +sent everything into motion. "One can't imagine her eating her meals, +Mrs. Newton," Mr. Norris once said. "And as to her sleeping like you or +me——"</p> + +<p>To see her now as she put the final touches to her room before leaving +it, arranging a paper here and a paper there, going to the bookshelf and +pushing back a book that jutted in front of the others, setting a chair +against the wall, placing the blotting-pad exactly in the middle of the +table, finally taking her hat and coat and putting them on with the same +careful and almost automatic distinction—this sufficiently revealed +her. She seemed, as she looked for the last time about the room with her +bright eyes, like some sharp little bird, perched on a window-sill, +looking beyond closed windows for new adventure.</p> + +<p>It was one of the striking points in her that her eyes always seemed to +be searching for some disorder in some place outside her immediate +vision.</p> + +<p>She closed the door behind her. As she stepped into the passage someone +was coming down the staircase to her right, and looking up she saw that +it was Rachel Beaminster. Rachel was on her way from her grandmother's +room, and before she saw Miss Rand standing there, waiting to let her +pass, her face was grave and, in that half-light, strangely white. Then, +as she saw Miss Rand, she smiled—</p> + +<p>"Good evening, Miss Rand."</p> + +<p>"Good evening, Miss Beaminster."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid that this ball is giving you a lot of trouble."</p> + +<p>"I think that everything is arranged now, Miss Beaminster. I hope that +it will be a great success."</p> + +<p>Rachel sighed and then laughed.</p> + +<p>"Don't I wish the whole stupid thing was over. And I expect you do too!"</p> + +<p>Miss Rand smiled a very little. "It's good for the servants," she said. +"They're always happy when they're really busy."</p> + +<p>For a moment they stood there smiling. It occurred to Rachel that Miss +Rand must be rather nice. She had never thought of her before as +anything but Aunt Adela's secretary.</p> + +<p>"Good night, Miss Rand."</p> + +<p>"Good night, Miss Beaminster."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>In Portland Place Miss Rand drew a little breath and paused. So many +times during the last five years had she walked from Portland Place to +Saxton Square, and from Saxton Square to Portland Place, that the +streets and houses encountered by her had become individual, alive, +always offering to her some fresh adventure or romance. Portland Place +itself was no bad beginning, with its high white colour, its air, and +its dark mysterious park hovering at the edge of it.</p> + +<p>If one had not known, Miss Rand thought, one might have supposed that +just beyond it lay the sea, so fresh and full of breezes was the air. +The light was yellow now and the houses black and sharp against the +faint sky. In another half-hour the lamps would be lit.</p> + +<p>It was pleasant and fitting that the end of Portland Place should be +guarded by the Round Church and the Queen's Hall. "Leave that calm and +chaste society behind you," those places said, "but before you plunge +into the wicked careless world (that is Oxford Circus) choose from us. +Here you have religion or music, both if you will, but here at any rate +we are, the very best of our kind."</p> + +<p>The Queen's Hall looked shabby in the evening light, but Miss Rand liked +that; it heightened her sense of the splendour within—Beethoven and +Wagner and Brahms needed no illumination—it was your musical comedy +demanded that.</p> + +<p>Miss Rand liked good music.</p> + +<p>Then there was the Polytechnic with wonderful offers in the windows +enticing you to see Rome for eleven guineas, and Paris for three, and +there was a hat shop with three glorious hats wickedly dangling on +poles, and there was a pastry-cook's, a tobacconist's, and a theatre +agency: all this variety paving the way between music and religion and +the whirling, tossing, heaving melodrama of Oxford Circus.</p> + +<p>Miss Rand loved Oxford Circus. It was like the sea in that it was never +from one moment to another the same. Miss Rand knew the way that it had +of piling the melodrama up and up, faster and faster, wilder and wilder, +bursting into a frantio climax and then sinking back, for hours perhaps, +into comparative silence. She knew all its moods, from its broom and +milkman mood in the early morning, to its soiled and slinking mood +somewhere between midnight and one o'clock.</p> + +<p>Just now it was getting ready for the evening. Up Regent Street the cabs +and buses were straining, the flower women with their baskets were +bunched in splashes of colour against the distant outline of the Round +Church. Out of every door people were pouring, and in the middle of the +Circus three of the four lines of traffic were turned suddenly into +something sleepy and indifferent by the hand of a policeman. For an +instant the restless movement seemed to be crystallized—the hansoms, +the bicycles, the omnibuses, the carts were all held, then at a sign the +flow and interflow had begun once more; life was hurled in and hurled +out again, stirred and tossed and turned, as though some giant cook were +up in the heavens busy over a giant pudding.</p> + +<p>And the light faded and the lamps came out, and Miss Rand, walking +through two streets that were as dark and secret as though they were +spying on the Circus and were going to give all its secrets away very +shortly, passed into Saxton Square.</p> + +<p>To-night Miss Rand had more to think about than Oxford Circus. She was +tired after all the work that there had been during the last few days, +and she always noticed that it was when she was tired that she was ready +to imagine things. She had been imagining things all day and had found +it really difficult to keep steadily to her proper work, but out and +beyond her imaginations there was, before her, this definite, tremendous +fact—namely, that she would find, this evening, on entering her little +drawing-room, that Mr. Francis Breton was being entertained at tea by +her sister and mother.</p> + +<p>It was a quarter to seven now, so perhaps he had gone, but at any rate +there would be a great deal that her mother and sister would wish to +tell her about him. A week ago Mr. Francis Breton had come to live on +the second floor in 24 Saxton Square, had put there his own furniture, +had brought with him his own man-servant (a most sinister-looking man). +These matters might have remained (although, of course, Miss Lizzie +Rand's connection with the Beaminster family made his arrival of the +most dramatic interest) had not Miss Daisy Rand (Miss Lizzie Rand's +prettier and younger sister) happened, one evening, to run into Mr. +Breton in the dark hall; she screamed aloud because she thought him a +burglar, became very shaky about the knees, and needed Mr. Breton's +assistance as far as the Rand drawing-room. Here, of course, there +followed conversation; finally Mr. Breton was asked to tea and accepted +the invitation.</p> + +<p>On this very afternoon must this tea-party have taken place. Lizzie Rand +knew her mother and sister very well, and she had, long ago, learnt that +their motto was, "Let everything go for the sake of adventure." That was +well enough, but when your income was very small indeed, and you wished +to do no work at all and yet to have your home pleasant and your life +adventurous, certainly someone must suffer. Everything had always fallen +upon Lizzie.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rand's husband had been a colonel and they had lived at Eastbourne; +on his death it was discovered that he had debts and obligations to a +lady in the chorus of a light opera then popular in London. The debts +and the lady Mrs. Rand had covered with romance, because she considered +that they were due to the Colonel's insatiable appetite for +Adventure—but, romance or no, there was now very little to live upon.</p> + +<p>They moved to London. Daisy was obviously so pretty that it would be +absurd to expect her to work, and "she would be married in a minute," so +Lizzie had, during the last five years, kept the family. It would be +impossible to give any clear idea of the effect on Mrs. Rand that +Lizzie's connection with the Beaminster family had. Mrs. Rand loved +anything that was great and solemn and ceremonious; she loved Royalties, +bands and soldiers gave her a choke in her throat, the "Society News" in +the <i>Daily Mail</i> was like a fine picture or a splendid play. She was no +snob; it was simply that she saw life as a background to slow stately +figures gorgeously attired.</p> + +<p>In all England there was no one like the Duchess of Wrexe; in all +England there was no family like the Beaminster family.</p> + +<p>Even Royalty had not quite their glow and glitter; Royalty you might see +any day, driving, bowing, smiling. The Queen had a smile for everyone +and was at home in the merest cottage; but the Duchess, the Duchess—no +one, not even Lizzie, on whose shoulders the whole fortunes of the +Beaministers rested, ever saw.</p> + +<p>There was nothing about the Beaminsters that Mrs. Rand did not know, and +so of course she knew all about the unhappy past history of Francis +Breton. That any Beaminster should have behaved rather as her own dead +colonel had once behaved gave one a link at once.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rand's mind was, at the best of times, a confused one, and, in the +dead of night, she could imagine a scene in which the wonderful Duchess +would send for her, give her tea, press her hands and say, "Ah! Dear +Mrs. Rand, our men-folk—your husband and my grandson—what trouble they +give us, but we love them nevertheless."</p> + +<p>So romantic was Mrs. Rand's mind that she saw nothing extraordinary in +the coincidence of Mr. Breton's arrival at their very doors. Of course +he would arrive there! Where else could he arrive? And of course he +would fall in love with Daisy, would reform for her sake; there would be +a splendid marriage; the Duchess would thank Mrs. Rand for having saved +her grandson.</p> + +<p>Yes, Mrs. Rand had an incurably romantic mind.</p> + +<p>Lizzie knew all about her mother's mind, and Daisy's mind. She dealt +with them very much as she dealt with Lady Adela's mind or Lord John's +mind. They were all muddled people together, and the clear-headed people +had the advantage over them.</p> + +<p>So with regard to her mother and sister Lizzie had developed a +protective feeling; she wished to save them from the inroads of the +clear-headed people who might so rob and devour them.</p> + +<p>She saw also that her connection with the Beaminster family was a very +bad thing for her mother and sister because it encouraged them to be +romantic and muddled and idle. But, at present, at any rate, there was +nothing to be done.</p> + +<p>As she turned into the grey silence of little Saxton Square she did hope +that her mother and sister would not behave too outrageously about Mr. +Breton. She was interested, she would like to see him; his whole +possible relation to the Duchess, to Lady Adela, to Miss Beaminster set +her own imagination working. She did hope that her mother and sister +would not behave so disgracefully that they would frighten Mr. Breton +away so that he would never come near them again.</p> + +<p>And then, as she reached the door of No. 24, she thought for a moment of +Rachel Beaminster.</p> + +<p>"I like her," she thought, "I'd like to know her. She's never spoken to +me like that before."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>No. 24 had three floors: the ground floor was occupied by the Rands, the +first floor by Breton and the second floor by an old decrepit invalid +called Cæsar and his son, who was a bank clerk.</p> + +<p>Down in the basement lived Mr. and Mrs. Tweed, owners of the whole +house; he had been a butler and she a housekeeper, and exceedingly +respectable they were. Every floor had its own kitchen and every lodger +found his own servants, but the hall was common for all the three +floors, and if young Mr. Cæsar came in at two in the morning and banged +the front door everybody knew about it.</p> + +<p>It must have been a fine old house in its day, No. 24, and there were +still fine carvings, good fireplaces and ceilings, high broad windows +and thick solid walls. Mrs. Rand liked to think that her drawing-room +had once seen fine eighteenth-century ladies reflected in its mirrors, +heard the tapping of high-heeled shoes on its polished floors. The +thought of those glorious days gave her own rather faded furniture a +colour and a touch of poetry. Sometimes, Lizzie thought with a sigh, if +her mother had inhabited a plain nineteenth-century house living within +a small income would have been easier for her.</p> + +<p>Lizzie, entering the drawing-room, knew at once that Mr. Breton was +still there. She saw that he was tall and spare, that he had no left +arm, that he had a rather small pointed brown beard and eyes that struck +her as fierce and protesting. She did not know whether it were the beard +or the eyes or the absence of the arm, but at her first vision of him +she said to herself: "He's too dramatic; it's not quite real," and her +second thought was: "He's just what mother will like him to be!"</p> + +<p>He was standing against the window, and he wore a black suit, a little +faded. The blinds had not been drawn, and the square beyond the window +was elephant grey, with the lamps at each corner a dim yellow; there was +a thin rather ragged garden in the middle of the square, and in the +garden was a statue of a nymph, old and deserted, and some trees now +faintly green. Over it all was a sky so pale that it was more nearly +white than blue.</p> + +<p>Although the curtains had not been drawn a lamp in the middle of the +room was lit and the fire burnt merrily. The furniture had once been +good and was now respectable. There were several photographs, a copy of +"The Fighting Téméraire," and a water-colour sketch of "Lodore Falls." +There was a book-case with the works of Tennyson, Longfellow, and Miss +Braddon, and on one of the tables two French novels, one by Gyp and one +by Zola.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rand would have been handsome had her grey hair been less untidy +and her clothes more uniform in design and colour. Her blouse was cut +too low and she wore too many rings; her eyes always wore a +lying-in-wait expression, as though she might be called on to be excited +at any moment and didn't wish to miss the opportunity.</p> + +<p>Daisy Rand was pretty and pink with light fluffy hair. All her clothes +looked as though their chief purpose were to reveal other clothes. The +impression that she left on a casual observer was that she must be cold +in such thin things.</p> + +<p>Lizzie, looking at Frank Breton, could not tell what impression her +sister and mother had made upon him. "At any rate," she thought, "he's +stayed a long time. That looks as though he had been entertained." She +was introduced to him and liked the cool, firm grasp of his hand. She +saw that her mother and Daisy were quiet and subdued—that was a good +thing. She caught, before she sat down, his instinctive look of +surprise. She knew that he had not expected her to be like that.</p> + +<p>"We've been telling Mr. Breton, Lizzie," said Mrs. Rand, "all about the +theatres. He's been away so long that he's quite out of touch with +things."</p> + +<p>Lizzie always knew when her mother was finding conversation difficult by +the amount of enthusiasm and surprise that she put into her sentences.</p> + +<p>"So terrible it must be to have missed so many splendid things."</p> + +<p>"I assure you, Mrs. Rand," said Breton, "that I've been seeing other +splendid things in other countries. Now I'm ready for this one again."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rand was silent and at a loss. Lizzie knew the explanation of this. +Her mother had been trying to venture on to the subject of Breton's +family and had found unexpected difficulty. Perhaps there had been +something in Breton's attitude that had warned her.</p> + +<p>They talked for a little while, but disjointedly. Then suddenly there +was a knock at the door, and young Mr. Cæsar, a bony youth with a high +collar and an unsuccessful moustache, came in. He had not very much to +say, but the result of his coming was that Lizzie found herself standing +at the window with Breton; they looked at the square now sinking into +dusk.</p> + +<p>He spoke; his voice was lowered: "I understand that you are secretary to +my aunt, Miss Rand?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said.</p> + +<p>"They haven't heard of my return with any great delight, I'm afraid?"</p> + +<p>She noticed that he was trying to steady his voice, but that it shook a +little in spite of his efforts.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," she said, looking up and smiling. "I'm far too busy to +think of things that are not my concern."</p> + +<p>"They are giving a ball to-morrow night for my cousin?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Do you see much of her?"</p> + +<p>"No—nothing at all. She's been abroad, you know."</p> + +<p>"Yes, so I heard. But I saw her driving yesterday. She looks different +from the rest of them."</p> + +<p>All this time, as he spoke to her, she was conscious of his eyes; if +only she could have been sure that the protest in them was genuine she +would have been moved by them.</p> + +<p>She did not help him in any way, and perhaps her silence made him feel +that he had done wrong to speak to her about his affairs. They looked at +the square for a little time in silence. At last, speaking without any +implied fierceness, he said:</p> + +<p>"You know, Miss Rand, I'm a wanderer by nature, and sometimes I find +cities very hard to bear. Do you know what I do?"</p> + +<p>"No," she said.</p> + +<p>"Turn them into other things. Now here in London, do you never think of +streets as waterways? Portland Place, for instance, is like ever so many +rivers I've seen, broad and shining. And some of those high thin streets +beside it are like canals; Oxford Circus is a whirlpool, and so on——"</p> + +<p>He laughed. "I get no end of relief from thinking of things like that."</p> + +<p>"You hate cities?" she asked him.</p> + +<p>"No—not really. But it depends how they receive you. If they're +hostile——" He shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"And this square?" she said. "What's this square?"</p> + +<p>"A pool. All the houses hang over it as though they were hiding it. It's +restful like a pool. There's no noise——"</p> + +<p>The statue of the nymph had disappeared. The trees were a black splash +against the lamp-lit walls. Lights were in the windows.</p> + +<p>He seemed suddenly conscious that it was late. When he had gone Lizzie +stood, for some time, looking into the square and thinking how right he +had been.</p> + +<p>All that evening Daisy was out of temper.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>SHE COMES OUT</h3> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Downstairs the dinner-party was at its height. Mrs. Newton, the +housekeeper, went softly down the passages to give one last glimpse at +the ballroom. There it lay, like a great golden shell, empty, expectant. +The walls were white, the ceilings gold; on the white walls hung the +Lelys, the Van Dycks, and at the farther end of the room Sargent's +portrait of Her Grace, brought up, for this especial occasion, from the +Long Drawing-room. There was the gleaming, shining floor, there the +golden chairs with their backs against the wall, and there before each +picture a little globe of golden flame ministering to its beauties, +throwing the proud pale faces of the old Beaminsters into scornful +relief, and none of them so scornful as that Duchess in the far +distance, frowning from her golden frame.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newton was plump and important. She worshipped the Beaminster +family, and it yielded her now intense satisfaction to see these rooms, +that were used so seldom, given to their proper glory and ceremony. For +a moment as she stood there and felt the fine reflection of all that +light upon the shining floor, absorbed the silence and the space and the +colour, she was uplifted with pride, and thanked her God that she was +not as other women were, but had been permitted by Him to assist in no +small measure in the glories and splendours of this great family.</p> + +<p>Then, with a little sigh of satisfied approval, she softly walked away +again.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Two hours later Rachel Beaminster, standing a little behind her aunt, +saw the people pressing up the stairs. To those who watched her, she +seemed perfectly composed, her flushed cheeks, her white dress, her dark +hair and eyes gave her distinction against the colour and movement of +the room.</p> + +<p>Her eyes were a little stern, and her body was held proudly, but her +hands moved with sharp spasmodic movements against her dress.</p> + +<p>As she stood there men were brought up to her in constant succession and +introduced. They wrote their names on her programme, bowed and went +away. She smiled at each one of them. Before dinner she had been +introduced to the Prince—German, fat and cheerful—and the second dance +of the evening was to be with him. Some of the men who had been dining +in the house she already knew—Lord Crewner, Roddy Seddon, Lord +Massiter, and others—and once or twice now the faces that were led up +to her were familiar to her.</p> + +<p>The great ballroom seemed to be already filled with people, and still +they came pressing up the stairs.</p> + +<p>Rachel was miserably unhappy. For one moment before she had left her +room, where her maid had stood admiringly beside her, when she herself +had seen the reflection of the white dress and the dark hair and the +flushed cheeks in the long mirror, for one great moment she had been +filled with exaltation. This ball, this agitation, this excitement was +all for her. The world was at her feet. The locked doors were at last +rolling open before her and all life was to be revealed.</p> + +<p>Pearls that Uncle John had given her were her only ornament. They +laughed at her from the mirror, laughed and promised her success, +conquest, glory. Life at that instant was very precious.</p> + +<p>But, alas! the dinner had been a terrible failure. She had sat between +Lord Crewner and Lord Massiter, and had no word to say to either of +them. Lord Massiter was middle-aged and hearty and kind, and he had done +his best for her, but she had been paralysed. They had talked to her +about the opera, the theatres, hunting, books, Munich; she had had a +great deal to say about all these things, and she had said nothing. +Always within her there seemed to be rivalry between the Beaminster +way of saying things and the other way. When Lord Crewner said to her, +"What I like in music is a real cheerful little piece that one can go to +after dinner, you know," there were a whole number of Beaminster +observations to make. But as soon as they rose to her mouth something +within her whispered, "You know that you don't mean that. That's at +second hand. Give him your opinion." And then that seemed presumption, +so she said nothing.</p> + +<p>It was all wretched and quite endless. Uncle John sent her encouraging +smiles every now and again, but she felt that he must be disappointed at +her failure. The food choked her. The tears filled her eyes and it was +her pride only that saved her. Through it all she felt that her +grandmother upstairs in her bedroom was planning this.</p> + +<p>Afterwards the Princess, seeing perhaps that she was unhappy, was kind +and motherly to her, and told her funny stories about her childhood in +Berlin. But all the time Rachel was saying to herself, "You're a fool. +You're a fool. You've got no self-control at all."</p> + +<p>She had been dreading the introductions to so many young men, but she +found that that was easy enough. They were not young men; they were +simply numbers on her programme and they vanished as soon as they came.</p> + +<p>Then the band in the distance began to play an extra, whilst the young +men wandered about and discovered their friends, and the sound of the +music cheered her. It amused her now to watch the people as they mounted +the stairs. She noticed that all the faces were grave and preoccupied +until a moment before the arrival at Aunt Adela, and then a smile was +tightly fastened on, held for a moment, and then dropped to give way to +the preoccupation again.</p> + +<p>The room was so full now that it seemed that it would be quite +impossible for any dancing to take place. Uncle John was working very +hard at introducing people to one another, and as she saw his +good-natured face and his white hair her heart went out to him. If +everyone were as kind as Uncle John how nice the world would be! +Meanwhile her eyes anxiously watched the stairs, and as every woman +turned the corner at the bottom the question was—"Was this May +Eversley?"</p> + +<p>There had been a battle about May. Aunt Adela did not like her, +disapproved of her, would not hear of inviting her. Very well, then, +Rachel would not come to the ball at all. They could give the ball for +somebody else. If May were not asked Rachel would not come.</p> + +<p>So Lady Eversley and May had both been asked, and of course they had +accepted.</p> + +<p>Rachel waited and gazed and was continually disappointed. The extra was +over and soon the first dance would begin; with the second dance would +arrive the Prince and Rachel would have no talk with May at all. It was +too bad of May to be late. She had promised so faithfully—Ah! there she +was with her air of one confidently conducting a most difficult +campaign. She mounted the stairs like a general, gave Lady Adela the +tiniest of smiles, and was at Rachel's side.</p> + +<p>That clasp of May's hand filled Rachel's body with confident happiness. +May's hardy self-control, her discipline derived from some stern old +Puritans, dim centuries away, was all waiting there at Rachel's service.</p> + +<p>"How late you are!"</p> + +<p>"Mother was such a time. And then we couldn't get a cab. How are you, +Rachel?"</p> + +<p>"Dinner was terrible—all wrong. I hadn't a word to say to anyone. I'm +better now that you've come."</p> + +<p>"Is the Prince here?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I'm dancing the next dance with him. The Princess was very kind +after dinner. Oh! May, dinner was a disaster, an absolute disaster!"</p> + +<p>"Not nearly so bad as you thought, you may be sure. Things always seem +so much worse."</p> + +<p>And now May had been discovered. Gentlemen young and old dangled their +programmes in front of her, were received, were dismissed. May had the +air of a general, sitting fiercely in his tent and receiving reports +from his officers as to the progress in the field. Confident young men +were instantly timid before her.</p> + +<p>The first dance was over. Against the white splendour vivid colours were +flung and withdrawn. Threads and patterns crossed and recrossed, and +then presently the glittering floor was waste and deserted; on its +surface was reflected dark gold from the shining walls.</p> + +<p>The second dance came, and with it the Prince. Rachel had now lost all +sense of the ball having been given in any way for herself. The dancing, +it comforted her to see, was not of the very best, and at once she found +that she had herself nothing to fear. The Prince danced well, and soon +she was lost to all sense of everything save the immediate joy of rhythm +and balance, and the perfect spontaneity of the music and her body's +acknowledgment of it.</p> + +<p>When it came to an end, and they were sitting in a corner, somewhere, he +was a fat middle-aged man again, and she Rachel Beaminster, but she knew +now for what life was intended.</p> + +<p>After that, for a long period, her dancers did not concern her. They +were there simply to supply her with that ecstasy of rhythm and +movement. Sometimes they could not supply her because they were bad +dancers, and one of her partners was indeed so bad that she ruthlessly +suggested, after one turn round the room, that they should sit out. Then +she sat in a room near at hand, irritated by the sound of that glorious +music, and paying very scant attention to the young man's stammered +apologies, his information about his experiences of Paris and the way +that he shot birds in Scotland.</p> + +<p>She was to go down to supper with Roddy Seddon, and she was waiting that +experience with some curiosity. If her grandmother were so fond of him, +then he must be a disagreeable young man, and yet his appearance was not +disagreeable.</p> + +<p>He looked as though, like Uncle John and Dr. Chris, he were one of the +comfortable people. Dr. Chris, by the way, had not arrived. He had told +her that he might not be able to escape until late hours.</p> + +<p>And so, as the evening advanced, her happiness grew; impossible now to +understand that speechlessness at dinner, impossible to find reasons for +that earlier misery. She danced now both with Lord Massiter and with +Lord Crewner, and said exactly what she thought to both of them; +impossible now to imagine anything but that the world was an enchanting, +thrilling place especially invented for the happiness of Miss Rachel +Beaminster.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Uncle John had been promised a dance; his moment arrived. He had watched +her during the early part of the evening, and had been afraid that she +was not at all happy.</p> + +<p>She was so unlike other girls, and that first miserable hour seemed to +him the most tragic omen of her future career.</p> + +<p>"How is she <i>ever</i> to get on if she takes things as badly as this? I +wish I could help her. I know so exactly how she must be feeling."</p> + +<p>But imagine him now confronted with a figure that shone with happiness, +with success, with splendour!</p> + +<p>She caught his arm—"Come, Uncle John, we won't dance. We'll talk. Up +here—There's no one in this room."</p> + +<p>She ran ahead of him, found a corner for them both, and then, pushing +him on to a sofa, twisted round in front of him, turning on her toes, +flashing laughter at him, sitting down at last beside him, and then +kissing him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear! I'm so glad," he said. "I thought you were miserable."</p> + +<p>"So I was—at first—perfectly wretched. Now it's all +splendid—glorious!"</p> + +<p>This was to him an entirely new Rachel. In her movement, her excitement, +her immediate glad acceptance of the life that an hour ago she had +feared with such alarm, he perceived an element that was indeed foreign +to all things Beaminster. And this new attitude reminded him with +renewed sharpness that he could not now hope to hold the old Rachel with +the intimate affection that had been his before. She was slipping from +him—slipping ... even as he watched her, she was going.</p> + +<p>She laid her hand upon his arm: "Uncle John, I'm a success! I am really. +I can dance, dance beautifully! I can put these young men in their +places. They're frightened!... really frightened."</p> + +<p>"Of course—you're lovely—the biggest success there's ever been. But +what was the matter with you at dinner?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Wasn't that dreadful? Everything went wrong, and the only thing I +could think of was how glad grandmamma would be. I had a kind of +paralysis."</p> + +<p>Uncle John nodded his head. "I know exactly what it's like."</p> + +<p>"Well, I shall never let myself be so stupid again—never! I swear it!" +They sat in silence for some time, she, restless, straining towards the +music, he a little overcome by her happiness.</p> + +<p>There was a pause between the dances and then the band began once more.</p> + +<p>"Have you danced with Roddy Seddon yet?"</p> + +<p>"No. What's he like?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! he's nice—you'll like him."</p> + +<p>"I don't expect to. He's a friend of grandmamma's. Hark! There's the +band again!... Come along, back we go!"</p> + +<p>Smiling, radiant, she hung upon his arm. Afterwards, standing in a +doorway, he watched her.</p> + +<p>He sighed. "What a selfish old pig I am!... But she'll never be mine +again."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>Uncle John held only for a moment Rachel's attention. No single person +now, but rather a gorgeous pattern that the whole evening was weaving +about her. She saw the lights, she heard the music, she felt the +movement of her body, she gathered through a haze of happiness the faces +of her uncles and Aunt Adela and others whom she knew, but now for the +first time in her life she knew what happiness, happiness without +thought, or doubt, or foreboding could be.</p> + +<p>Thus it was that she came to Roddy Seddon, who was certainly enjoying +himself: this, however, was not the first ball of his life nor even, if +all the truth were known, his best. He had expected it to be solemn and +sedate—you could not hope to find here the jolly kind of dance that +they had had at the Menets', for instance, last week; that would not be +possible in a Beaminster household.</p> + +<p>It was all, to be honest, a little old-fashioned. Things were moving a +bit faster nowadays. Waltzes and Lancers were all very well, but one +might have had a cotillon, something unexpected! However, May Eversley +and one or two other girls had had the right kind of go about them. He +smiled a little and tugged at his short bristling yellow moustache, and +then discovered that it was time to take Rachel Beaminster down to +supper.</p> + +<p>This event was of more than ordinary interest to him. He was perfectly +aware that most of his friends and relatives thought that it would be a +very good thing for him to marry Rachel Beaminster. He was, himself, not +scornful of this idea.</p> + +<p>He was thirty-two, and it was time that Seddon Court in Sussex had a +mistress; his life had been varied and exciting and it was right now +that he should make some ties. There were a number of other reasons in +favour of his marrying.</p> + +<p>As to Rachel Beaminster, she was not pretty, but she was interesting. +She was unusual; moreover she was a Beaminster, and an alliance with +that ancient family would be, past dispute, a magnificent alliance. But +the element in it all that intrigued him most was the fact that nobody +could tell him anything about Rachel, even May Eversley who knew her so +well was not sure about her. "You'll go on being surprised," she had +said.</p> + +<p>Surprise, indeed, was waiting for him this evening. On the few occasions +that he had seen Rachel he had seen her grave, shy, a little awkward, +most reserved. Now she met him as though she had known him for years, +glowing, almost pretty, so burning were her eyes. At supper she laughed, +called across the room to May, agreed with everything that everybody +said, and with it all was younger than any girl that he had ever known. +The girls who were Roddy's friends talked about life at times more +boldly than he would have talked with his men friends, and were, at all +events, for ever hinting at the things that they knew.</p> + +<p>Rachel hinted at nothing; she kept nothing back, she allowed him no +disguises.</p> + +<p>"Oh! don't I wish," she cried, "that this night could go on for ever +just like this"—and he, taking the compliment to himself, agreed with +her. He had expected to find someone haughty and cold, a young Aunt +Adela with a dash of foreign temper.</p> + +<p>He found someone entirely delightful. Afterwards, when they sat out on a +balcony overlooking Portland Place, he was encouraged to talk about +himself.</p> + +<p>"I like all this, you know," he said, waving his hand at the grey +mysterious street that the pale lamps so mournfully guarded. "I like +this air comin' along from the park. I'm all for the open, Miss +Beaminster—horses and dogs and rushin' along with the wind at your +back. It's a rippin' little place I've got down in Sussex. I hope you'll +see it one day—old as anything, with jolly Roman roads and such hangin' +around, and the most spiffin' lot of gees. Look, the sun will be gettin' +above the houses soon. I've seen some sunrises in my day. You ought to +be on the Downs at night, Miss Beaminster."</p> + +<p>Roddy was surprised at himself at the way that he was talking, but she +really looked quite beautiful there in the window with her dark hair and +her eyes and white dress.</p> + +<p>"I can't tell you," she said, when it was time for them to part, "how +much all you say interests me. I love horses too, and I adore dogs——"</p> + +<p>"I've got a dog I'd like you to have," he began. "It's a——"</p> + +<p>"Oh no," she answered. "Aunt Adela would never let me keep one here. +Thank you all the same. But you'll let me come down to Seddon Court one +day, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"Let you!" Roddy could find no words.</p> + +<p>She flung one glance at the square, where the dawn was beginning, and +then was back in the ballroom again, dancing, dancing, dancing....</p> + +<p>The sky was all pink above the roofs, and the birds were making a whirl +of chattering, when her bedroom received her again.</p> + +<p>Her maid was sleepy but proud.</p> + +<p>"They all say it's been a great success, Miss Rachel."</p> + +<p>"Success!" She stood for a moment in the middle of the room with her +arms extended. "Oh! It's been glorious, glorious. I've never——"</p> + +<p>She paused. Her arms fell to her sides—"Oh! Dr. Chris! Dr. Chris! He +never came—he said that he mightn't be able. It was the only thing that +was wrong"—Then more slowly, as she moved to her dressing-table—"And +all the last part I never missed him."</p> + +<p>"Well, I dare say," said Lucy, standing behind Rachel's chair and +staring at the white face in the mirror, "that with his patients and the +rest he couldn't get away——"</p> + +<p>"Oh! But I ought to have missed him," said Rachel, and afterwards, lying +in bed, sleepless with excitement, it was Dr. Christopher's face that +she saw.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>FANS</h3> + +<blockquote><p>"Il est doux de sommeiller a l'ombre chaude, sur le tiède +oreiller d'un mal épicurisme et d'une intelligence ironique, +très simple, assez curieuse, et prodigieusement indifferente, +au fond."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Romain Rolland.</span></p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>On the afternoon that followed the ball Lady Adela took Rachel to tea +with Lord Richard.</p> + +<p>It was a superb May afternoon; white clouds, bolster-shaped, were piled +in the heavens and made, so rounded were they, the blue sky seem an +infinite distance away. It was a day of sparkling dazzling gaiety—the +air seemed electric with the happiness of the world, and, as they drove +down to Grosvenor Street, Rachel felt that the little breeze that just +touched the hats and coats of the people on the omnibuses was created +simply by the joy of the beautiful weather.</p> + +<p>As they moved slowly down Bond Street Rachel looked at the world and +thought of last night. She looked at the men with their shining hats and +shining boots; at the messenger boys and the young women with parcels +and the young women without; at the old men who thought themselves young +and the young men who thought themselves old; at the fish shops and the +picture galleries, at the jewellers' and the book shops, at the place +where they taught you Swedish exercises and the place where there was a +palmist with a Japanese name, and it was all splendid and magnificent +and simply carried on the glories of the night before. Before the +turning into Grosvenor Street there was a great crush of carriages and a +long pause. In the carriage next to Rachel there was a very stout, very +richly coloured lady with a strong scent and a pug dog. A little farther +away there were two young gentlemen in a smart little carriage, and +their hats were so large and their expression so haughty and the top of +their canes so golden that it seemed absurd that they should have to +wait for anybody, and near them was a small boy on a little butcher's +cart and near him an omnibus with a red-faced driver and any number of +interested ladies, and all these incongruities seemed only to add to the +haphazard happiness of this shining afternoon.</p> + +<p>Rachel had many things to consider as she sat there. Aunt Adela did not +interfere with her thoughts, because she never talked when she was in a +carriage, but always sat up and looked wearily at the people about her. +She had never very much to say, but the open air made her feel stupid.</p> + +<p>Rachel was aware that last night had altered her point of view for all +time. She was aware, as she sat there in sunshine, of a new world. By +one glance at Aunt Adela was this new world made apparent. Aunt Adela +had hitherto been important—Aunt Adela was now unimportant.</p> + +<p>Had this afternoon been wet and gloomy, then Rachel might have doubted +that passionate discovery of the world that she now felt was hers, but +here with this blazing sun and sky the note was sustained. Surely never +again would Rachel be afraid of her grandmother, surely never again +would she be afraid of anyone. Holding herself very proudly in a dress +that was a soft primrose colour and in a hat that was dark and shady, +Rachel looked round about her on the world.</p> + +<p>"There's Lady Massiter!" Lady Adela smiled lightly and bowed a very +little—"Monty Carfax is with her."</p> + +<p>Rachel thought of Lord Massiter, and wondered again at last night's +dinner—"How could I have been like that? How <i>could</i> I?"</p> + +<p>There passed them a very handsome carriage with a little dark handsome +lady who looked happily round about her, all alone in her magnificence. +Rachel did not know whether her aunt had seen or no: here was the +Beaminster arch-enemy, Mrs. Bronson, a young American widow, incredibly +rich, incredibly fascinating, incredibly bold. Mrs. Bronson had been in +London only a year, had snapped her jewelled fingers at the Beaminsters +and everything that they stood for, had laughed at snubs and threats, +was intending, so it was said, to have London at her feet in a season or +two.</p> + +<p>Rachel considered her. She was like some jewelled bird of paradise. She +was—one must admit it—better suited to this glorious day than was Aunt +Adela.</p> + +<p>Why need Aunt Adela refuse to be glad because the sun was shining? Why +could not Aunt Adela have said something pleasant about last night's +dance? Why must this absurd outward dignity be so carefully maintained? +Why when one was looking attractive in a primrose dress could one's aunt +not say so?</p> + +<p>That reminded her of Roddy Seddon.</p> + +<p>She liked him. He might be a real friend like Dr. Christopher. The +thought of him made her, as she sat there in the sun, feel doubly +certain that the world was a comfortable, reassuring place and that that +vision of cold spaces and dark forests that had been so often with her +was now to be banished like an evil dream never to return.</p> + +<p>At the end of Grosvenor Street the trees were so green that they might +have been painted, and here they were at Uncle Richard's house.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>But, with the closing of Uncle Richard's doors the sun was taken from +the world. Uncle Richard's house was always soft and dim, like one of +those little jewel cases, all wadding and dark wood. Uncle Richard's +carpets were so thick and soft that everyone seemed to walk on tip-toe, +and the wonderful old prints in the hall and the beautiful dark carving +on the staircase and the sudden swiftness of the doors as they closed +behind you only helped to increase the impression that everything here, +yourself included, was in for a beautiful exhibition, and that light +might hurt the exhibits.</p> + +<p>Uncle Richard's study, where they always had tea, was lined from roof to +ceiling with book-cases, and behind the shining glass there gleamed the +backs of the haughtiest and proudest books in the world. For, were they +old and dingy, then they were first editions of transcendent value, and +were they new and shining, then were they "Editions de luxe," or some of +Uncle Richard's favourites bound in the most intricate and precious of +bindings.</p> + +<p>Some china on the mantelpiece was so valuable that housemaids must +surely have a sleepless time because of it, and all the furniture was so +conscious of its rich and ancient glories that to sit down on the chairs +or to lean on the tables was to offer them terrible insults.</p> + +<p>Two Conders and a Corot shone from the grey walls.</p> + +<p>In the midst of this was Uncle Richard, elaborately, ironically +indifferent to all emotions. "I have governed the country, yes—but +really, my friends, scarcely a job for a fine spirit nowadays. I have +collected these few things—yes, but after all what does it come to? +Don't many pawn-brokers do the same?"</p> + +<p>Rachel, as she stood in the room, felt that her newly found independence +was slipping away from her. With the departure of the sun had fled also +that consciousness of last night's splendours. About her again was +creeping that atmosphere that was always with her in this room, +something that made her feel that she was a wretched, ignorant +Beaminster, and that even if she did learn the value of all these +precious things, why then that knowledge was of little enough use to +her.</p> + +<p>Uncle Richard with his high white forehead, his long dark trousers, his +grey spats and his great collar that bent back, in humble deference, +before the nobility of his neck and chin, Uncle Richard required a great +deal of courage.</p> + +<p>"Well, dear, I hope you enjoyed your dance."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Uncle Richard, thank you."</p> + +<p>"I left early, but everything seemed to be going very well."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think it was all right."</p> + +<p>How different this from the fashion in which she had intended to fling +her enthusiasm upon him. What, she wondered, would have been the effect +had she done so? How would he have taken it? Could she have pierced that +melancholy ironical armour that always kept the real man from her?</p> + +<p>Meanwhile she was now back again in the old, old world; tea was brought, +the footman and butler moved softly about the room. Aunt Adela said a +little, Uncle Richard said a little ... the lid was down upon the world.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, impossible to imagine that only a quarter of an hour ago +there had been that gay confusion in Bond Street, impossible to believe +Mrs. Bronson in her carriage anything but common and vulgar, impossible +to prefer that dazzling sun to this cloistered quiet.</p> + +<p>A wonderful lacquered clock ticked the minutes away. "I'm in a cage—I'm +in a cage—and I want to get out," someone in Rachel Beaminster was +crying, and someone else replied, "Thank God that you are allowed to be +in such a cage at all. There's no other cage so splendid."</p> + +<p>Her primrose gown was forgotten; when Uncle Richard asked her questions +she answered "Yes," or "No." Her old terrors had returned.</p> + +<p>Upon the three of them, sitting thus, Roddy Seddon was announced. Roddy +had assaulted and conquered Lord Richard in as masterly a fashion as he +had subdued the Duchess and Lady Adela. He had done it simply by +presenting so boisterous and honest an allegiance to the Beaminster +standard. Lord Richard's irony had been useless against Roddy's +ingenuous appeal. Moreover, there was the Duchess's advocacy—young +Seddon was the hope of the party.</p> + +<p>Roddy brought to view no evidence of last night's energies; he was as +fresh, as highly coloured, as browned and bronzed and clear as any +pastoral shepherd, his skin was so finely coloured that clothes always +seemed, with him, a pity. Lord Richard's melancholy cynicism had poor +chance against such vigour.</p> + +<p>His eyes, as they fastened upon Rachel, brightened. She gave that dim +room such fresh pleasure, sitting there in her primrose frock with her +serious eyes and long hands. No, she was not beautiful; he knew that his +last night's impression had been the true one; but she was unusual, she +would make, he was sure, a most unusual companion. "You wouldn't think +it," May Eversley had said, "but there's any amount of fun in +Rachel—you'll find it when you know her."</p> + +<p>He was not sure but that he saw it now, lurking in her eyes, her mouth, +as she sat there, so gravely, opposite to her uncle and aunt.</p> + +<p>"How d'ye do, Lady Adela? How d'ye do, Miss Beaminster? How are you, +sir? Thanks—I will have some tea. Pretty gorgeous day, ain't it? +Rippin' dance of yours last night, Lady Adela."</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, Rachel knew that she had nothing to say to him. Out there in +the sunlight she might, perhaps, have maintained that relationship that +had been begun between them the night before, but in here, with Aunt +Adela and Uncle Richard so consciously an audience, with the air so dim +and the walls so grey, Roddy Seddon seemed the most strident of +strangers.</p> + +<p>She sat, silently, whilst he talked to Aunt Adela. "I've never had so +toppin' a dance as last night—'pon my soul, no. Young Milhaven, whom I +tumbled on at Brook's at luncheon, said the same. Band first-rate, and +floor spiffin'."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you liked it, Roddy," said Lady Adela, with a dry little +smile. "I must confess to being glad that it's over."</p> + +<p>Roddy glanced a little shyly at Rachel. "I suppose you're goin' hard at +it now, Miss Beaminster?"</p> + +<p>She looked across the tea-table at him. "There's Lady Grode's and Lady +Massiter's, and Lady Carloes is giving one for her niece——"</p> + +<p>"The Massiter thing ought to be a good one. Always do it well," said +Roddy. "'Pon my word, on a day like this makes one hot to think of +dancing."</p> + +<p>He was perplexed. He had instantly perceived that he had here a Rachel +Beaminster very different from last night's heroine. She was now beyond +all contemplated intimacy. He had heard others speak of that aloofness +that came like a cloud about her. He now saw it for himself.</p> + +<p>After a time he came across to her whilst Lady Adela and her brother +talked as though the world consisted of one Beaminster railed round by +high palings over which a host of foolish people were trying to climb.</p> + +<p>He stood beside her smiling in that slightly embarrassed manner of his, +a manner that caused those who did not know him to say that they liked +Roddy Seddon because he was so modest.</p> + +<p>"Such a day it seems a shame to be in town."</p> + +<p>"Yes—isn't it lovely?"</p> + +<p>"The opera's pretty hot in the evenin' just now. Have you been yet?"</p> + +<p>"I've been in Munich often. I've never been here."</p> + +<p>"My word! Haven't you really? Wish I could say the same. I'm always +bein' dragged——"</p> + +<p>"Why do you go if you don't care about it?"</p> + +<p>"Can't think—always askin' myself. Why do half the Johnnies go? And yet +in a way I like some sorts o' music."</p> + +<p>"<i>What</i> kind of music?"</p> + +<p>"Sittin' in the dark, in a room, with someone just strokin' the piano up +and down—just strokin' it—not hammerin' it. I don't care what the old +tune is——"</p> + +<p>Rachel laughed a little, but said nothing. Of course, she thought him +the most thundering kind of fool, and this made him eager to display to +her his wisdom and common sense.</p> + +<p>But he could say nothing. There followed the most awkward silence. She +did not try to help him, but sat there quietly looking in front of her.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she said: "Uncle Richard, I want to see your fans again. I +haven't seen them for a long time. I know you've added some lately. Sir +Roderick, have you ever seen my uncle's fans?"</p> + +<p>"No," he said. "I'd be delighted——"</p> + +<p>Lord Richard's eyes lifted. The lines of his mouth grew softer.</p> + +<p>Rachel watched him. "Now he'll pretend," she said, "that he doesn't +care. He'll pretend that they're nothing to him at all."</p> + +<p>He went, in his solemn guarded manner, to a place in the room where a +large cabinet was let into the wall. He drew this cabinet forward, and +then, out of it, moving his hands almost pontifically, he pulled trays, +and on these trays lay the fans.</p> + +<p>The others had gathered around him. There were nearly five hundred +fans—fans Dutch and Italian and French and Chinese and Japanese; fans +of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, of the eighteenth and of the +Empire—modern Japanese heavy with iron spokes, others light as +gossamer, with spokes of ivory or tortoise shell. There were French +fans, painted only on one side, with pictures of fantastic shepherds and +shepherdesses; there were Chinese fans with bridges and mandarins and +towers; Empire fans perforated with tinsel and such lovely shades of +colour that they seemed to change as one gazed.</p> + +<p>There they all lay in that rich solemn room, quietly, proudly conscious +of their beauty, needing no word of praise, catching all the colour and +the daintiness and fragrance that had ever been in the world.</p> + +<p>Rachel drank in their splendour and then looked about her.</p> + +<p>Uncle Richard's eyes were flaming and his hands trembling against the +case.</p> + +<p>Then she looked at Roddy Seddon. His head was flung back; with eyes and +mouth, with every vein, and fibre of his body he was drinking in their +glory.</p> + +<p>His eyes were suddenly caught away. He was staring at her before she +looked away—Her eyes said to him, "Why! Do you care like <i>that</i>? Do +those things mean <i>that</i> to you?"</p> + +<p>She smiled across at him. They were in communion again as they had been +last night.</p> + +<p>He was surprised that he should be so glad.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>IN THE HEART OF THE HOUSE</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The honest thief, the tender murderer,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The superstitious atheist, demirep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That loves and saves her soul in new French books—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We watch while these in equilibrium keep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The giddy line midway: one step aside,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They're classed and done with. I, then, keep the line—"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Bishop Blougram's</span> Apology.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>The Duchess could but dimly guess at the splendour of that fine May +afternoon.</p> + +<p>It had been her complaint lately that she was always cold and now the +blinds and curtains were closely drawn and a huge fire was blazing. Her +chair was close to the flame: she sat there looking, in the fierce +light, small and shrivelled; she was reading intently and made no +movement except now and again when she turned a page. Dorchester was the +only other person there and she sat a little in the shadow, busily +sewing.</p> + +<p>From where she sat she could see her mistress's face, and behind her +carved chair there were the blue china dragons and the deep heavy red +curtains and a black oak table covered with little golden trays and +glass jars and silver boxes.</p> + +<p>Neither heat nor cold nor youth nor age had any effect upon Dorchester. +No one knew how old she was, nor how long she had been with her +mistress, nor her opinions or sentiments concerning anything in the +world.</p> + +<p>She was tall and gaunt and snapped her words as she might snap a piece +of thread.</p> + +<p>From Mrs. Newton and Norris downwards the servants were afraid of her. +She made a confidant of no one, was supposed to have no emotions of any +kind, absurd and fantastic stories were told of her; she was certainly +not popular in the servants' hall and yet at a word from her anything +that she requested was done.</p> + +<p>With Miss Rand only was it understood that she had a certain friendly +relationship; it was said that she liked Miss Rand.</p> + +<p>Dorchester had witnessed the whole of the Duchess's career.</p> + +<p>As she sat now in the shadow every now and again she looked up and +glanced at that sharp white face and those thin hands. What a little +body it was to have done so much, to have battled its way through such a +career, to have fought and to have won so many conflicts! It seemed to +Dorchester only yesterday that splendid time, when the Duchess had been +queen of London. Dorchester also had been young then and had had an +energy as enduring, a will as finely tempered as had her mistress.</p> + +<p>What a character it had been then with its furies and its disciplines, +its indulgences and its amazing restrictions, its sympathies and cold +clodded cruelties, its tremendous sense of the dramatic moment so that +again and again a position that had been nearly surrendered was held and +saved. She had never been beautiful, always little and sharp and +sometimes even wizened. But she gained her effects one way or another +and beat beautiful and wise and wonderful women off the field.</p> + +<p>And then sweeping down upon her had come disease. At first it had been +fought and magnificently fought. But it was the horror of its unexpected +ravages that had been so difficult to combat. She had never known when +the pain would be upon her—it might seize her at any public moment and +her retreat be compelled before the whole world. There had been doctors +and doctors and doctors, and then operation after operation, but no one +had done any good until Dr. Christopher had come to her, and now, for +years, he had been keeping her alive.</p> + +<p>Out of that very necessity of disease, however, had she dragged her +drama. She had retired from the world, not as an old woman beaten by +pain, but as a priestess might withdraw within her sanctuary or some +great queen demand her privacy.</p> + +<p>And it had its effect. Very, very carefully were chosen to see her only +those who might convey to the world the right impression. The world was +given to understand that the Duchess was now more wonderful than she had +ever been, and it was so long since the world at large had seen her that +every sort of story was abroad.</p> + +<p>Certain old ladies like Lady Carloes who played bridge with her gained +most of their public importance from their intimacy with her. It was +rumoured that at any moment she might return and take her place again in +the world, old though she was.</p> + +<p>All this was known to Dorchester and she smiled grimly as she thought of +it. The real Duchess! Perhaps she and Dr. Christopher alone in all the +world knew the intricacies, the inconsistencies of that amazing figure. +From the moment that illness had come every peculiarity had grown. Her +self-indulgences, her temper, her pride, her egotism—now knew, in +private, no restraint. And yet when her friends were there or anyone at +all from the outside world she displayed the old dignity, the old grand +air, the old imperious quiet that belonged to no one else alive.</p> + +<p>But what, during these last years, Lady Adela had suffered! Dorchester +herself had had many moments when it had seemed that she had more to +control than her strength could maintain, but long custom, an entire +absence of the nervous system, and a comforting sense that she was, +after all, paid well for her trouble, sustained her endurance.</p> + +<p>But Lady Adela had nothing.</p> + +<p>The Duchess had always hated her children, but had used them, +magnificently, for her purposes. They had all been fools, but they were +just the kind of fools that the Beaminster tradition demanded.</p> + +<p>Lady Adela had from the first been more of a fool than the others. She +had never had the gift of words and before her mother was, as a rule, +speechless, and it had been only by her changing colour that an onlooker +could have told that her mother's furies moved her.</p> + +<p>Often Dorchester had attempted interference, but had found at last that +it was better to allow the fury to spend its force. Then also Dorchester +had noticed a curious thing. The Duke, Lord Richard, Lord John, Lady +Adela were proud of these prides and tempers. They were proud of +everything that their mother did; they might suffer, their backs might +wince under the blows, but it was part of the tradition that their +mother should thus behave.</p> + +<p>Dorchester fancied that sometimes there was flashed upon them a sudden +suspicion that their mother was in these days only an old, ailing, +broken woman—no great figure now, no magnificent tyrant, no mysterious +queen of society. And then Dorchester fancied that she had noticed that +when such a suspicion had come upon them they had put it hastily aside +and locked it up and abused themselves for such baseness.</p> + +<p>Curious people, these Beaminsters!</p> + +<p>Well, it was no business of hers. And, perhaps, after all she had +herself some touch of that feeling, some fierce impatient pride in those +very tempests and rebellion. After all, was there anyone in the world +like this mistress of hers? Was there another woman who would bear so +bravely the pain that she bore? And was not that fierce clutch on life, +that energy with which she tried still to play her part in the great +game, grand in its own fashion?</p> + +<p>Would not Dorchester also fight when her time came?</p> + +<p>She looked across the firelight at her mistress. When would arrive the +inevitable moment of surrender? How imminent that moment when in the +eyes of all those about her the old woman would see that all that was +now hers was a quiet abandonment to death!</p> + +<p>Well, there would be some fine, savage struggling when that crisis +struck into their midst. Dorchester smiled grimly, and then, in spite of +herself, sighed a little.</p> + +<p>They were all growing old together.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>At five o'clock came Dr. Christopher, and Dorchester moved into the +other room and left the two together. With his large limbs and cheerful +smile he made the Duchess seem slighter and more fragile than ever, and +she herself felt always with his coming some addition of warmth and +strength; each visit, so she might have expressed it, gave her life for +at least another tiny span.</p> + +<p>That he, knowing so much of the follies and catastrophes of life, should +yet be an optimist, would have proved him in her opinion a fool had she +not known, by constant proof, that he was anything but that. "Well, one +day he will discover his mistake," she would say, and yet, perversely, +would cling to him for the sake of this very illusion. He helped her +courage, he helped her battle with her pain, he gave her, sometimes, +some shadowy sense of shame for her passions and rebellions, but, more +than all this, he yielded her a reassurance that life, precious, +adorable, wonderful life, was yet for a little time to be hers.</p> + +<p>He knew well enough the influence that he possessed, and when, as on +this afternoon, he felt it his duty to avail himself of it, he could not +pretend that he faced his task with any exultation.</p> + +<p>That he should rouse her fury, as he had one or twice already roused it, +meant humiliation for him as well as for herself, and afterwards +embarrassment for them both as they saw those scenes in retrospect.</p> + +<p>She glanced up at him carefully as he came in and knew him well enough +to realize that there was something that he must say to her. There had +been other such occasions, she remembered them all. Sometimes she +herself had been the subject of them, something that was injuring her +health, some indulgence that he could not allow her. Sometimes the +battle had been about others; she had fought him and on occasions it had +seemed that their relationship was broken once and for all, that nothing +could cover the words that had been spoken—but always through +everything she had admired his courage.</p> + +<p>The way had always been to stand up to her.</p> + +<p>For a little time they talked about her health, and then there fell a +pause. She, leaning back in her chair with her thin, sharp hands on her +lap, watched him grimly as he sat on the other side of the fireplace, +leaning forward a little, looking into the fire.</p> + +<p>"Well," she said at last. "What is it?" Her voice was deep, but every +word was clear-cut, resonant.</p> + +<p>"There <i>is</i> something—two things," he answered her slowly. "You can +dismiss me for an interfering old fool, you know. You often have been +tempted to do it before, I dare say."</p> + +<p>"I have," she said. "Go on."</p> + +<p>But as she spoke she drew her hands a little more closely together. She +was not quite so ready for these battles as she had once been. She was +afraid a little now. A new sensation for her; she hated that restricting +awkwardness that would remain between them for days afterwards.</p> + +<p>She looked at his red, cheerful face and wondered impatiently why he +must always be meddling in other people's affairs. She hated Quixotes.</p> + +<p>"Your Grace," he began again, "has only got to stop me and I'll say no +more."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, you will," she said impatiently. "I know you. Say what you +please."</p> + +<p>"I want to speak about Francis Breton——" He paused, but she said +nothing, only for an instant her whole face flashed into stone. The +firelight seemed for an instant to hold it there, then, as the flame +fell, she was once again indifferent.</p> + +<p>Christopher had grasped his courage now. He went on gravely:</p> + +<p>"I must speak about him. I know how unpleasant the whole subject is to +you. We've had our discussions before and I've fought his battles with +all the world more times than I can count. You must remember that I've +known Frank all his life—I knew his unhappy father. I've known them +both long enough to realize that the boy's been heavily handicapped from +the beginning——"</p> + +<p>"Must you," she said, looking him now full in the face, "must it be +this? Have we not thrashed it out thoroughly enough already? I don't +change, you know."</p> + +<p>He understood that she was appealing to his regard for their own +especial relationship. But there was a note of control in her voice; he +knew that now she would listen:</p> + +<p>"I've cared for Frank during a number of years. I know he's weak, +impulsive, incredibly foolish. He's always been his own worst enemy. I +know that the other day he wrote a most foolish letter——"</p> + +<p>"It was a letter beyond forgiveness," she said, her voice trembling.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I would give anything to have prevented it. I know that when he +was in England before I pleaded for him, as I am doing now, and that by +a thousand foolhardy actions he negatived anything that I could say for +him.</p> + +<p>"I'm urging no defence for the things that he did, the shady, +disreputable things. But he has come back now, I do verily believe, +ready, even eager, to turn over a new leaf. I——"</p> + +<p>She interrupted him, smiling.</p> + +<p>"Yes. That letter——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know. But isn't it a very proof of what I say—would anyone but a +foolhardy boy have done such a thing? Sheer bravado, hoping behind it +all to be taken back to the fold—eager, at any rate, not to show a poor +spirit, cowardice."</p> + +<p>"Over thirty now—old for a boy——"</p> + +<p>"In years, yes. But younger, oh! ages younger than that in spirit, in +knowledge of the world, in everything that matters—I know," he went on +more slowly, smiling a little, "that you've called me sentimentalist +times without number—but really here I'm not urging you to anything +from sentimental reasons. I'm not asking you to take him back and kill +the fatted calf for him.</p> + +<p>"I'm asking nothing absurd—only that you, his relations, all that he +has of kith and kin, should not be his enemies, should not drive him to +desperation—and worse."</p> + +<p>"If you imagine," she said steadily, "that his fate is of the smallest +concern to me you know me very little. I care nothing of what becomes of +him. He and I have been enemies for many years now and a few words from +you cannot change that."</p> + +<p>"I'm only asking you," he replied, "to give him a chance. See what you +can make of him, instead of sending him into the other camp—use him +even if you cannot care for him. There's fine stuff there in spite of +his follies. The day might come, even now, when you will own yourself +proud of him——"</p> + +<p>But she had caught him up, leaning forward a little, her voice now of a +sharper turn. "The other camp? What other camp?"</p> + +<p>He caught the note of danger. "I only mean," he said, choosing now his +words with the greatest care, "that if you turn Frank definitely, once +and for all, from your doors, there may be others ready to receive +him——"</p> + +<p>"His men and his women," she broke in scornfully; "don't I know them? +I've not lived these years without knowing the raffish tenth-rate lot +that failures like Frank Breton affect——"</p> + +<p>"No—there are others," Christopher said firmly, "Mrs. Bronson, for +instance——"</p> + +<p>At that name she broke in.</p> + +<p>"Yes—exactly. Mrs. Bronson. Oh! I know the kind of crowd that Mrs. +Bronson and her like can gather. They are welcome to Francis and he to +them."—She paused. He saw that she was controlling herself with a great +effort. For a little while there was silence and then she went on, more +quietly:</p> + +<p>"There, now you have it. That is why there can never be any truce +between Francis and myself. It is more than Francis—it is all the +things that he stands for, all the things that will soon make England a +rubbish heap for every dirty foreigner to dump his filth on to. Hate +him? Why, I'll fight him and all that he stands for so long as there's +breath in my body——"</p> + +<p>"But Frank is with you," Christopher urged eagerly, "if you'll let him +be. He's only in need of your hand and back he'll come. He's waiting +there now—longing, in spite of his defiance, for a word. Give him it +and in the end I know as surely as I sit here that he'll be worth your +while——"</p> + +<p>"What can he do for me?"</p> + +<p>"Ah! He'll show you. After all, he is one of the family; he's miserable +there in his exile. He's got your own spirit—he'd die rather than own +to defeat—but he'll repay you if you have him."</p> + +<p>He saw then, as she turned towards him, that he had done no good.</p> + +<p>"Listen," she said, "I've heard you fairly. Let us leave this now, once +and for all. I tell you finally no word that God Almighty could speak on +this business could change me one atom. Francis Breton and I are foes +for all time. I hate not only himself and the miserable mess that he's +made of his life, I hate all this new generation that he stands for.</p> + +<p>"I hate these new opinions, I hate this indulgence now towards +everything that any fool in the country may choose to think or say. In +my day we knew how to use the fools. Took advantage of their muddle, ran +the world on it. I loathe this tendency to make everyone as intelligent +as they can be! Why! in God's name! Give me two intelligent men and a +dozen fools and you'll get something done. Take a wastrel like Frank and +turn him out. Take muddlers like my family and keep 'em muddled. Richard +ran the country well enough for a time or two, and he's been a muddler +from his childhood.</p> + +<p>"All this cry to educate the people, to be kind to thieves and +murderers! to help the fools—my God! If I still had my say—Whilst +there's breath in me I'll fight the lot of them."</p> + +<p>She leant back in her chair, waited for breath, and then went on more +mildly:</p> + +<p>"You may like all this noise and clamour, Doctor. You may like your Mrs. +Bronson and the rest—common, vulgar, brainless—ruling the world. Every +decent law that held society together is being broken and nobody cares.</p> + +<p>"Frank Breton may find his place in this new world. He has no place in +mine."</p> + +<p>Then she added: "So much for that—what's the other thing?"</p> + +<p>But he hesitated. Her voice was tired, even tremulous, and he was aware +as he looked across at her that her emotions now treated her more +severely than they had once done. At the same time he was aware that +giving free play to her temper always did her good.</p> + +<p>"Well—perhaps—another day——"</p> + +<p>"No—now. I may as well take my scoldings together—it saves time!"</p> + +<p>He stood up and, leaning on the mantelpiece with one arm, looked down +upon her.</p> + +<p>"Here," he said, "I'm afraid I may seem doubly impertinent, but it's a +matter that is closer to me than anything in the world. You know that +I'm a lonely old bachelor and that all those sentiments that you accuse +me of must find some vent somewhere. I'm fonder of Rachel, I think, than +I am of anyone in the world, and it's only that affection and the +feeling that, in some ways, I know her better than any of you do that +give me courage to speak."</p> + +<p>He could see that now she was reaching the limits of her patience.</p> + +<p>"Well—what of Rachel?"</p> + +<p>"I understand—I know—that you—that all of you intend that she shall +marry young Seddon——"</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"I know that it is impertinent of me, but, as I have said, I think I +know Rachel differently from anyone else in the world. She is +strange—curiously ignorant of life in many ways, curiously wise in +others. Her simplicity—the things that she takes on trust—there is no +end to it. The things, too, that she cannot forgive—she doesn't know +how often, later on, she will have to forgive them—</p> + +<p>"But the first man who breaks her trust——"</p> + +<p>"Thank you for this interesting light on Rachel's character. What does +it mean?"</p> + +<p>"It means," he said abruptly, "that she mustn't be hurt. Your Grace may +turn me out of the house here and now if you will, but Seddon is the +wrong man for her to marry——"</p> + +<p>"What are his crimes?" Her voice was rising, and her hand tapped +impatiently on her dress.</p> + +<p>"I know him only slightly, but common repute—anyone who is in the +London world at all will tell you—his reputation is bad. I've nothing +against him myself, but his affairs with women have been many. He is no +worse, I dare say, than a thousand others. At least he's young—and I +myself, God knows, am no moralist. But to marry him to Rachel will be a +crime."</p> + +<p>He knew as he heard his own voice drop that the scene that he dreaded +was upon him. The air was charged with it. In the strangest way +everything in the room seemed to be changed because of it. The +furniture, the dragons, the tables, the very trifles of gold and silver, +seemed to withdraw, leaving the air weighted with passion.</p> + +<p>She was trembling from head to foot. Her voice was very low.</p> + +<p>"You've gone too far. What business is this of yours? How dare you come +to me with these tales? How dare you? You've taken too much on your +shoulders. See to your own house, Doctor——"</p> + +<p>He stepped back from the fireplace.</p> + +<p>"Please—to-morrow——"</p> + +<p>"No. Here and now." Her words flashed at him. "You've begun to think +yourself indispensable. Because I've shown you that I rely upon +you—Because, at times, I've seemed to need your aid—therefore you've +interfered in matters that are no concern of yours."</p> + +<p>"They are concerns of mine," he answered firmly, "in so far as this +affair is connected with my friend."</p> + +<p>"Your friend and my granddaughter," she retorted. "But it is not only +that. I will return you your own words. You say that your friend is in +danger—what of mine? You have dared to attack someone who is more to me +than you and all the rest of the world put together. Someone whom I care +for as I have never cared for my own sons. It was bold of you, Dr. +Christopher, and I shall not forget it."</p> + +<p>He took it without flinching. "Very well," he said. "But my word to the +end is the same. If you marry Seddon to your granddaughter you do your +own sense of justice wrong."</p> + +<p>At that the last vestige of restraint left her. Leaning forward in her +chair she poured her words upon him in a torrent of anger. Her voice was +not raised, but her words cut the air, and now and again she raised her +hands in a movement of furious protest.</p> + +<p>She spared him nothing, dragged forward old incidents, old passages +between them that he had thought long ago forgotten, reminded him of +occasions when he had been mistaken or over-certain, accused him of +crimes that would have caused him to leave the country had there been a +vestige of truth in her words; at last, beaten for breath, gasped out: +"Sir Roderick Seddon shall know of what you accuse him. He shall deal +with you——"</p> + +<p>"I have nothing," Christopher answered gravely, "against Seddon—nothing +except that he should not marry Rachel!"</p> + +<p>"You have attacked him!" she gasped out. "He—shall—answer."</p> + +<p>But her rage had exhausted her. She lay back against her chair, heaving, +clutching at the arms for support.</p> + +<p>He summoned Dorchester, but when he approached the Duchess feebly +motioned him away.</p> + +<p>"I've—done—with you—never again," she murmured.</p> + +<p>She seemed then most desperately old. Her dress was in disorder, her +face wizened with deep lines beneath her eyes and hollows in her cheeks.</p> + +<p>Christopher waited while Dorchester helped her mistress into the farther +room. For some time there was silence. The room was stifling, and, +impatiently, he pulled back the heavy red curtains.</p> + +<p>He sat, waiting, eyeing the stupid dragons, every now and again glancing +at his watch.</p> + +<p>Even now the room seemed to vibrate with her voice, and he could imagine +that the French novel, fallen from her lap on to the carpet, winked at +him as much as to say:</p> + +<p>"Oh, we're up to her tempers, aren't we? We know what they're worth. +<i>We</i> don't care!"</p> + +<p>At last Dorchester appeared.</p> + +<p>"Her Grace is in bed and will see you, sir," she said.</p> + +<p>Her face was grave and without expression.</p> + +<p>After another glance at his watch he passed into the bedroom.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>THE TIGER</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"For every Manne there lurketh<br /></span> +<span class="i4">hys Wilde Beast."<br /></span> +<span class="i7"><span class="smcap">Sardus Aquinas (1512).</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Brun, meeting Christopher one day, had asked him to tea in his flat, and +then, remembering his interest in the Beaminster history, invited him to +bring Breton with him.</p> + +<p>"I haven't seen him for years. I'd like to see him again."</p> + +<p>Christopher had accepted this invitation, and now on a sultry afternoon +in June found himself sitting in Brun's rooms. Brun's sitting-room had a +glazed and mathematical appearance as though, from cushions to ceiling, +it had been purchased at a handsome price from a handsome warehouse. It +was not comfortable, it was very hot.... The narrow street squeezed +between Portland Square and Great Portland Street lay on its back, the +little windows of its mean houses gasping like mouths for air, the hard +sun pouring pitilessly down.</p> + +<p>No weather nor atmosphere ever affected Brun. His clothes as well as his +body had that definite appearance of something outside change or +disorder. He might have been, one would allow, something else at earlier +stages before this final result had been achieved (as a painting is +presented to the observer before its completion), but surely now nothing +would ever be done to him again. Surveying him, he appeared less a man +with a history, origins, destinies about him than an opinion or a +criticism. He was designed exactly by Nature for cynical observation, +and was intended to play no other part in life.</p> + +<p>"Well, Christopher?" said Brun. "Hot, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"My word—yes. Breton's coming along presently."</p> + +<p>"Good. I've asked Arkwright the explorer. Nice fellow." They sat in +silence for a little. Then Brun said:</p> + +<p>"Interested in writers, Christopher?"</p> + +<p>"Not very much. Why?"</p> + +<p>"Just been lunching with a young novelist, Westcott. What he said +interested me. Of course, he's very young, got no humour, takes himself +dreadfully seriously, but he asked my advice—and it is as a sign of the +times over here that I mention it."</p> + +<p>"Go ahead."</p> + +<p>"He tells me that a number of young novelists are going to band +themselves into a kind of Artists' Young Liberty movement—artists, +poets, novelists, some thirty altogether—going to have a magazine, do +all kinds of things. Some of the older men will scoff. At the same +time——"</p> + +<p>"Well?" said Christopher.</p> + +<p>"They'd asked him to join. He wanted my opinion."</p> + +<p>"What did you say?"</p> + +<p>"He interested me—he was a kind of test case. It would mean that, +commercially, from the popular point of view, it would put him back for +years. Those young men will all be put down as conceited cranks. They +will tilt at the successful popular men like Lawson and the others, will +worship at the feet of the unsuccessful 'Great' men like Lester and +Cotton. The papers will hate 'em, the public will be indifferent. The +result will be that, in the end, they may do a big thing—at any rate +they'll have done a fine thing, but they'll all die on the way, I +expect."</p> + +<p>Brun spoke with enthusiasm unusual for him.</p> + +<p>"How was this a test of Westcott?" asked Christopher.</p> + +<p>"Well—would he go or no? He's at the kind of parting of the ways. I +believe success is coming to him, if he wants it; but he'll have to +build another wall in front of his Tiger either before the success or +after. If he joins this crowd of men, there'll be no walls for him ever +again."</p> + +<p>Christopher knew that when Brun had some idea that he was pleasantly +pursuing and had secured an audience nothing would stay or hinder him.</p> + +<p>He pushed a chair towards him.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by your Tiger?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"My Tiger is what every man has within him—I don't mean, you know, a +nasty habit or a degrading passion or anything of necessity +vicious—only my theory is that every man is given at the outset of life +a Beast in the finest, noblest sense with whom through life he has got +to settle. It may be an Ambition, or a Passion, or a Temptation, or a +Virtue, what you will, but with that Beast he's got to live. Now it's +according to his dealings with the Beast that the man's great or no. If +he faces the Beast—and the Beast is generally something that a man +knows about himself that nobody else knows—the Beast can be used, +magnificently used. If he's afraid, pretends the Tiger isn't there, +builds up walls, hides in cities, does what you will, then he must be +prepared for a life of incessant alarm, and he may be sure that at some +moment or another the Tiger will make his spring—then there'll be a +crisis!</p> + +<p>"Over here in England you're hiding your Tigers all the time. That's why +you're muddled—about Art, Literature, Government, everything that +matters—and an old woman like the Duchess of Wrexe—sharp enough +herself, mind you—uses all of you.</p> + +<p>"No Beaminster has ever faced his or her Tiger yet, and they're down, +like knives, on everyone who does and everything that shows the Tiger's +bright eyes——</p> + +<p>"But I see—oh, Lord! I see—a time coming, yes, here in England, when +the Individual, the great man, is coming through, when the Duchess will +be dead and the Beaminster driven from power and every man with his +Tiger there in front of him, faced and trained, will have his chance—</p> + +<p>"More brain, more courage, no muddle—God help the day!"</p> + +<p>"You see things moving—everywhere?"</p> + +<p>"Everywhere. These fellows, Randall and the rest, are bringing their +Tigers with 'em. They're going to put them there for all the world to +see. It's only another party out against the Duchess, <i>she</i> wants all +the Tigers hidden—only herself to know about them—then she can do her +work. She'll hate these fellows until they've made their stand and then +she'll try to adopt them in order to muzzle them the better in the end.</p> + +<p>"If Westcott hides his Tiger, forgets he's there, his way's plain +enough. He'll make money, the Duchess will ask him to tea. Let him join +these fellows and his Tiger may tear all his present self to pieces."</p> + +<p>"What about yourself, Brun?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm nothing! I'm the one great exception. No Tiger thinks me worth +while. I merely observe, I don't feel—and you have to feel to keep your +Tiger alive."</p> + +<p>Brun's little lecture was over. He suddenly drew his body together, +clapped his mental hands to dismiss the whole thing and was drawing +Westcott to the door.</p> + +<p>"But I talk—how I talk! You bear with me, Christopher, because I must +go on, you know. It means nothing—absolutely nothing. But they will +have arrived now, so down we go. I go on in my sleep, exactly the same. +And now tea—and I will talk less because Breton talks a great deal and +so does Arkwright, and so do you...."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Arkwright came, and after a little, Breton. But the meeting was not a +success. Arkwright had heard a good deal about Breton's reputation, and +although, on the whole, he was tolerant of any backsliding in women, he +made what he called his liking for "clean men" an excuse for much +narrow-mindedness.</p> + +<p>It is quite a mistake to suppose that living in solitude and danger +makes a human being tolerant. It has the precisely opposite effect. +Arkwright was more frightened of a man who was not "quite right with +society" than of any number of enraged natives. With natives one knew +where one was. Whereas with a man like this ...</p> + +<p>Breton, anxious to please, made the mistake of showing his anxiety. +Seeing an enemy round every corner he was a little theatrical, too +demonstrative, too foreign. Arkwright disliked his beard and the +movement of his hands. "He wouldn't have come, had he known...."</p> + +<p>Breton had, of course, at once perceived this man's hostility. Returning +to England had involved, as he had known that it must, a life of +battles, skirmishes, retreats, wounds, and every kind of hostility. +People did not forget and even had they desired to do so, his +relationship family history prevented Breton's oblivion.</p> + +<p>He was ready for discourtesy, however eager he may have been for +friendship. But what the Devil, he thought, is this fellow doing here at +all? If Brun brought him in he must have told him just whom he was to +meet, and if he came with that knowledge about him, why then should he +not behave like a gentleman? Breton's half timid advance towards +friendliness now yielded to curt hostility.</p> + +<p>Brun maintained his silence and only watched the two men with an +amusement just concealed. Conversation at last ceased and the heat beat, +in waves, through the open windows and the air seemed now to be +stiffened into bronze. Beyond the room all the city lay waiting for the +cool of the evening.</p> + +<p>Christopher liked Arkwright and Arkwright liked Christopher.</p> + +<p>Christopher had read one of Arkwright's books and spoke of it with +praise and also intelligence, and nothing goes to an author's heart like +intelligent appreciation from an unbiassed critic. But Breton was not to +be won over. He sat deep in his chair and replied in sulky monosyllables +whenever he was addressed.</p> + +<p>Christopher soon gave him up and the three men talked amongst +themselves.</p> + +<p>The heat of the afternoon passed and a little breeze danced into the +room, and the hard brightness of the sky changed to a pale primrose that +had still some echo of the blue in its faint colour.</p> + +<p>The city had uttered no sound through the heat of the day, but now +voices came up to the windows: the distant crying of papers, the call of +some man with flowers, then the bells of the Round Church began to ring +for evensong.</p> + +<p>Breton sat there, wrapped in sulky discontent. In his heart he was +wretched. Christopher had deserted him; these men would have nothing to +do with him. As was his nature everything about him was exaggerated. He +had come to Brun's rooms that afternoon, feeling that men had taken him +back to their citizenship again. Now he was more urgently assured of his +ostracism than before. Who were these men to give themselves these airs? +Because he had made one slip were they to constitute themselves his +judges? These Beaminster virtues again—the trail of his family at every +step, that same damnable hypocrisy, that same priggish assumption of the +right to judge. Better to die in the society of those friends of his who +had suffered as he had done, from the judgment of the world—no scorn of +sinners there, no failure in all sense of true proportion.</p> + +<p>Christopher got up to go. He gave Arkwright his card. "Come in and dine +one night and tell me all you're doing——"</p> + +<p>"Of course I'll come," Arkwright said. "Only you're much too busy——"</p> + +<p>"Indeed no," said Christopher. "One day next week you'll hear from +me——"</p> + +<p>Breton got up. "I'll come with you," he said to Christopher.</p> + +<p>The two men went away together.</p> + +<p>When they were gone Arkwright said to Brun, "Now that's the kind of man +I like——"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Brun, laughing. "Better than the other fellow, eh?"</p> + +<p>Arkwright smiled. "More my sort, I must confess."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Christopher and Breton did not speak until they reached Oxford Circus. +Here everything, flower-women, omnibuses, grey buildings, grimy men and +women—was drowned in purple shadow. It might be only a moment's beauty, +but now beneath the evening star, frosted silver and alone in a blue +heaven, sound advanced and receded with the quiet rhythm of water over +sand. For an instant a black figure of an omnibus stood against the blue +and held all the swell, the glow, the stir at a fixed point—then life +was once more distributed.</p> + +<p>Here, as they turned down Oxford Street Christopher broke silence. He +put his arm through Breton's:</p> + +<p>"Well, Frank? Sulks not over yet?"</p> + +<p>Breton broke away. "It's all very well, but I suppose I'm to pretend +that I like being insulted by any kind of fool who happens to turn up. +Good God, Chris, you'd think I was a child by the way you talk to me."</p> + +<p>"And so you are a child," said Christopher impatiently, "and a thankless +child too. Sometimes I wonder why I keep on bothering with you."</p> + +<p>Christopher was, like other Scotchmen, a curious mixture of amiability +and irascibility; his temper came from his pride and Breton had learnt, +many years ago, to fear it. In fact, of all the things in life that he +disliked doing, quarrelling with Christopher was the most agreeable. +Then there were stubbornness and tenacity that were hard indeed to deal +with. But to-day he was reckless; the heat of the afternoon and now the +beauty of the evening had both, in their different ways, contributed to +his ill-temper. He knew, even now, that afterwards he would regret every +word that he uttered, but he let his temper go.</p> + +<p>"I wonder that you do bother," he said. "Let me alone and let me find my +own way."</p> + +<p>"Don't be a fool," Christopher answered. "There's nothing in the world +for us to quarrel about, only I can't bear to see you giving such a +wrong impression of yourself to strangers—sulking there as though you +were five years old——"</p> + +<p>"All very well," retorted Breton; "you didn't hear the way that fellow +insulted me. I'll wring his neck if I meet him again. I'll——"</p> + +<p>"Now, enough of that!" Christopher's voice was stern. "You know quite +well, Frank, that you're hardly in a position to wring anyone's neck. +You remember the account I gave you of my little dispute with your +grandmother——"</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Breton fiercely. "You remind me rather frequently of +the kind things you do for me."</p> + +<p>And all the time something in him was whispering to him, "<i>What</i> a fool +you are to talk like this!"</p> + +<p>Christopher's voice now was cold: "That's hardly fair of you. I'm +turning up here——" They paused. Breton looked away from him up into +the quiet blue recesses of the side street. Christopher went on: "I only +mean that if I were you I should drop hanging on to the skirts of a +family who don't want you. I should set about and get some work to do, +cut all those rotten people you go about with, and behave decently to +strangers when you meet them. That's all. Good night."</p> + +<p>And Christopher was gone.</p> + +<p>Breton stood there, for a moment, with the tide of his misery full upon +him. Then he turned down Oxford Street and drove his way through the +crowds of people who were coming up towards the Circus. He was alone, +utterly alone in all the world. Everyone else had a home to go to, he +alone had nowhere.</p> + +<p>Only a few weeks ago he had come back to England, with money enough to +keep him alive and a fine burning passion of revenge. That family of his +should lament the day of his birth, that old woman should be down on her +knees, begging his mercy. Now how cold and wasted was that revenge! What +a fool was he wincing at the ill-manners of a stranger, quarrelling with +the best friend man ever had.</p> + +<p>How evilly could Life desert a man and kill him with loneliness.</p> + +<p>And then his mood changed; if Christopher and the rest intended to cast +him off, let them. There were his old friends—men and women who had +been ostracized by the world as he had been—they would know how to +treat him.</p> + +<p>He turned into the silence and peace of Saxton Square and there met Miss +Rand, who was also walking home. The statue was wrapped in blue mist, +the trees were fading into grey and the evening star seemed to have +taken Saxton Square under its special protection.</p> + +<p>"Good evening, Miss Rand."</p> + +<p>"Good evening, Mr. Breton."</p> + +<p>"Isn't it a lovely evening?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. But <i>hasn't</i> it been hot?"</p> + +<p>Miss Rand did not look as though she could ever, under any possible +circumstances, be hot, so neat and cool was she, but she said yes it had +been.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it odd the way that as soon as it's fine people begin to complain +just as they do when it's wet?"</p> + +<p>"It gives them something to talk about—just as it's giving us something +now," said Miss Rand, laughing.</p> + +<p>Breton looked at her and liked her. She seemed so strong and wise and +safe. She would surely always give one the kind of sensible +encouragement that one needed. She would be a good person in whom to +confide.</p> + +<p>They were on the top doorstep now.</p> + +<p>"No. I've got a key." He let her pass him.</p> + +<p>They stood for a moment in the hall together.</p> + +<p>He spoke, as he always did, on the instant's inspiration:</p> + +<p>"Miss Rand?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I'm alone such a lot—in my evenings I mean. I wonder—might I come +down sometimes and just talk a little? You don't know how bad thinking +too much is for me, and if I might——"</p> + +<p>"Why, of course, Mr. Breton—whenever you like."</p> + +<p>Seeing her now, he thought, just now, with her sudden colour she looked +quite pretty.</p> + +<p>"I expect you could advise me—help me in lots of ways——"</p> + +<p>"If there's anything mother or I can do, Mr. Breton, you've only got to +ask—Good night——"</p> + +<p>The door closed behind her.</p> + +<p>He went up to his room, a less miserable man.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>THE GOLDEN CAGE</h3> + +<blockquote><p>"She gives away because she overflows. She has her own feelings, +her own standards; she doesn't keep remembering that she must be +proud."—<i>The Lesson of the Master.</i></p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Those weeks were, to Rachel, a golden time. She did not pretend to deny +or examine their golden quality—they were far, far better than she had +imagined anything could ever be, and that was enough. She had never, +very definitely, imagined to herself this "coming out," but it had been, +at any rate, behind its possible glories, a period of terror. "All those +people" was the way that, with frightened eyes, she had contemplated it.</p> + +<p>And now the kindness that there had been! All the London world had +surely nothing to do but to pay her compliments, to surround her with +courtesies, to flatter her every wish. Even Aunt Adela had under the +general enthusiasm, blossomed a little into good-will, even Uncle +Richard had remembered to wish her well, even the Duke had cracked +applause, and as for Uncle John! ... he was like an amiable conjurer +whose best (and also most difficult) trick had achieved an absolute +triumph.</p> + +<p>And behind all this there was more. May, June and the early part of July +showered such weather upon London as had surely never been showered +before, and these brilliant days dressed, for Rachel, her brilliant +success in cloth of gold and emblazoned robes. She felt the presence of +London for the first time, as the hot weather came beating up the +streets and the brilliant whites and blues and greens and reds flung +back to the burning blue their contrast and splendour.</p> + +<p>She felt, for the first time, her own especial London, and now the grey +cool cluster of buildings at one end of blazing Portland Place and the +dark green of the hovering park at the other end had a new meaning for +her, as though she had only just come to live here and was seeing it all +for the first time. In the streets that hung about Portland Place she +noticed little shops—little bakers and little shoemakers and little +tailors and little sweetshops—and they were all furtive and dark and +shabby.</p> + +<p>And these little shops led to the growth in her mind of an especial +picture of her square of London life, Portland Place white and shining +in the middle, with the Circus like a fair at one end of it, the park +like a mystery at the other end of it, and, on either side, little +secret shops and little dim squares hanging about it, and Harley Street +sinister and ominous by its side.</p> + +<p>Every element of Life and Death was there, the whole History of Man's +Journey Through This World to the Next.</p> + +<p>Behind all the joy and overflowing happiness of these weeks this sudden +setting of London about her was consciously present.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Since that meeting with Miss Rand on the day before the ball Rachel had +often spoken to her. They met at first by accident and then Rachel had +gone to Lizzie's neat little sitting-room to ask for something and, +after that, had looked in for five minutes or so, and they had talked +very pleasantly about the hot weather and the theatres and the ways of +the world.</p> + +<p>Behind all the splendour there was, for Rachel, the dark shadow of +suspense. Was it going to last? What was to follow it? When would those +awkward uncertainties that had once kept her company return to her? Now +whatever else might be doubtful about Miss Rand, one thing was certain, +that she <i>would</i> last, would remain to the end the same clean, reliable, +honest person that she was now.</p> + +<p>Imagine Lizzie Rand unreliable and she vanishes altogether! Rachel +welcomed this and she also admired the wonderful manner in which Miss +Rand accomplished her gigantic task. To run a house like this one and at +the end of it all to remain as composed and safe as though nothing had +been done!</p> + +<p>Rachel herself might carry off a difficult situation by riding +desperately at it, stringing her resources to their highest pitch, but +afterwards reaction would claim its penalty.</p> + +<p>The penalties were never claimed from Miss Rand.</p> + +<p>So, gradually, without any definite words or events, almost without +active consciousness, they became friends.</p> + +<p>Rachel, suddenly, on one afternoon early in July, determined to go and +pay Lizzie Rand a visit in her house.</p> + +<p>That house in Saxton Square had acquired a new romantic interest since +Rachel had learnt that the abandoned, abominable cousin, who defied +Grandmamma and whose name one was never to mention, lived there. Rachel +had considered this cousin more than once during these last months. She +had resented, from the first, the fact that he was to be given, by the +family, no chance of redemption. However bad he had been (and he had +apparently been very bad indeed) his opportunity should have been +offered to him. His life, she knew, had been hard, he was, like herself, +an orphan, and he hated, as she did, her grandmother. Of course, then, +he interested her.</p> + +<p>She did not now say to herself that if this romantic cousin had not been +staying in that house she would not have contemplated a visit to Lizzie. +The Beaminster in her had just now the upper hand, and the Beaminster +simply said that Saxton Square would be a nice place in which Uncle +John, who was, this afternoon, taking her out for a drive, might leave +her whilst he went to the club; later he could pick her up and take her +home.</p> + +<p>The Beaminster part of her did not acknowledge the cousin.</p> + +<p>Quite casually she said to Uncle John, "I want you to leave me at Miss +Rand's for half an hour this afternoon—she is helping me about some +clothes."</p> + +<p>Now Uncle John had during these last weeks continually congratulated +himself on the disappearance of Rachel's irritable, unsettled self. +Always lately one had been presented with her delightful young eager +self and always she had been anxious to agree with Uncle John's +proposals. The world had been going smoothly for him in other ways of +late, and no one had been disagreeable. How pleasant to keep the world +in this amiable condition and how dangerous to risk anyone's +displeasure!</p> + +<p>He had moreover almost (not quite) forgotten that his rascal of a nephew +was living in the same house as Miss Rand, and, even if he did remember +it, well, it was quite another part of the house, and in all probability +Miss Rand had never spoken to Frank Breton, nor so much as said good day +to him.</p> + +<p>Finally it was so sumptuous a day, and Rachel was clothed in so radiant +a happiness and so fluttering and billowing and chuckling a dress of +white and blue, and he himself was looking so handsome in the most +shining of top-hats, the broadest of black bow ties, the most elegant of +pepper-and-salt trousers and the whitest of white spats, that +complaining or arguing or disputing was utterly out of the question.</p> + +<p>"Miss Rand's, my dear? What's the address?... Right you are—" so off +they went.</p> + +<p>She arrived to find Miss Rand, a round chubby lady in bright pink, and a +stranger having tea together. The chubby lady was Mrs. Rand and the +stranger was Francis Breton. She had not expected that her arrival would +cause such a disturbance, nor that she herself would discover the right +and easy words so difficult to say. The little room seemed to be crowded +with furniture and tea-things, and she, quite deliberately, put off any +consideration of her cousin until the atmosphere had been allowed, a +little, to settle around them.</p> + +<p>Miss Rand looked at her almost sternly and was, plainly, at a loss. Mrs. +Rand was excited, and so nervous that her tea-cup rattled in her saucer +and she stayed for quite a long time with her finger in the tea under +the delusion that she was using a teaspoon.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rand's absence of mind was generally due to the fact that she read +one novel a day all the year round and that her thoughts, her hopes, her +despairs were always centred in the book of the day, although when +to-morrow came she could not tell you the author nor the title nor any +of the incidents. Had she been to a play, then, for twenty-four hours +following, it was the drama that held the field.</p> + +<p>She spent her life in an amiable desire to remember, for the sake of her +friends, the plays and books of the past. But she was never successful. +As she said, "The attempt to keep up with the literature and drama of +the day, although praise-worthy, demands all one's time and energy."</p> + +<p>The Beaminster family alone of all other interests in the wide world +might be calculated to draw her out of the realms of the imagination, +and Rachel's entrance scattered all plots to the four winds.</p> + +<p>Rachel sat down and, for a little while, Mrs. Rand held the field. She +told them all that this visit of Miss Beaminster was the most wonderful +and unexpected thing, that it was like a novel, and that she would never +forget it. "But I always do say, Miss Beaminster, that it's the +unexpected that happens. Life's stranger than fiction is my opinion, and +I don't care who contradicts me I shall still hold it."</p> + +<p>At length Rachel had leisure to consider her cousin and then was, +instantly, convinced that she had met him before. She also knew that she +could not have met him before.</p> + +<p>In the strangest way he was connected with those early dream years +which, now, she struggled so sternly to forget. The snow, the bleak sky, +the silence, the sleigh-bells, some strange voice speaking high in air +as though from a distant summit, and all this coming to her with a +poignancy that, even now, brought the tears to her heart and filled it +to overflowing.</p> + +<p>As she saw his thin body, his eyes, his head and the attitude of the boy +in all his movements and gestures she knew that, for her, he belonged to +that earlier world. She knew it so certainly that, although he had not +yet spoken, she could be sure of the exact quality that his voice would +have.</p> + +<p>And confused with this recognition of him was the alarm that she always +felt when her early life returned to her.</p> + +<p>Also she was young enough to be pleased at the agitation into which her +coming had thrown him. It meant, plainly, so much to him; although he +was silent he leant forward in his chair, with his eyes fixed upon her, +waiting for his opportunity.</p> + +<p>Miss Rand, watching him, saw how tremendously this meeting with one of +the family excited him, and, seeing him, her heart filled with pity. +"He's so young. It is hard. He does want someone to look after him."</p> + +<p>Rachel's happiness had, now, returned to her. She liked them all so +much, it was all so cosy, it was so good of them to wish to see her. She +talked with Mrs. Rand about the theatre and the opera.</p> + +<p>"We're going to the opera to-night—the <i>Meistersinger</i>. I've heard it +in Munich twice, but never with Van Rooy, who's singing to-night. I +believe that's an experience one never forgets——"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rand did not really care about opera; everything in opera happened +so slowly, except in <i>Carmen</i>, and even that was better simply as a +play. She liked musical comedy because there you could laugh, or plays +like <i>The Mikado</i>, for instance.</p> + +<p>She was vague as to the <i>Meistersinger</i> and she had never heard of Van +Rooy, but she said, "I agree with you, Miss Beaminster. There's nobody +like him."</p> + +<p>At that Breton struck in with something about music that he had heard in +strange places abroad, and then Rachel, looking in his face for the +first time, asked him about his travels.</p> + +<p>As their eyes and voices met she was again overwhelmed with the vivid +consciousness of their earlier meeting. She thought, "If I were to ask +him whether he remembered that same snow and silence he would say yes—I +know he would say yes."</p> + +<p>Miss Rand, with eyes that were kind but very, very sharp, watched them. +She noticed the eagerness of Breton and wished that he did not seem +quite so anxious to please. "But that's because he's young," she thought +again.</p> + +<p>And, now that he had begun, the words poured from him. With +gesticulation that was faintly foreign, ever so little dramatic, he +unpacked his adventures. He spoke as though this were, beyond all time, +<i>the</i> moment when he must make his effect.</p> + +<p>He did it well, a born teller of tales. And yet Miss Rand wished that he +had not had to do it at all, that there had been more reserve, less +drama, less volubility.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rand, an older Desdemona, listened spellbound. This was as good as +getting a circulating library without paying a subscription. As she said +to her daughter afterwards: "He really was as good as those novels by +what's his name—you know who I mean—those delightful stories about +those foreign places—and the sea."</p> + +<p>He spoke of the first time that he had actually been conscious of the +jungle. "Of course I'd been into it dozens of times—often and often. +But there was a day—I remember as though it were yesterday—when we +went up in a boat—some river or another—That river was the most secret +and sleepy green, and the place all closed about it as though we'd gone +into a box, and they'd closed the lid. Nothing but the green river and +all the forest getting closer and closer and darker and darker, all +blacker than you can imagine, and worse still when it was lighter—a +kind of twilight—and you could see enough to make you shiver—no sound +but the animals, and the branches and the great plants and brilliant +flowers all creeping and crawling—Suddenly—all in a flash—I wanted a +lamp-post and a public house, a wet night shining on streets, the +rattle of a hansom—I was suddenly ghastly frightened, and we got deeper +and deeper into it, and human beings further and further behind, and +only the beastly monkeys and the alligators and the hideous flowers. I +can feel it still——"</p> + +<p>Rachel was enthralled. He called up, on every side about her, that stern +life of hers. He knew and she knew—they alone out of all the world. All +her gaiety, her happiness, her interest of the last weeks went now for +nothing beside this experience. He was not now related to the +Beaminsters—to Grandmother, to Aunt Adela, to Uncle John—but to <i>her</i> +and to that part of her that had nothing to do with the Beaminsters at +all. The room, the commonplace furniture, the pictures of "Lodore Falls" +and "The Fighting Téméraire," the little glimpses of the square beyond +the window, these things shared in the mystery.</p> + +<p>Miss Rand had seen her caught and held. "<i>She's</i> very young too," she +said to herself a little grimly and a little tenderly also—"All too +sensational to be true," she thought. "There's a little bit of unreality +in him all the way through."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rand said: "What do you think of alligators, Miss Beaminster? Don't +you agree with me that they must be most unpleasant to meet? I always +dislike their sluggish ways when I see them in the Zoological Gardens."</p> + +<p>Then upon them all broke the little maid with a husky "Miss Beaminster's +carriage, please, mem."</p> + +<p>Rachel, as she said good-bye, was aware of him again as "her scandalous +cousin." He too was now awkward and embarrassed. They said good-bye +hurriedly and there was between them both a consciousness that no word +of the family or their relationship had been mentioned.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mrs. Rand, when the door was closed, "no one in the world +could have been pleasanter...."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>They did not arrive at the opera that night until the beginning of the +second act. It was Lady Carloes' box and she and Uncle John and Roddy +Seddon were Rachel's companions.</p> + +<p>All the way home in the carriage Rachel had been silent and Lord John, +perceiving uneasily that some of the old Rachel was back again, had said +very little.</p> + +<p>Her mind was confused. At one moment she felt that she did not want to +see him again, that he disturbed her peace and worried her with memories +that were better forgotten. At another moment she could have returned, +then and there, to ask him questions, to know whether he felt this or +that: had he ever pictured such a place? Had he...?</p> + +<p>And then sharply she dismissed such thoughts. She would think of him no +more—and yet he did not look a villain. How delightful to persuade the +family to take him back. Why should she not help towards a +reconciliation? She was herself so happy now that she could not bear +that anyone should feel outcast or lonely—they were all very hard upon +him.</p> + +<p>It was not until she heard the voices of the apprentices that thought of +her cousin left her. As she groped her way in the dark box and heard +Lady Carloes' stuffy whisper (she had the voice of a cracknel biscuit), +"You sit there, my dear—Lord John here. That's right—I knew you'd be +late because ..." she was gloriously aware that quite close to her the +music that she loved best in all the world was transforming existence. +She touched Roddy's hand and then surrendered herself.</p> + +<p>She had been to Covent Garden now on four or five occasions and from the +first the shabby building with its old red and gold, its air of +belonging to any period earlier than the one it was just then amusing, +its attitude, above all, of indifference to its aspect—all this had +attracted her and won her affection. London, she discovered, was always +best when it was shabbiest and one could not praise it more highly than +by declaring, with perfect truth, that it was the shabbiest city in the +world. Now, feeling instinctively that English apprentices (she had had +already some taste of the Covent Garden chorus) would act too much or +too little, she closed her eyes.</p> + +<p>Now, as the music reached her, the old red and gold seemed a cage, +swinging, swinging higher and ever higher with old Lady Carloes and +Roddy Seddon and all the brilliant people in the stalls, and all the +enthusiastic people in the gallery, swinging, swinging inside it. She +could feel the lift of it, the rise and fall, and almost the clearer air +about her as it rose into the stars.</p> + +<p>Then there came to her the voice for which she had surely all her days +been waiting. It enwrapped her round and comforted her, consoled her for +all her sorrows, reassured her for all her fears. It filled the cage and +the air beyond the cage, it was of earth and of heaven, and of all +things good and beautiful in this world and the next.</p> + +<p>For the second time to-day her early years came back to her; the voice +had in it all those hours when someone's tenderness had made Life worth +living. "Life is immortal," it cried. "And I am immortal, for I am Love +and Charity, and, whatever the wise ones may tell you, I cannot die." +She felt again the space and the silence and the snow, but now with no +alarm, only utter reassurance. And the cage swung up and up and there +were now only the stars and the wind around and about them.</p> + +<p>Then, in an instant of time, the cage, with a crash, was upon the +ground. Across her world had cut Lady Carloes' voice—"Oh yes, and +there's Lord Crewner—no, not in that row—the one behind—next that +woman with the silver thing in her hair—four from the end——"</p> + +<p>And Roddy Seddon's voice—"Yes, I see him. Who's he got with him?"</p> + +<p>Lady Carloes again: "I can't quite see—Miss Mendle as likely as +not.... You know, old Aggie Mendle's daughter...."</p> + +<p>Rachel felt in that moment that murder was assuredly no crime. Her hands +shook on her lap and one of those passions, that she had not known for +many months, caught her so that she could have torn Lardy Carloes' hair +from her head had the chairs been happily arranged.</p> + +<p>Fortunately the interruption had been accompanied by Beckmesser's +entrance: that other voice was, for the moment, still. Then, as Sachs +caught up Beckmesser's serenade, there came again:</p> + +<p>"Well, of course if you can't go that week-end I dare say she'll give +you another. Only I know she's settling her dates now."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but it's a bore havin' to fix up such a long way ahead and you +don't know what old stumers you mayn't be boxed up with——"</p> + +<p>Oh! It was abominable! She had been seeing a great deal of Roddy during +these last weeks, and ever since that visit to Uncle Richard she had +been conscious of an intimacy that she had certainly not resented.</p> + +<p>But any favour that he may have had with her was certainly now +forfeited. His voice was again superior to Beckmesser:</p> + +<p>"And so of course I said that if they <i>would</i> go to such shockin' rot I +wasn't goin' to waste my evenin's——"</p> + +<p>She pushed her chair back against his knees: "Beg pardon, Miss +Beaminster, afraid I jolted you——"</p> + +<p>"Oh! Keep quiet! Keep quiet!"</p> + +<p>Her whisper was so urgent, so packed with irritation that instantly +there was, in the box, the deepest of silences.</p> + +<p>She sat forward again, anger choking her: she could not recover any +illusion. She hated him, <i>hated</i> him! The crowd came on with a whirl. +Then there was that last moment when the old watchman cries to the +genial moon and the silvered roofs.</p> + +<p>Then the curtain fell.</p> + +<p>Without a word, her face white, her hands still trembling, she rose to +leave the box. She passed out into the passage and found that Roddy was +by her side.</p> + +<p>"I say, Miss Beaminster, I am most awfully sorry, most awfully. I hadn't +any idea, really, that I was kickin' up that row. I could have hit +myself."</p> + +<p>She walked down the passage and he followed her. She was superb, she was +indeed, with her head up, that neck, those hands, those flashing eyes. +He had never seen anyone so fine. She ought always to be enraged. That +instant decided him. She was the woman for a man to have for his own, +someone who could look like someone at the head of your table, someone +with the right blood in her veins, someone....</p> + +<p>"I could <i>beat</i> myself," he said again.</p> + +<p>"How dared you——" she broke out at last. They were, by good luck, +alone in the passage. "How could you? What do you come for if you care +nothing for music at all? If you can hear a voice like that and then +talk about your own silly little affairs.... And the selfishness of it! +Of course you think of nobody but yourself!"</p> + +<p>"Upon my word, Miss Beaminster!"</p> + +<p>"No, I've no patience with you. Go to your musical comedy if you like, +but leave music like this for people who can appreciate it!"</p> + +<p>Oh! she was superb! Entirely superb! She ought to be like this every day +of her life! To think that he should have the chance of winning such a +prize!</p> + +<p>Nevertheless she would not speak to him again and they went back to the +box. She would not speak to Lady Carloes nor to her uncle.</p> + +<p>Then as the loveliest music in all opera flooded the building her anger +began to melt.</p> + +<p>He had looked so charmingly repentant and, after all, the +<i>Meistersinger</i> was long for anyone who did not really care for +music—and then they all did talk. It was only in the gallery that one +found the proper reverence.</p> + +<p>Her anger cooled and then descended upon her the quintet, and she was +once again swept, in her cage, to the stars.</p> + +<p>Now she and all live things seemed to be opening their hearts together +to God—no shame now to speak of one's deepest and most sacred thoughts. +No fear now of God nor the Archangels nor all the long spaces of +Immortality. The cage had ascended to the highest of all the Heavens, +and there, for a moment, one might stand, worshipping, with bowed head.</p> + +<p>The quintet ceased and Rachel felt that she could never be angry with +anyone again. She wished to tell him so.</p> + +<p>At last, the revels were over, the "Prieslied" had won its praises, +Sachs had been acclaimed by his world, and they were all in the lobby, +waiting for carriages, talking, laughing, hurrying to the restaurants.</p> + +<p>Her face was lighted now with happiness. She touched his arm.</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean to be angry—like that. It was silly and rude of me. +Forgive me, please——"</p> + +<p>He turned, stuttering. "Forgive you!" He took her hand—"I ought to have +been shot—Yes, I'll never forgive myself. You—you——" And then he +could say no more, but suddenly, raising his hat, bolted away.</p> + +<p>As the door swung behind him Lady Carloes turned a perplexed face—</p> + +<p>"Why! he said good night! And now I shall never find——"</p> + +<p>But Lord John appeared just then and all was well.</p> + +<p>Going back, in the dark brougham, Rachel put her head on her uncle's +shoulder and, exhausted with excitement and happiness and something more +than either of them, cried her eyes away.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>LIZZIE AND BRETON</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"What of Adam cast out of Eden?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">(And O the Bower and the hour!)<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Lo! with care like a shadow shaken<br /></span> +<span class="i1">He kills the hard earth whence he was taken."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Dante Gabriel Rossetti</span>.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>To the ordinary observer Lizzie Rand was, during that hot July, as she +had ever been.</p> + +<p>The servants in 104 Portland Place could detect no change, but then they +did not search for one, having long regarded Miss Rand as a piece of +machinery, symbolized by that broad shining belt of hers, happily +calculated to fit, precisely, the duties for which it was required.</p> + +<p>But Miss Rand herself knew that there was a sharp, accurate, shrewd +piece of machinery named Miss Rand, and a breathing, emotional, +uncertain human being called Lizzie. There had always been those two, +but since the inadequacy of her mother and sister had been confronted +with the stern necessity of making two ends meet, Miss Rand had been in +constant demand and Lizzie had only, by her occasional obtrusion, made +life complicated and disturbing.</p> + +<p>Miss Rand had told herself that Lizzie was now almost an anachronism, +that the emotions in life that aroused her were bad cheap emotions, and +that this was an age that demanded increasingly of women a hard +practical efficiency without sentiments or enthusiasms.</p> + +<p>These forcible arguments had for a time kept Lizzie in a darkened +background; it was some years since Miss Rand had been disturbed. But +now in the warm weather of 1898 Lizzie had not only reappeared, but had +leapt, an insistent, shining presence, into urgent life. Miss Rand +faced her—what had created her? A little, the weather, the beauty of +those brazen days—A little, Rachel's coming out into the world, an +adventure that had stirred the whole house into a new and sympathetic +excitement—a little, these things. But chiefly, and no pretence nor +shame could conceal the fact, did this new Lizzie owe her creation to +the appearance of Francis Breton.</p> + +<p>Lizzie Rand had had, from her birth, a romantic heart; she had had also +a prosaic practical exterior, and a mind as hard and clear, if +necessary, as her own most lucent typewriter.</p> + +<p>The romantic heart had, throughout these years, been there, and now this +romantic, scandalous, youthful, engaging unfortunate had called it out.</p> + +<p>She was never so warmly attracted as by someone lacking, most obviously, +in those qualities with which she herself abounded. That people should +be foolish, impetuous, careless, haphazard commended them straight to +her keeping. "Poor dears" had their instant claim upon her. Her mother +and sister were "poor dears" and she had suffered from them now during +many years. Francis Breton was most assuredly a "poor dear!"</p> + +<p>Here the Duchess a little flung her shadow and confused the mind. +Although Lizzie had never seen that splendid figure she was, +nevertheless, acutely conscious of her. She was conscious of her through +her own imagination, through her mother, finally through Lady Adela.</p> + +<p>Her imagination painted the old lady, the room, the furniture fantastic, +strangely coloured, always with dramatic effect. Her picture was never +precisely defined, but in its very vagueness lay its terrors and its +omens.</p> + +<p>Miss Rand, the most practical and collected of young women, could never +pass the Duchess's door without a "creep."</p> + +<p>Through her mother the Duchess came to her as the head of society. +Society had never troubled Lizzie's visions of Life. She had, in her +years with the Beaminsters, seen it pass before her with all its comedy +and pathos, and the figures that had been concerned in that procession +had seemed to her exactly like the figures in any other procession +except that they were dressed for their especial "subject." But oddly +enough when, through her own observation, this life, seen accurately at +first hand, amounted only to any other life, seen through the eyes of +her mother, it achieved another size.</p> + +<p>She knew that her mother was a foolish woman, that her mother's opinions +on life were absurd and untrue, and yet that dim, great figure that the +Duchess assumed in her mother's eyes, in some odd way impressed her.</p> + +<p>Lastly, and most strikingly of all, came Lady Adela's conception to her. +Lady Adela was in terror of her mother; everyone knew it, friends, +relations, servants. Lizzie herself saw it in a thousand different +ways—saw it when Lady Adela spoke of her, saw it in the way that Lady +Adela addressed Dorchester when that grim woman was interviewed by her, +saw it when Lady Adela was suddenly summoned to that room upstairs.</p> + +<p>Lizzie, during the hours when she was writing from Lady Adela's +dictation or working with her, found her dry, stupid, sometimes kind, +never emotional. It was to her, therefore, the most convincing proof of +the Duchess's power, this emotion, this alarm drawn from so dry a heart.</p> + +<p>Now the influence that the Duchess had upon Lizzie was always a confused +one. Persuasion from this source followed lines of reasoning that were +false and led to some conclusions that were muddled and untrue.</p> + +<p>Through such minds as her mother's and Lady Adela's no clear truth could +come, and yet it was through such minds as these that the Duchess's +influence descended upon Lizzie.</p> + +<p>It descended now with regard to Francis Breton. It told Lizzie that +Breton had been proved by society to be a scoundrel, that he should be +no worthy man's friend, that he belonged to that world, the world of +shadows and past misadventures, that no proper soul might, with honesty, +investigate.</p> + +<p>This was what the Duchess told to Lizzie and perhaps by so doing +increased her sympathy with the sinner.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>It must not be supposed that Mrs. Rand had not, at first, been unsettled +by scruples.</p> + +<p>The fact that Breton was, in the eyes of the Beaminster family, a +ne'er-do-well who had brought disgrace upon the family name had, for a +time, distressed her, but the romantic hope of being herself the agent +of his restoration to his grandmother, and the delightful manners of the +scoundrel when he appeared, killed her alarm. Mrs. Rand's mind was a +dark misty place except when the candles of romance were lit; when +<i>they</i> flamed, blown by the wind though they might be, there was, around +the candlesticks at any rate, a real and even splendid blaze.</p> + +<p>One afternoon, towards the end of July, Mrs. Rand meeting Breton on +their doorstep was moved to ask him whether he would come in and spend +the evening with them, if he had nothing better to do. They had only a +simple little meal, and would he please not bother to dress? Breton said +that he would be delighted.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rand had been, that afternoon, to a romantic comedy in which ladies +and gentlemen with French accents had made love and escaped together and +been caught together and been married together. Mrs. Rand had gone quite +alone into the pit and had returned with tears in her eyes and affection +for all the world.</p> + +<p>So she had asked Mr. Breton to dinner.</p> + +<p>After a while, however, she was a little uncertain. Daisy was away in +the country with friends. How would Lizzie then like this unexpected +visitor? Mrs. Rand was, quite frankly, frightened of Lizzie and +complained of her a good many times a week to Daisy. Lizzie was for +ever interfering with innocent pleasures; Lizzie was mean and unromantic +and unimaginative; Lizzie was thoroughly tiresome.</p> + +<p>The fact that Lizzie worked incessantly for her mother and her sister +never occurred to Mrs. Rand at all.</p> + +<p>Lizzie objected to all innocent amusement and she would, in all +likelihood, object now.</p> + +<p>However, when Mrs. Rand with a fearful mind said, "Oh, Lizzie dear, I've +had such a delightful afternoon. I went to <i>Love and the King</i> and +it was too charming—you ought to go, really—and Mr. Breton's coming to +dinner to-night," Lizzie only smiled a little and asked whether there +was food enough. Lizzie was <i>so</i> strange....</p> + +<p>Alone in her bedroom Lizzie wondered at her excitement. She looked at +her trim, neat figure in the glass, with the hair so gravely brushed, +with her collar and her cuffs, with her compact businesslike air: what +had she to do with excitement because a young man was coming to dinner? +"It must be because I'm tired—this heat," she said to the mirror. And +the mirror replied, "You know that you are glad because your sister +Daisy is away."</p> + +<p>And to that she had no answer.</p> + +<p>When he arrived he was grave and seemed sad and tired, she thought. +Dinner was a serious affair and Mrs. Rand, who disliked people when they +refused to respond to her moods, wished, at first, that she had not +asked him, and felt sure that there was much truth in what people said +about his wickedness.</p> + +<p>Then, when dinner was nearly over, he brightened up and told stories and +was entertaining. Mrs. Rand noticed that he drank much claret, but this +was, after all, a compliment to her housekeeping. By the end of dinner +Mrs. Rand almost loved him and wished that Daisy had been here to +entertain him.</p> + +<p>Of course it must be dull for a man with only a plain cut-and-dried girl +like Lizzie for company.</p> + +<p>Lizzie, meanwhile, knew that he was waiting for an opportunity of +speech. She had read an appeal in his eyes when he had first entered the +room, and now she sat there, curiously, ironically amused at her own +agitation. "Lizzie Rand," she said to herself, "you're only, after all, +the kind of fool that you despise other people for being. What are you +after in this <i>galère</i>?"</p> + +<p>Nevertheless even now, in retrospect, how arid and sterile seemed all +those other active useful days. One moment's little grain of sentiment +and a life's hard work goes for nothing in comparison.</p> + +<p>After dinner, when the lamp burnt brightly and the furniture seemed to +be less anxious to fill every possible space and the windows were opened +into the square with its stars and grey shadows, the room seemed, of a +sudden, comfortable, and Mrs. Rand, sitting in an arm-chair, with a +novel on her lap and spectacles on her nose, was almost cosy. She had +left, before going to her matinee, <i>Just a Heroine</i> at one of its most +thrilling crises, and Lizzie knew that the talk with Breton depended for +its very existence on the relative strength of the play and the novel. +If <i>Love and the King</i> were the more powerful, then would Mrs. Rand make +a discursive third. But no, for a moment there was a pause, then, +indecisively, Mrs. Rand took up her book. For a while she talked to +Breton over its pages, then the light of excitement stole into her eyes, +her soul was netted by the snarer, Breton was forgotten as though he had +never been.</p> + +<p>Their chairs were by the open window and a very little breeze came and +played around them. In the square there was that sense of some imminent +occurrence, a breathless suggestion of suspense, that a hot evening +sometimes carries with it. The stars blazed in a purple sky and a moon +was full rounded, a plate of gold; beneath such splendour the square was +cool and dim.</p> + +<p>"You mustn't think mother rude," Lizzie said with a little smile. "If +she once gets deep into a book nothing can tear her from it."</p> + +<p>He said something, but she could see that he was not thinking of Mrs. +Rand. It was always in the evening, she thought, when uncertain colours +and shadows filled the air, that he looked his best. He touched, now, as +he had touched on that day of their first meeting, a note of something +fine and strange—someone, very young and perhaps very foolish and +impetuous, but someone armoured in courage and set apart for some great +purpose.</p> + +<p>He sat back in his chair, flinging, every now and again, little restless +glances beyond the window, pulling sometimes at his beard, answering her +absent-mindedly. Then suddenly he began, fiercely, looking away from +her—</p> + +<p>"Miss Rand, I've got an apology to make to you——"</p> + +<p>His voice was so low that she could only catch the words by leaning +forward—"To me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—I've been wanting to speak all these weeks. It seemed right enough +before, but since I've known you I've felt ashamed of it—as though I'd +done something wrong."</p> + +<p>"What is it, Mr. Breton?" Her clear grave eyes encouraged him.</p> + +<p>"Why—I came to this house, took my rooms, simply because I knew that +you were here——"</p> + +<p>"That I was here?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I was looking about in this part of the world for rooms. I wanted +to be—near Portland Place, you know. I came here and old Mrs. Tweed +talked a lot and then, after a time, I said something—about my +grandmother. And then she told me that someone who lived here did +secretarial work for my aunt——"</p> + +<p>He stopped abruptly.</p> + +<p>"Well?" said Lizzie, laughing. "All this is not very terrible."</p> + +<p>"Then, you see, I determined to stay. I was full of absurd ideas just +at the time, thought that I was going to take some great revenge—I was +quite melodramatic. And so I thought that I'd use you, get to know you +and then, through you—do something or another."</p> + +<p>Lizzie eyed him with merriment. "Upon my word, what were you going to +make me do? Carry bombs into your aunt's bedroom or set fire to the +Portland Place house? Tell me, I should like to know——"</p> + +<p>"Ah," he said, "it's all very well for you to laugh. It's very kind of +you to take it that way, but lots of women wouldn't have liked it. +They'd have thought it another of the things I'm always accused of +doing, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"<i>No</i>," said Lizzie gravely, "it was all perfectly natural. I +understand. I should have done just the same kind of thing, I expect, if +I'd been in your place."</p> + +<p>The fierceness of his voice showed her that he had been brooding for +weeks, and that life was, just now, harder than he could endure.</p> + +<p>"You can trust me a great deal farther than that, Mr. Breton," she said.</p> + +<p>"The other night," he began, "you said that I might talk to you. I've +been pretty lonely lately—and it would help me if——"</p> + +<p>"Anything you like," she assured him.</p> + +<p>"Besides, there's more than that," he went on. "You've heard—of course +you must have heard all kinds of things against me. You're in the +enemy's camp and I don't suppose they measure their words. I don't know +why you've been so decent to me as you have after what you must have +heard——"</p> + +<p>"Don't worry your head about that," she said. "We all have our enemies."</p> + +<p>"No, but now that we're friends I'd like you to know my side of it all. +I don't want to make myself out a hero or blacken all the other people, +but there <i>is</i> something to be said for me—there <i>is</i>—there <i>is</i>——"</p> + +<p>He muttered these last words with the deepest intensity. He seemed to +fling them through the window into the square, as though he were +standing out there, on his defence, before all those listening lighted +windows.</p> + +<p>"I've been a fool—a thousand times. I've done silly things often and +once or twice bad, rotten things, but all these others—these virtuous +people who are so ready to judge me, have they been any better?"</p> + +<p>"My father was a scoundrel, although I loved him and would love him now +if he came back—but he was just as bad as they make 'em and there's no +use in denying it. He'd tell you so himself if he were here. He broke my +poor mother's heart and killed her. I don't remember her—I was no age +at all when she died—but I've got an old picture of her, kept it always +with me; she must have been rather like my cousin Rachel, who was here +the other day——"</p> + +<p><i>Lizzie</i> watched his face. There had left him now all that hint of +insincerity, of exaggeration that she had noticed when he had talked +before. She knew that he was telling her now absolutely the truth as he +saw it.</p> + +<p>"She died and after that I was taken about Europe with my father. We +lived in almost every capital in Europe—Berlin, Paris, Rome, Vienna, +everywhere. Sometimes we were rich, sometimes poor. Sometimes we knew +the very best people, sometimes the very worst. Sometimes I'd go to +school for a little, then I'd suddenly be taken away. My father was +splendid to me then; the best-looking man you ever saw, tall, broad, +carried himself magnificently—the finest man in Europe. I only knew, +bit by bit, the things that he used to do. It was cards most of the +time, and he taught me to play, of course, as he taught me to do +everything else.</p> + +<p>"When I was eighteen my eyes were opened—I tried to leave him—But I +loved him and I verily believe that I was the only human being in the +world that he cared for. Anyway, he died of fever and general +dissipation when I had just come of age, and I came home to England +with a little money and great hopes of putting myself right with the +world."</p> + +<p>As he had talked to her he had gathered confidence; her silence was, in +some way to him, reassuring and comforting. Some people have the gift of +listening without words so warmly, with such eloquence that they +reassure and console as no speech could ever do. This was Lizzie's gift, +and Breton, depending, more than most human beings, upon the protection +of his fellows, gathered courage.</p> + +<p>"My father had always taught me to hate my grandmother. He painted her +to me as I have since found her—remorseless, eaten up with pride, +cruel. I came home to England, meaning to lead a new life, to be +decent—as I'd always wanted to be.</p> + +<p>"Well, they wouldn't have me, not one of them. They pretended to at +first; and my Uncle John at least was sincere, I think, and was kind for +a time, but was afraid of my grandmother as they all were. +Christopher—you know him of course—was a real friend to me. He'd stood +up for my father before and he stood up for me now. But what was the +use? I was wild when I saw that my grandmother was against me and was +going to do her best to ruin me. I just didn't care then—what was the +good of it all? Other people encouraged me. The set in London that hated +my people would have done something with me, but I wouldn't be held by +anyone.</p> + +<p>"I'm not excusing myself," he said quietly, looking away from the window +and suddenly taking his judgment from her eyes.</p> + +<p>"I know you're not," she said, smiling back to him.</p> + +<p>"Cards finished me. I'd always loved gambling—I love it still—my +father had given me a good education in it. There were plenty of fellows +in town to take one on and—Oh! it's all such an old story now, not +worth digging up. But there was a house and a table and a young fool who +lost all he possessed and—well, did for himself. It had all been +square as far as I was concerned, but somebody had to be a scapegoat and +two or three of us were named. It was hushed up for the sake of the +young fellow's people, but everyone knew. Of course they all said, as +far as I was concerned, 'Like father like son,' and I think I minded +that more than anything——"</p> + +<p>"Oh! I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Lizzie said.</p> + +<p>"I give you my word of honour that it had all been straight as far as I +was concerned—gambling just as anyone might. That's what made me so +mad, to think of the rest of them—all so virtuous and good—and then +going off to Monte Carlo and losing or winning their little bit—just as +I'd done.</p> + +<p>"I tried to brazen it out for a bit, but it was no good. Christopher +still stuck by me—otherwise it was—well, the Under Ten, you +know——"</p> + +<p>"The Under Ten?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—all the men and women who've done something—once—done one of the +things that you mustn't do. It mayn't have been very bad, not half so +bad as the things—the cruel, mean things—that most people do every day +of their lives, but, once it's there, you're down, you're under. There's +a regular colony of them here in London; their life's amusing. There +they are, hanging on here, keeping up some pretence of gaiety, some kind +of decency, waiting, hoping that the day will come when they'll be taken +back again, when everything will be forgotten. They pretend, bravely +enough, not to mind their snubs, not to notice the kind people, once +their friends, who cut them now. Every now and again they make a spring +like fish to the top of the water, see the sun, hope that the light and +air are to be theirs again, after all—and then back they are pushed, +down into the dark, their element now, they are told. Oh! there's comedy +there, Miss Rand, if you care to look for it."</p> + +<p>She said nothing; the fierce bitterness in his voice had made him seem +older suddenly, as though, in this portion of his journey, be had spent +many, many years.</p> + +<p>"I must cut it short—you'll have had enough of this. I couldn't stand +it. I left London and went abroad. After that, what didn't I do? I was +everywhere, I did everything. Sometimes I was straight, sometimes I +wasn't. I was always bitter, wild with fury when I thought of that old +woman—of her complacency, sitting there and striking down all the poor +devils that had been less fortunate than she. All those years abroad I +nourished that anger and, at last, when I thought that I'd been abroad +long enough, that people would have forgotten, perhaps, and forgiven, I +came back. I came back to be revenged on my grandmother and to +re-establish myself. I'd got some money, enough for a little annuity, and +I was careful now—I wasn't going to make any mistakes this time." He +laughed bitterly. "One doesn't learn much with age. What a fool I was! +I've got the reputation I had before, whether I'm good or bad. It would +all be hopeless—utterly hopeless—if it weren't for one thing——"</p> + +<p>She looked up, and as she glanced at him, could feel the furious beating +of her heart.</p> + +<p>"I'd go back at once—I've almost gone back already—not abroad, that +never again for long—but back to my friends, the unfortunates—" He +laughed. "They're anxious to have me. They'll welcome me. I can have my +cards and the rest then, with no one to object or to lecture—and I'll +be done for quite nicely, completely done for."</p> + +<p>Then he pulled himself together, squared his shoulders. "But one thing +keeps me," he said. "Something's happened in the last few weeks—I've +met somebody——"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said almost in a whisper.</p> + +<p>"Somebody who's made it worth while for me to fight on a bit." She could +feel his agitation: his voice, although he tried very hard to control +it, was shaking. Then he laughed, raised his voice and caught and held +her eyes with his.</p> + +<p>"But there, Miss Rand. I've talked a fearful lot, only I wanted to tell +you—I had to tell you. And now—if you feel—that you'd rather not +know me, you've only got to say so."</p> + +<p>She laughed a little unsteadily.</p> + +<p>"Thank you for taking me into your confidence. You shall never regret +it. I'm glad you're going to hold on, and, after all, we're all doing +that more or less."</p> + +<p>"It's done me a world of good talking like this. It's what I've been +wanting for months."</p> + +<p>She quieted her emotion. Looking out into the stars she knew that she +believed every word that he had said. She thought that she valued Truth +above every other quality; the directness that there was in Truth; its +honesty and clarity. He might not always be honest with her, but she +would never forget that he had, on this night, at least, spoken no +falsehood.</p> + +<p>Life—her work, her surroundings, Portland Place, her home—this was +full of falsehood and deceit and muddle.</p> + +<p>Here, this evening, at last, was honesty.</p> + +<p>They said no more, but sat there silently and listened to the echo of +dance music from some house.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rand, whom their conversation had lured into oblivion of them, was +roused now by their silence.</p> + +<p>She looked up. "It's quite splendid," she said, "you must read it, +Lizzie. The part about the Riviera is lovely." Then, slowly remembering, +"Really, Mr. Breton, I'm afraid you must consider me very rude."</p> + +<p>He came towards her, assuring her that his evening had been delightful.</p> + +<p>Lizzie was happy, happier than she could ever remember to have been +before. She felt her cheeks burn. She leant out of the window to cool +them. She flung back, over her shoulder:</p> + +<p>"By the way, Mr. Breton—a piece of gossip. Your cousin is to marry Sir +Roderick Seddon!"</p> + +<p>She could not see him. He said nothing. Mrs. Rand said:</p> + +<p>"Really, Lizzie! How interesting! How long's that been announced?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! it isn't announced. I don't believe that he's even asked her, but +all the house knows it. It's settled. I believe she likes him immensely +and, of course, the Duchess is devoted to him."</p> + +<p>Anything would do to talk about. What did it matter? Only that she +should keep on talking so that they should not see how happy she +was—how happy!</p> + +<p>He said good night, rather sharply; his voice was constrained as though +he too were keeping in his emotion.</p> + +<p>After he had gone Mrs. Rand said, "I don't like him, my dear. I can't +help it—you may laugh at me—but my impressions are always right. He +hardly spoke to me all the evening."</p> + +<p>"Why, mother, you were reading. How could he?"</p> + +<p>"That's all very well, but I don't like him. And I believe he's in love +with his cousin. He went quite white when you spoke about the +engagement."</p> + +<p>"Mother—how absurd you are. He's only seen her once——"</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear, that's a book you ought to read; really, I haven't +enjoyed anything so much for weeks. I simply——"</p> + +<p>Up in her bedroom Lizzie flung wide her window and laughed at the golden +moon. Then she lay, for hours, staring at the pale light that it flung +upon her ceiling.</p> + +<p>Oh! what a fool she was! But she was happy, happy, happy. And he needed +someone to look after him—he did, indeed!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>HER GRACE'S DAY</h3> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>The Duchess had suffered, during the last five or six years, from +sleeplessness, and throughout these hot days and nights of June and July +sleep almost deserted her. Grimly she gave it no quarter, allowing to no +one that she was sleeping badly, pretending even to Christopher that all +was well.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless those long dark hours began to tell upon her. She had known +many nights sleepless through pain, certain nights sleepless through +anxiety, but they, terrible though they had been, had not worn so stern +a look as these long black spaces of time when all rest and comfort +seemed to be drawn from her by some mysterious hand.</p> + +<p>To herself now she admitted that she dreaded that moment when Dorchester +left her; she began to do what she had never in her life done before, to +fall asleep during the daytime. Small mercy to anyone who might attract +any attention to those little naps.</p> + +<p>She fell asleep often towards six or seven and, therefore, without any +comment, Dorchester, seeing her fatigue, left her to sleep until late in +the morning. She had not for many years left her room before midday, but +she had been awake with her correspondence and the papers by half-past +seven at the latest. Now it was often eleven before she awoke.</p> + +<p>She found that she did not awake with the energy and freshness that she +had always known before. About her there always hovered a great cloud of +fatigue—something not quite present, but threatening at any moment to +descend.</p> + +<p>On a certain morning late in July she awoke after two or three hours' +restless sleep. As she woke she was conscious that those hours had not +removed from her that threatening cloud: she heard a clock strike +eleven. Dorchester was drawing back the curtains and from behind the +blinds there leapt upon her a blazing, torrid day.</p> + +<p>Her bedroom carried on the touch of fantasy that her other room had +shown; she was lying in a red lacquer Japanese bed that mounted up +behind her like a throne. Her wall-paper was an embossed dull gold and +the chairs were carved Indian, of black ebony.</p> + +<p>Lying in bed she appeared very old and ugly; the sharp nose was +exceedingly prominent and her white hair scattered about the pillow gave +her face the colour of dried parchment.</p> + +<p>Dorchester brought her her chocolate and her letters and <i>The Times</i> and +the <i>Morning Post</i>.</p> + +<p>"Another terribly hot day, your Grace."</p> + +<p>"Yes—I suppose so." As she took her letters she felt, for the first +time in her life, that it would perhaps be better to lie in bed for the +rest of her life and conduct the world from there.</p> + +<p>She put the letters down and stared at the day—</p> + +<p>"Draw the curtains again, Dorchester, and kindly ask Lady Adela if she +will be so good as to come and see me in a quarter of an hour's time."</p> + +<p>When Dorchester had gone she lay back and closed her eyes and dozed +again, whilst the chocolate grew cold and the births and deaths and +marriages grew aged and stale. She did not care, she did not want to see +her daughter ... she did not want to see anyone, nor was there anything +now in the world worth her energy or trouble. Her body, being now at +ease, was called back to days, brighter days, days filled with thrilling +events and thrilling people, days when the world was a world and not a +dried-up cinder. Those were men ... those were women ... and then, +suddenly, she was conscious first that her daughter was speaking and +then that her daughter was a tiresome fool.</p> + +<p>She sat up a little and her nightdress fell back showing a neck bony, +crinkled and yellow.</p> + +<p>"I said a quarter of an hour," she snapped.</p> + +<p>"It is a quarter of an hour, mother," said Lady Adela.</p> + +<p>Lady Adela hated and dreaded these morning interviews. In the first +place she disliked the decorations of her mother's bedroom, thought them +almost indecent, and could never be comfortable in such surroundings. +She was also aware, by long experience, that her mother was always at +her worst at this hour in the morning and many were the storms of temper +that that absurd bed and those unpleasant black chairs had witnessed. +Thirdly she knew that she herself looked her worst and was her weakest +amongst these eccentricities and shadowed by this dim light.</p> + +<p>She waited now whilst her mother fumbled her letters.</p> + +<p>"There's your chocolate, mother," she said at last. "It'll be cold."</p> + +<p>The Duchess was looking at her letters, but was absorbing only a little +of their contents. She was summoning all her will to her aid; she wanted +to order the blind to be pulled down, to command her daughter to avoid +her presence for at least a week, to scatter her correspondence to the +four corners of the earth, and to see none of it again; at the same time +she was driving into her brain the fact that before Adela, of all people +in the world, she must be alert and wise and wonderful; Adela, the +ugliest and most foolish of living women, must see no weakness.</p> + +<p>"Shall I read your letters to you, mother?"</p> + +<p>She did not answer; slowly, steadily at last, her will was flooding her +brain. She could feel the warmth and the colour and the strength of it +pervading again her body. The day did not now appear of so appalling a +heat and the weight of the things to be done was less heavy upon her.</p> + +<p>Lady Adela, meanwhile, watching her mother was struck once again by that +chill dismay that had alarmed her first on that May evening, after the +visit to the picture gallery. In that half-light her mother did seem +very, very old and very, very feeble. Lady Adela had a dreadful +temptation to say in a brusque sharp voice, "What do you let your +chocolate get cold like that for? Why don't you get someone to read your +letters sensibly to you instead of groping through them like that?" and +at the mere horror of such a thought a shudder shook her and her heart +began wildly to beat. Let once such words as those cross her lips and an +edifice, a wonderful, towering temple raised by submissions and subduals +and self-denials, would tumble to the ground.</p> + +<p>For some moments the struggle in Lady Adela's breast was sharp, then by +a tense dominion of her will she produced once again for herself the +Ceremonial, the Terror, the agitated, humble Submission.</p> + +<p>"Julia Massiter," the Duchess said, "has asked Rachel for the last +week-end in July—She'll go of course——"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Lady Adela.</p> + +<p>"Roddy Seddon is going——"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Roddy is going to marry Rachel. He's coming to see me this afternoon."</p> + +<p>Lady Adela was silent.</p> + +<p>"A very suitable business. I'd intended it for a long time." Then, after +a pause—</p> + +<p>"You may tell Dorchester I will dress now."</p> + +<p>Lady Adela, conscious, as she left the room, of the relief of her +dismissal, joyfully yielded that relief as witness—</p> + +<p>The Terror was still there, and she was glad.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Very different, however, at three in the afternoon. Now she sat in her +high black chair waiting for Roddy Seddon. Very difficult now to imagine +that early discourage of the morning. Magnificent now with her black +dress and flashing eyes and white hair, waiting for Roddy Seddon.</p> + +<p>This that she had long planned was at length to come to pass. Roddy +Seddon was to be united to the Beaminster family, never again to be +separated from it.</p> + +<p>Of Rachel she thought not at all. She had never liked Rachel; indeed it +was a more positive feeling than that. Alone of all the family was +Rachel still in rebellion; even the Duke, although he was so often +abroad or in the country (he hated London), was submissive enough when +he was with them. But Rachel the old woman knew that she had not +touched.</p> + +<p>Frightened—yes. The girl hated that evening half-hour and would give a +great deal to avoid it, but the terror that she showed did not bring her +any closer to her grandmother's power; she stood outside and away.</p> + +<p>The Duchess had attempted to influence the girl's brain, to catch some +trait, some preference, some dislike, that she could hold and use.</p> + +<p>Still Rachel's soul was beyond her grasp, beyond even her guessing at. +But she knew Roddy Seddon—she knew Roddy Seddon as no one knew him. And +Roddy Seddon knew her.</p> + +<p>Even when he was a boy he had known her as no one else knew her. He had +seen through all her embroideries and disguises, had known where she was +theatrical and why she was so, had discovered her plots and prides, her +defeats and victories—and together they two, Pagan to the very bone of +them, had laughed at a credulous, superstitious world.</p> + +<p>The London that knew Roddy Seddon thought him a country bumpkin with +dissipated tastes and an amiable heart. But she knew him better than +that. He was not clever—no. He was amazingly innocent of books, he had +no intellectual attainments whatever—yet had he received any kind of +education, she knew that he might have had one of the finest brains in +the country.</p> + +<p>He had preferred dogs and horses and the simple enjoyments of his +sensations.</p> + +<p>Bowing to the outward rules and laws of the modern world he was less +modern than anyone she had ever known.</p> + +<p>Pagan—root and branch Pagan. In his simplicities, in his complexities, +in his moralities and immoralities, in his kindnesses and +cruelties—Pagan.</p> + +<p>When they were together it was astonishing the number of trappings that +they were able to discard. They were Pagan together.</p> + +<p>But Rachel? Rachel?</p> + +<p>Well, Rachel did not matter. It would be a rather good sight to see +Rachel suffer, to watch her proud spirit up against something that she +could not understand.</p> + +<p>And meanwhile the Beaminster family was strengthened by a great addition +and the campaign against this new generation, that refused to be led, +that wished to lead, that thought itself so very, very brilliant, should +go victoriously forward....</p> + +<p>"Sir Roderick Seddon, your Grace."</p> + +<p>As she looked at the healthy and red-faced Roddy sitting opposite to +her, for an instant, some sharp warning, some foreordained consciousness +of trouble to come, bade her pause. She knew that a word from her, now, +would be enough to prevent the match. He would not prosecute it were she +against it. After all, ought Roddy to marry anybody? Could a girl, as +ignorant of the world as Rachel, put up any fight against Roddy's simple +complexities?</p> + +<p>What, after all, did Roddy think of the girl? Did he imagine that he was +in love with her? Did he know her, understand her?</p> + +<p>Then, looking at him, the affection that she had for him—the only +affection that she had for anyone in the world—swept over her. This +marriage would bind him to her, would give her another ally before the +world—yes, it should go on.</p> + +<p>She smiled at him.</p> + +<p>"Well, Roddy, have you no news for me, now?"</p> + +<p>He had been silent, gazing before him, his brows puckered.</p> + +<p>Now he smiled back at her.</p> + +<p>"Well, there's been the usual doin's the last week or two. I've been +dancin' every night till I'm tired. 'Bout time for the country agen——"</p> + +<p>"Have you been down to Seddon at all?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Two nights last week—all dried up—Place wants me a bit oftener +down there——"</p> + +<p>"What's this I hear about young Olive Ormond marrying Besset Crewe's +daughter?"</p> + +<p>"So they say—can't imagine it myself. The girl's about eighty-four and +a half and he's the most awful kid. Saw them at the opera the other +night——"</p> + +<p>"What about Scotland this summer, Roddy? Are you going?"</p> + +<p>"Don't think so. Depends——"</p> + +<p>Then there was silence. The little conversation had been as stiff as it +was possible a conversation could be. The China dragons must have +wondered—never before so constrained a dialogue between these two!</p> + +<p>Now another pause, then suddenly Roddy, his hands clutching one another, +his face redder than ever—</p> + +<p>"I want—I wonder—dash it—have I your leave to ask your granddaughter +to marry me?"</p> + +<p>She laughed.</p> + +<p>"Really, my dear Roddy, you've been very long about it—coming out with +it, I mean. Didn't you know and didn't I know that that's what you came +for to-day?"</p> + +<p>"Well then, may I?"</p> + +<p>She paused and watched his anxiety. Between both of them there hung, +now, the recollection of so many things—conversations and deeds and +thoughts known to both of them, so many, many things that no others in +all the world could know. She waited for his eyes, caught them and held +them.</p> + +<p>"Are you in love with her?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—that is—she's splendid——"</p> + +<p>"You haven't known her very long and you're a little impulsive, ain't +you, Roddy, about these things?"</p> + +<p>"No—I don't know her now. But we've seen a lot of one another these +last months—a fearful lot. She's—oh! hang it! I never can say +things—but she's a brick."</p> + +<p>"Do you think she'll accept you?"</p> + +<p>"How can any feller tell? I think she likes me—she's odd——"</p> + +<p>"Yes—she is—very. She's a mixture—she's very young—and she won't +understand you."</p> + +<p>His eyes were suddenly troubled and, as she saw that trouble, she was +alarmed. He really <i>did</i> care....</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know—I don't understand myself. I'm wild sometimes—I wish I +weren't——"</p> + +<p>"Marriage is going to make you a model character, Roddy. Of course I'm +glad—but it won't be easy, you know. And she won't be easy."</p> + +<p>"I want her though. I've never thought of marriage before. I do want +her."</p> + +<p>"My dear Roddy, you speak as though she were a sheep or a dog. It's only +her first season. Don't you think you'd better wait a little?"</p> + +<p>"No. I want her now."</p> + +<p>"Well, you're definite enough—" She paused and then, in a voice that +had, in spite of her, real emotion, "You have my consent. You've got +<i>my</i> blessing."</p> + +<p>He rose and came clumsily towards her.</p> + +<p>"You don't know—I'm no use at words, but I'm dam' grateful—Rippin' of +you!"</p> + +<p>For a second he touched her dried, withered hand—how cold it was! and +in this hot weather, too.</p> + +<p>"You'll ask her at Julia Massiter's next week?"</p> + +<p>"Expect so—I say you are——"</p> + +<p>Then he sat down again. The room was relieved of an immense burden; once +more they were at ease together.</p> + +<p>"The other night—" he said, bending forward and chuckling ever so +little.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Lady Carloes, Agnes Lady Farnet, and old Mrs. Brunning were coming to +play bridge with her. The ceremonial was ever the same! They arrived at +half-past nine and at half-past eleven supper for four was served in the +Duchess's little green room, behind her bedroom (a little room like a +box with a green wall-paper, a card-table and silver candlesticks). They +played, sometimes, until three or four o'clock in the morning; the +Duchess played an exceedingly good game and Mrs. Brunning (a bony little +woman like a plucked chicken) was the best bridge player in London. The +other two were moderate, but made mistakes which allowed the Duchess the +free use of her most caustic wit and satire.</p> + +<p>Lord John came just before dinner as he always did for a few minutes +every evening. He stood there, fat and smiling and amiable and, as +always, a little nervous.</p> + +<p>"Well, John?"</p> + +<p>She liked John the best of her children, although he was, of course, the +most fearful fool, but she liked his big broad face and he was always +clean and healthy; moreover, she could use him more easily than any of +them.</p> + +<p>"Bridge to-night, mother, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Not so hot this evening. Just give me that book. Turn the lamp up +a little—no—not that one. The de Goncourt book. Yes. Thank you."</p> + +<p>"Anything I can get for you, mother? Anyone I can send to you?"</p> + +<p>He was thinking, as he smiled down at her, "She's old to-night—old and +tired. This hot weather...."</p> + +<p>She looked up at him before she settled herself—</p> + +<p>"Roddy Seddon came this afternoon——"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I know."</p> + +<p>Suddenly his heart began to beat. He had known, during all these last +weeks, of what the common talk had been. He knew, too, what his +conscience had told him, and he knew, too, how perpetually he had +silenced that same conscience.</p> + +<p>"He asked me whether he had my permission to propose to Rachel——"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Of course I gave it him. I thought it most suitable in every way."</p> + +<p>Now was Lord John's moment. He knew, even as it descended upon him, what +was the right to do. He must protest—Roddy Seddon was not the right man +to marry Rachel, Rachel who was to him more than anyone in the world—</p> + +<p>He must protest—</p> + +<p>And then with that impulse went the old warning that because his mother +seemed to him older and feebler to-night than he had ever known her, +therefore if he spoke now, it would involve far more than the immediate +dispute. There was a sudden impulse in him to risk discomfort, to risk a +scene, to break, perhaps, in the new assertion of his authority, all the +old domination, to smash a tradition to pieces.</p> + +<p>He glanced at his mother. She met his eyes. He knew that she was daring +him to speak. After all to-morrow would be a better time—she was tired +now—he would speak then. His eyes fell, and after a pause and a word +about some indifferent matter, he said good night and went.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>Once, in some early hour of the morning when the candles were burning +low, the thought of Rachel came to her.</p> + +<p>Even as she noticed that her hand shone magnificently with hearts she +was conscious that the girl stood opposite to her, there against the +green wall, straight and fierce, all black and white, looking at her.</p> + +<p>Christopher? John?...</p> + +<p>For a second her brain was clouded. Might she not have attempted some +relationship with the girl? Given her some counsel and a little +kindness? She must have been lonely there in that great house without a +friend. She was going now into a very perilous business.</p> + +<p>She pushed the weakness from her. Her eyes were again upon the cards.</p> + +<p>"Hearts," she said. The odd trick this game and it was her rubber. The +dying flame rose in the silver sconces and the four old heads bobbed, +wildly, fantastically, upon the wall.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>DEFIANCE OF THE TIGER—I</h3> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Rachel sat in the train with Aunt Adela and Uncle John: they were on +their way to Trunton St. Perth, Lord Massiter's country house. It was a +July day softened with cool airs and watered colours; trees and fields +were mingled with sky and cloud; through the counties there was the echo +of running streams, only against an earth fading into sky and a sky +bending and embracing earth, sharp, with hard edges, the walls and +towers that man had piled together showed their outlines cut as with a +sword.</p> + +<p>Over all the country in the pale blue of the afternoon sky a great moon +was burning and the corn ran in fine abundance to the summit of the +hills.</p> + +<p>Rachel, as the train plunged with her into the heart of Sussex, was +gazing happily through the window, dreaming, almost dozing, feeling in +every part of her a warm and grateful content. Opposite to her Aunt +Adela, gaunt and with the expression that she always wore in trains as +of one whose person and property were in danger, at any instant, of +total destruction, read a life of a recently deceased general whose +widow she knew. Uncle John, with three illustrated papers, was +interested in photographs of people with one leg in the air and their +mouths wide open; every now and again he would say (to nobody in +particular), "There's old Reggie Cutler with that foreign woman—<i>you</i> +know"—or "Fancy Shorty Monmouth being at Cowes after all this year—you +know we heard——"</p> + +<p>Rachel had been having a wonderful time—that was the great fact that +ran, up and down, through her dozing thoughts. Yes, a wonderful time. It +was surely, now, a century ago, that strange period when she had +dreaded, so terribly, her plunge.</p> + +<p>That day, after her visit to the Bond Street gallery, when it had all +seemed simply more than she could possibly encounter, those talks with +May Eversley (who, by the way, had just announced herself as engaged to +a middle-aged baronet) when the world had frowned down from a vast, +incredible height upon a miserably terrified midget. Why! the absurdity +of it! It had all been as easy, simply as easy as though she had been +plunged in the very heart of it all her life.</p> + +<p>Followed there swiftly upon that the knowledge that Roddy Seddon was to +be, for this same week-end, at Lady Massiter's. Rachel did not pretend +that, ever since that <i>Meistersinger</i> night at the opera she had not +known of his attentions to her—impossible to avoid them had she wished, +impossible to pretend ignorance of the meaning that his inarticulate +sentences had, of late, conveyed, impossible to mistake the laughing +hints and suggestions of May and the others.</p> + +<p>She did not know what answer she would give did he ask her to marry him. +At that concrete suggestion her doze left her and, sitting up, staring +out at the wonderful day into whose heart muffled lights were now +creeping, she asked herself what, indeed, was her real thought of him.</p> + +<p>He was to her as were Uncle John and Dr. Christopher—safe, kind, +simple. He appealed to everything in her that longed for life to be +clear, comfortable, without danger. She loved his happiness in all +out-of-door things—horses and dogs and fields and his little place in +Sussex. Ever since that visit to Uncle Richard's fans she had suspected +him of other appreciations and enthusiasms, perhaps she might in time +encourage those hidden things in him.</p> + +<p>Above all did she find him true, straight, honest. Lies, little +mannerisms, disguises, these were not in him, he was as clear to her as +a mirror, she would trust him beyond anyone she knew.</p> + +<p>He did not touch in any part of him that other secret, wild, unreal +life of hers, and indeed that was, in him, the most reassuring thing of +all.</p> + +<p>The Rachel who was in rebellion, to whom everything of her London life, +everything Beaminster, was hateful, whose sudden memories and instincts, +whose swift alarms and fore-warnings were so shattering to every +clinging security that life might offer—this Rachel knew nothing of +Roddy Seddon.</p> + +<p>He was there to take her away from that, to drive it all into darkness, +to reassure her against its return, and marriage with him would mean +release, security, best of all freedom from her grandmother who knew, so +well, that life in her and loved to play with that knowledge. Her colour +rose and her eyes shone as she thought of what this so early escape from +the Portland Place house would mean to her. Already, in her first +season, to be free of it all—to be free of humbug and deception—Oh! +for that would she not surrender everything in the world?</p> + +<p>Roddy, as she pictured him, with his clean life, his love of nature, his +kindliness, seemed, just then, the safest refuge that would ever be +offered to her.</p> + +<p>And at that, without reason, she saw before her her cousin Francis +Breton. Several times she had met him since that first occasion at +Lizzie Rand's. Once again at Lizzie's and twice in Regent's Park when +she had been walking with May.</p> + +<p>Yes—that was all. Thinking of it now the meetings appeared to her +almost infinite. Between each actual encounter intimacy seemed to leap +in its progress, and although, on at least two of them, he had only +walked with her for the shortest period, yet, always with them, she was +conscious of the number of things that, between them, did not need to be +said—knowledge that they shared.</p> + +<p>In all this there was, with her, a confusion of motives and sensations +that, at present, refused to be disentangled. For one thing there was, +in all of this, a furtiveness, a secrecy, that she loathed. Against +that was the persuasion that it would be the finest thing in the world +for her to bring him back into the Beaminster fold, not, of course, that +he should remain there (he was far too strong and adventurous for that), +but that, accepted there, he could use it as a springing-off board for +success and fortune. Let her once, as the situation now was, say a word +to Uncle John or the others, and that of course was the end....</p> + +<p>She knew, quite definitely, that now she wished that she had never met +him.</p> + +<p>He had been, during these weeks, the only influence that had drawn that +other Rachel to the light. It was always that other Rachel that met +him—someone alarming, rebellious, conscious of unhappiness, and +apprehensive, above everything, that in some hidden manner she was being +untrue to her real self.</p> + +<p>At such moments it was as though she had blinded some force within her, +muffled it, stifled it, because her way through the world was easier +with it so muffled, so stifled.</p> + +<p>At some future time, what if there should leap out upon her that muffled +figure, bursting its bonds, refusing any longer to be silenced, +proclaiming the world no easy, comfortable place, but a battle, a +fierce, unresting war?</p> + +<p>When she thought of Breton it was as though she knew herself for a +coward, as though he had threatened to expose her for one, and as though +(and this was the worst of all) something in her was eager that he +should—</p> + +<p>Against this there was the peace, the security that Roddy could offer +her....</p> + +<p>Beaminster security, perhaps—nevertheless....</p> + +<p>They were at Trunton St. Perth. The little station glittered in the +evening air. It was all suddenly thrilling. Who would be there? What +might not happen before Monday?</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>In the high beautiful hall where they all stood about and had tea she +could see who they were. There was a girl whom she had met on several +occasions this season, Nita Raseley, there was a large florid cheerful +person who was, she discovered, Maurice Garden, the well-known and +popular novelist, there was his wife, there was a thin intellectual +cousin of Lady Massiter's, Miss Rawson, old and plain enough for her +cleverness to have turned to acidity, Roddy Seddon and, of course, Lord +and Lady Massiter.</p> + +<p>Lord Massiter was large and florid like the novelist, and when they +stood together by the fireplace foreign customs and languages were +suddenly absurd, so English was the atmosphere. Lady Massiter was also +large, but she had the kind and warm placidity that makes some women the +type of all maternity. She would be, Rachel felt, a sure resource in all +time of trouble and she would also be entirely unsatisfactory as an +intimate personal friend. She would, like philanthropists and clergymen, +love people by the mass, never by the individual.</p> + +<p>Nita Raseley was pink and white, with large blue eyes that confided in +everyone they looked at. Her laugh was a little shrill, her clothes very +beautiful, and men liked her.</p> + +<p>So there they all were.</p> + +<p>She had said good day to Roddy and then had moved away from him, +governed by some self-consciousness and the conviction that Nita +Raseley's blue eyes were upon her.</p> + +<p>It was all very cheerful and very English as they stood talking there, +and the doors beyond the hall showed through their dark frames green +lawns and terraces soaked in evening light. It was all very, very +comfortable.</p> + +<p>As she dressed for dinner Rachel had her windows open, so hot was the +night, and she could watch the evening star that shone with a wonderful +brilliance above a dark little wood that crowned a rise beyond the +gardens. She had a maid who was very young indeed; this was her first +place, but she had, during the three months, learnt with great quickness +and had attached herself to her mistress with the most burning devotion. +She was a silent, unusual girl and kept herself apart from the rest of +the servants.</p> + +<p>Rachel as she sat before her dressing-table could see in that mirror the +dark reflection of the twilit garden.</p> + +<p>"It's a lovely place, Lucy——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Miss Rachel."</p> + +<p>"Are you glad to get away from London?"</p> + +<p>"It has been hot there these last weeks."</p> + +<p>Rachel met in the glass the girl's black eyes. They were searching +Rachel's face.</p> + +<p>"Lucy, would you rather live in London or in the country?"</p> + +<p>"I don't mind, Miss Rachel." Then after a little pause: "I hope I've +give satisfaction these last weeks?"</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, of course."</p> + +<p>"Then I hope, miss, that you'll allow me to stay with you whether—in +London or the country."</p> + +<p>The colour mounted to Rachel's cheeks.</p> + +<p>"I hope there'll be no need for any change," she said.</p> + +<p>She found when she came down to the drawing-room that Monty Carfax had +arrived. Monty Carfax was the chief of the young men who were, just at +that time, entertaining London dinner-tables. About half a dozen of +God's creatures, under thirty and perfectly dressed, with faces like +tombstones and the laugh of the peacock, went from house to house in +London and mocked at the world.</p> + +<p>They belonged, as the mediæval jesters belonged, each to his own court, +and Monty Carfax, certainly the cleverest of them, was attached to the +Beaminster Court and served the Duchess by faith, if not by sight.</p> + +<p>Rachel hated him and always, when she found herself next to him, wrapped +herself in her old farouche manner and behaved like an awkward +schoolgirl.</p> + +<p>She was terribly disappointed at discovering that he was going to take +her into dinner to-night; he knew that she disliked him and felt it a +compliment that a raw creature fresh from the schoolroom should fail to +appreciate him; on this occasion he devoted himself to the elderly +Massiter cousin on his other side—throughout dinner they happily +undressed the world and found it sawdust.</p> + +<p>Rachel meanwhile found Maurice Garden her other companion. He genially +enjoyed his dinner and talked in a loud voice and prepared the answers +that he always gave to ladies who asked him when he wrote, whether he +thought of his plots or his characters first, and "she did hope he +wouldn't mind her saying that of all his books the one——"</p> + +<p>He frankly liked these questions and was taken by surprise when Rachel +said:</p> + +<p>"I've never read any of your novels, Mr. Garden, so I won't pretend——"</p> + +<p>He asked her what she did read.</p> + +<p>"Have you ever read anything by an author called Peter Westcott?"</p> + +<p>"Westcott? Westcott?... Let me see ... Westcott?... Well now—One of the +young men, isn't he?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. He wrote a book called <i>Reuben Hallard</i>."</p> + +<p>"Ah yes. I remember about <i>Reuben Hallard</i>—had quite a little success +as a first book. He's one of your high-brow young men, all for Art and +the rest of it. We all begin like that, Miss Beaminster. I was like that +myself once——"</p> + +<p>She looked at him coolly.</p> + +<p>"Why did you give it up?"</p> + +<p>"Simply didn't pay, you know—not a penny in it. And why should there +be? People don't want to know what a young ass thinks about life if he +can't tell a story. All young men think the same—green leaves, moons +and stars and lots of symbols, you know—all good enough if they don't +expect people to pay for it."</p> + +<p>"I think <i>Reuben Hallard's</i> a fine book," she said, "and so are some of +the others. After all, everyone doesn't want only a plot in a book."</p> + +<p>He looked at her with patronizing kindness. "Well, you see if your Mr. +Westcott doesn't change. Every writer wants an audience whatever he may +pretend, and the best way to get a audience is to give the audience what +it wants. It needs unusual courage to sit on a packing-case year after +year and shave in a broken looking-glass——"</p> + +<p>She looked round the table. Everyone was happy. The butler was fat and +had the face of a Roman emperor, the food was very, very good, Nita +Raseley and Roddy laughed and laughed and laughed—</p> + +<p>Suddenly Rachel's heart jumped in her body. Oh! she was glad; glad that +Roddy cared for her and would look after her, because otherwise she +didn't know what violence she might suddenly commit, what desperations +she might not engage upon, what rebels and outlaws she would not +support—</p> + +<p>What Outlaws! And then, looking beyond the thickly curtained windows, +she could fancy that she could see one gravely standing out there on the +lawn, standing with his one arm and his pointed beard and his eyes +appealing to be let in.</p> + +<p>Then there was an ice that was so good that Peter Westcott and Francis +Breton seemed more outcast than ever.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>After dinner, when the men had come into the drawing-room, they all went +out into the gardens. It was such a night of stars as Rachel had never +seen, so dense an army that all earth was conscious of them; the sky was +sheeted silver, here fading into their clouded tracery, there, at fairy +points drawing the dark woods and fields up to its splendour with lines +of fire. The world throbbed with stars, was restless under the glory of +them—God walked in all gardens that night.</p> + +<p>At first Nita Raseley, Monty Carfax, Rachel and Roddy went together, +then, turning up a little path into the little wood that rose above the +garden, Rachel and Roddy were alone.</p> + +<p>They found the trunk of a tree and sat down—Behind them the trees were +thin enough to show the stars, below them in a dusk lit by that +glimmering lustre that starlight flings—a glow that would be flame were +it not dimmed by distance immeasurable—they could see the lawns and +hedges of the garden and across the dark now and again some white figure +showed for an instant and was gone. The house behind the shadows rose +sharp and black.</p> + +<p>Roddy looked big and solid sitting there. Rachel sat, even now uncertain +that she did not see Francis Breton in front of her, looking down, as +she did, into the shadowy garden.</p> + +<p>"I hope," she said abruptly, "that you don't like Monty Carfax."</p> + +<p>"I've never thought about him," he said. "He's certainly no pal of +mine—why?"</p> + +<p>"Because I hate him," she said fiercely. "What right has he got to +<i>exist</i> on a night like this?"</p> + +<p>"He's always supposed to be a very clever feller," Roddy said slowly. +"But I think him a silly sort of ass—knows nothin' about dogs or +horses, can't play any game, only talks clever to women——"</p> + +<p>"I can't bear that sort of man and I don't like Mr. Garden either. He's +so fat and he loves his food."</p> + +<p>"So do I," said Roddy quite simply. "I love it too. It was a jolly good +dinner to-night."</p> + +<p>She said nothing and then, when he had waited a little, he said +anxiously:</p> + +<p>"I say, Miss Beaminster, we've been such jolly good friends—all these +weeks. And yet—sometimes—I'm afraid you think me the most awful +fool——"</p> + +<p>She laughed. "I think you are about some things, but then—so am I about +a good many things—most of your things——"</p> + +<p>"Look here, Miss Beaminster—I wish you'd help me about things I'm an +ass in. You can, you know—I'd be most awfully glad."</p> + +<p>"What," she said, turning round and facing him, "are the things you +really care about?"</p> + +<p>"The things? ... care about?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—really——"</p> + +<p>"Well! Oh! animals and bein' out in the open and shootin' and ridin' and +fishin'—any old exercise—and comin' up to town for a buck every now +and again, and then goin' back and seein' no one, and my old place +and—oh! I don't know," he ended.</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't tell anyone a lie, would you, about things you liked and +didn't like?"</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't be much use if I did," he said, laughing. "They'd find me +out in a minute——"</p> + +<p>"No, but would you? If you were with a number of people who thought art +the thing to care about and knew nothing about dogs and horses, would +you say you cared about art more than anything?"</p> + +<p>"No," he said slowly. "No—but sometimes, you see, pictures and music +and such do please me—like anything—I can't put into words, but I +might suddenly be in any old mood—for pictures, or your uncle's fans, +or dogs or the Empire or these jolly old stars—Why, there, you see I +just let it go on—the mood, I mean, till it's over——" Then he added +with a great sigh, "But I am a dash fool at explainin'——"</p> + +<p>"But I know you wouldn't be like Mr. Garden or Mr. Carfax—just +pretending not to like the thing because it's the thing not to. Or like +Aunt Adela, who picks up a phrase about a book or picture from some +clever man and then uses it everywhere."</p> + +<p>"I should never remember it—a phrase or anythin'—I never can remember +what a feller says——"</p> + +<p>"Oh! I know you'd always be honest about these things. I feel you +would—about everything. It's all these lies that are so impossible: I +think I've come to feel now after this first season that the only thing +that matters is being straight. It is the only thing—if a person just +gives you what they've got—what <i>they've</i> got, not what someone else is +supposed to have. May Eversley used to say that people's minds are like +soup—thick or clear—but they're only thick because they let them get +thick with other people's opinions—you don't mind all this?" she said, +suddenly pausing, afraid lest he should be bored.</p> + +<p>"It's most awfully interestin'," he said from the bottom of his heart.</p> + +<p>"There are some men and women—I've met one or two—who're just made up +of Truth. You know it the minute you're with them. And they'll have +pluck too, of course—Courage goes with it. Our family," she ended, "are +of course the most terrible liars that have ever been—ever——"</p> + +<p>"Oh! I say——" he began, protesting.</p> + +<p>"Oh! but yes—they run everything on it. My uncle Richard ran through +Parliament beautifully because he never said what he meant. And Aunt +Adela—<i>and</i> Uncle John, although he's a dear. But then my grandmother +brought them up to it. My grandmother would have about three clever +people and then muddle all the rest so that the three clever ones can +have everything in their hands——"</p> + +<p>"Look here," he broke in, "I'm most awfully fond of your +grandmother—we're tremendous pals——"</p> + +<p>"You may be—I hate her. Oh! I don't hate her with melodrama, I don't +want to strangle her or beat her face or burn her, but I'm frightened of +her and she's always making me do things I'm ashamed of. That's the best +reason for hating anyone there is."</p> + +<p>"But she's such a sportsman. One of the old kind. One——."</p> + +<p>"Oh! I know all that you can say. I've heard it so many times. But +she's all wrong. There isn't any good in her. She's just remorseless and +selfish and stubborn. She thinks she ran the world once and she wants to +do it still."</p> + +<p>"That's all rather fine, <i>I</i> think," said Roddy. "I agree with her a +bit. I think most people have <i>got</i> to be run—they just can't run +themselves, so you have to put things into them."</p> + +<p>"Well, that's just where we differ," she said sharply. "It isn't so. +That's where all the muddle comes in. If everyone were just himself +without anything <i>borrowed</i>—Oh! the brave world it'd be——"</p> + +<p>Then she laughed. "But I'm all wrong myself, you know. I'm as muddled as +anyone. I've got all the true, real me there, but all the Beaminster +part has slurred it over. But I've got a horrid fear that Truth gets +tired of waiting too long. One day, when you're not expecting it, it +comes up and says—'Now you choose—your only chance. <i>Are</i> you going to +use me or not? If not, I'm going'—How awful if one didn't realize the +moment was there, and missed it."</p> + +<p>She was laughing, but in her heart that other woman in her was stirring. +For a startled, trembling second the wood seemed to flame, the gardens +to blaze with the challenge:</p> + +<p>"Are you, for the sake of the comfort and safety of life, playing false? +Which way are you going?"</p> + +<p>She burst into laughter, she caught Roddy by the arm. "Oh! I've talked +such nonsense—It's getting cold—we've got to go in. Don't think I talk +like that generally, Sir Roderick, because I don't—I——"</p> + +<p>She was nervous, frightened. The stars were so many and it was so dark +and Roddy no longer seemed a protection.</p> + +<p>"I know it's late—Look here, I'm going to run—Race me——"</p> + +<p>She tore for her very life out of the little wood, felt him pounding +behind her, seized, with a gasp of relief, the lights and the voices—</p> + +<p>She knew, with joy, that Roddy was closing the door behind her and that +the garden and the stars and the wood were shut into silence.</p> + +<p>For a little while, in the drawing-room, she talked excitedly, laughed a +great deal, even at Monty Carfax's jokes.</p> + +<p>She knew that they were all thinking that she was pleased because she +had been with Roddy. She did not care what their thoughts were.</p> + +<p>At last in her room she cried to Lucy—"Pull the curtains +tight—Tighter—Tighter—Those stars—they'll get through anything."</p> + +<p>When at last Lucy was gone she lit her candle and lay there, hearing the +clocks strike the hours, wondering when the day would come.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3>DEFIANCE OF THE TIGER—II</h3> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Roddy, dozing after a night of glorious sleep, lay on his back and swung +happily to and fro.</p> + +<p>The footman who was valeting him had pulled up the blind and drawn aside +the curtains, and the garden came to him, not as on last evening, +weighed with its canopy of stars, but now asserting its own happiness +and colour and freshness.</p> + +<p>The man said: "The bathroom is the last door down the passage on your +right, sir. Breakfast is at half-past nine. It has just gone eight. What +clothes, sir?"</p> + +<p>Roddy stared at him and smiled. After a little time, the man enquired +again: "Which suit will you wear this morning, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Dark blue." Roddy, still happily floating somewhere near the +ceiling—floating with delicious lightness—"Dark blue—Dark blue—Dark +blue——"</p> + +<p>For a little while the man, a strange vague shape, pulled out drawers +and closed them and walked about the floor, like Agag, delicately. +Roddy, from the ceiling watched him and resented the fact that every +sharp click of a drawer pulled him nearer to the carpet.</p> + +<p>The man's final shutting of the bedroom door plumped Roddy into his bed, +wide awake.</p> + +<p>"Damn him! What a wonderful day!"</p> + +<p>He lay back and watched how waves of light danced on the walls. A +fountain splashed in the gardens and the long mirror on the right of the +bed had in it the corner of the green lawn and the cool grey stones of +an old wall.</p> + +<p>Roddy lay on his back and allowed his sensations to run up and down his +body. It was for moments such as this that his life was intended. He +lived, deliberately and without any selfishness in the matter, for the +emotions that the good old god Pan might choose to provide for him.</p> + +<p>He did not know Pan by name except as a silly fancy dress that Monty +Carfax had once worn at a fancy-dress dance and as Someone alluded to +every now and again, vaguely, in the papers, but even though he did not +call him by name he, nevertheless, paid, without question, his daily +homage.</p> + +<p>When, as on this beautiful morning, one had only to lie down and be +instantly conscious of a thousand things—sheep moving slowly across +hills, cattle browing in deep pools, those Downs that he loved rising, +slowly, like aged men, to greet a new day—then one questioned nothing, +one argued nothing, one needed no words, one was happy from the crown of +one's head to the toes of one's feet.</p> + +<p>On this especial morning these delights were connected with the fact +that, during the day, he intended to propose marriage to Rachel +Beaminster. He thought of her, now, as she had looked last night, +sitting in that wood, in a pale blue dress, with the stars behind her, +staring, so seriously, down into the garden. She had been very beautiful +last night, and it had been a splendid moment—not more splendid than +other moments that he had had, but splendid enough to remember.</p> + +<p>He was always prepared for the necessity of the short duration of his +sensations. He had discovered, when he was very young, that nothing +lasted and that the things that lasted the shortest time were generally +the best things, and therefore he had, quite unconsciously, trained +himself to store his memory with splendid moments; now, although he had +no memory at all for any sort of facts or books or histories, he could +recall precisely, in all their forms and colours, scenes, persons, +adventures that had, at any time, thrilled him.</p> + +<p>He could remember days; once when, as a little boy, he had been +overtaken by night on the Downs and had sheltered in a deserted house, +black and evil, that had, he afterwards discovered, been, in the +eighteenth century, a private mad-house; once when the sea had been +green and purple, the sky black, and he had discovered a star-fish for +the first time (very young on that occasion); once when his horse had +run away with him and the danger had been exceeded by the glorious speed +through the air ... many, many others, all to be counted by him to their +very least detail, and now, of some of them, Rachel Beaminster was the +central figure.</p> + +<p>He had had relations of many kinds with many different women and never +until now had he supposed, for an instant, that these relations would be +permanent. Even now, although he was intending to marry Rachel +Beaminster, he was not so foolish as to imagine that the freshness and +novelty of the feeling that he now had for her would last more than a +very short time.</p> + +<p>Quite deliberately he treasured up in his mind a thousand pictures of +her, as he had seen her during the last two months, so that when the +time came for seeing her no longer in that way, he would have his +memories: there was the time of her first ball, all excitement and +happiness, the day at her uncle's when she had looked at him over the +top of the fans, the night at the opera when she had been so angry with +him, last night—</p> + +<p>She had, through all this time, remained elusive. He did not know her, +could not reconcile one inconsistency with another—but he thought that +she cared about him and would marry him.</p> + +<p>He had always known that he must one day marry. That necessity was, in +no way, connected with the emotional side of him, it rather had its +relationship with the common sense of him, the part that believed in the +Beaminsters and all their glory.</p> + +<p>He must marry because Seddon Court must have a mistress, because he +himself must have children, because he would like to have someone there +to be kind to. That need in him for bestowing kindness upon someone was +always most urgent, and all sorts of animals and all sorts of persons +had shared it—now one person would have it all. He could not bear to +hurt anyone or anything, and the crises of his life were provided by +those occasions when, in the delight of one of his emotional moments, +hurting somebody was involved—there was always then a conflict.</p> + +<p>He knew that it was just here that the Duchess failed to understand him. +She liked hurting people and expected him to be amused when she told him +little stories about her having done so. He had now a kind of dim +feeling that it was because the Duchess hoped that he was going to hurt +Rachel that she had prosecuted so strenuously his marriage.</p> + +<p>He trusted with all his heart that he would never hurt Rachel, he +intended always to be very, very kind to her; it was indeed a thousand +pities that the present quality of his attitude to her must, like all +attitudes, eventually change.</p> + +<p>But he was always—he was sure of this—going to be good to her and give +her everything that the mistress of Seddon Court should have.</p> + +<p>At the same time, vaguely, he wished that the old Duchess had had +nothing to do with this; sometimes he wondered whether the side in him +that found pleasure in her was really natural to him.</p> + +<p>Whenever he thought of her, she, in some way, confused his judgment and +made life difficult.</p> + +<p>She was doing that now....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>When he came down to breakfast he found that he was the last. He sat +next to Nita Raseley and was conscious, after a little time, that she +was behaving with a certain reserve. He had known her in the kind of way +that he knew many people in his own set in London, pleasantly, +indifferently, without curiosity. She had, however, attracted him +sometimes by the impression that she gave him that she was too young to +know many men, but, however long she lived, would never find anyone as +splendid as he: she had certainly never been reserved before. Finally he +realized that she expected to hear of his engagement to Rachel +Beaminster at any moment. "Well, so she will," he thought, smiling to +himself. Meanwhile he avoided Rachel quite deliberately.</p> + +<p>He was now self-conscious about her and did not wish to be with her +until he could ask her to marry him. No more uncertainty was possible. +He felt, not frightened, but excited, just as he would feel were he +about to ride a dangerous horse for the first time.</p> + +<p>He seized, with relief, upon the proposal of church; he wanted the +morning to pass; his prayer was that she would not walk to church with +him, because he had now nothing to say to her except the one thing. When +he heard that she was staying behind and walking with Nita Raseley he +was surprised at his own sense of release.</p> + +<p>Lady Adela was kind to him this morning in a sort of motherly way and +apparently seized on his going to church as an omen of his future +married happiness.</p> + +<p>"They're all waiting to hear," he said to himself.</p> + +<p>They were to walk across the park to the little village church, and when +they set out he was conscious that Lord John, like a large and amiable +bird, was hovering about him: finally, Lord John, nervous apparently, +most certainly embarrassed, settled upon him.</p> + +<p>"Going to church, aren't you, Roddy?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Beaminster."</p> + +<p>"Well, let's strike off together, shall we?"</p> + +<p>Roddy liked Lord John best of the Beaminster brothers; the Duke he could +not endure and Lord Richard was so superior, but Johnny Beaminster was +as amiable as an Easter egg and fond of race meetings and pretty women, +and not too dam' clever—in fact, really, not clever at all.</p> + +<p>But Johnny Beaminster embarrassed was another matter and Roddy found +soon that this embarrassment led to his own confusion.</p> + +<p>Lord John flung out little remarks and little whistles because of the +heat and little comments upon the crops. He obviously had something that +he very much wanted to say—"Of course," thought Roddy, "this is +something to do with Rachel—he's very fond of Rachel."</p> + +<p>Although Johnny Beaminster had not, in strict accuracy, himself the +reputation of the whitest of Puritans, yet Roddy wondered whether +perhaps he were not now worrying over some of Roddy's past history, as +rumoured in London society.</p> + +<p>"Doesn't want his girl to be handed over to a reg'lar Black Sheep, +shouldn't wonder," thought Roddy, and this led him to rather indignant +consideration of the confusion of the Beaminster mind and its muddled +moralities.</p> + +<p>The walk to the church was not very long, but it became, towards the +close of it, quite awful in its agitation.</p> + +<p>"Dam' hot," said Lord John.</p> + +<p>"Very," said Roddy.</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't wonder if this weather broke soon——"</p> + +<p>"Quite likely."</p> + +<p>"Makes you hot walking to church this hour of the morning."</p> + +<p>"Yes—don't it? Farmers will be wantin' rain pretty badly. Down at my +little place they tell me it's dried up like anythin'——"</p> + +<p>"Reg'lar Turkish bath——"</p> + +<p>"Well, the church ought to be cool——"</p> + +<p>"You never know with these churches——"</p> + +<p>Roddy thought "He's afraid of his old mother. Doesn't want me to marry +Rachel, but he's afraid of his old mother."</p> + +<p>"Massiter's getting fat——" This was Lord John's contribution.</p> + +<p>"Yes—so's that novelist feller——"</p> + +<p>"Oh! Garden! Yes—ever read anything of his?"</p> + +<p>"Never a line. Never read novels."</p> + +<p>"Not bad—good tales, you know."</p> + +<p>"He's probably," Roddy thought, "had a row with the old lady about +me——"</p> + +<p>Then, strangely enough, the notion hit him—"Wish it was he wanted me to +marry Rachel and the Duchess didn't—Wish she didn't, by Gad."</p> + +<p>As they entered the church Roddy might have seen, had he been gifted in +psychology, that there was in Lord John's face the look of a man who had +fought a battle with his dark angel and been, alas, defeated.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>After luncheon Roddy said:</p> + +<p>"Miss Beaminster, come for a walk?"</p> + +<p>"A little way," she said, looking at him with her eyes in that straight +direct way that she had.</p> + +<p>"She must know," said Roddy to himself, "that I'm going to do it now. +They all know. It's awful!"</p> + +<p>Some of the others had gathered together under a great oak that shaded +the central lawn, and now as he climbed the hill with his capture he +felt that from beneath that tree many eyes watched them.</p> + +<p>They did not go very far. At the top of the hill, above the little wood +and the gardens and the house, there was a grassy hollow, and under this +grassy hollow a great field of wheat, a sheet of red-gold with sudden +waves and ripples in it as though some hand were shaking it, ran down to +the valley.</p> + +<p>"Let's stop here," Rachel said. "I was out all this morning with Nita +Raseley and it's too hot for any exertion whatever."</p> + +<p>A tree shaded them and they sat down and watched corn.</p> + +<p>"What sort of a girl do you think she is—Nita Raseley, I mean?" asked +Rachel.</p> + +<p>"Oh! I don't know—the ordinary kind of girl—why?"</p> + +<p>"She seems to want to know me. Says that she hasn't many friends. Is +that true? I thought she had heaps——"</p> + +<p>"You never can tell with girls. You're all so uncertain about one +another—devoted one moment and enemies the next."</p> + +<p>"Are we?" said Rachel slowly. "I don't think I'm like that—Oh! how hot +it is!" She lay back against the grass with her arms behind her head.</p> + +<p>"Do you like me?" Roddy said suddenly.</p> + +<p>"I?... You!"</p> + +<p>She slowly sat up and he saw at once that she knew now what he was going +to say. At that moment, sitting there, staring at him, with her breasts +moving a little beneath her white dress and her hands pressing flatly +against the grass, in her agitation and the look in her eyes of some +suddenly evoked personality that he did not know at all she was more +elusive to him than she had ever been—</p> + +<p>She was frightened—and also glad—but the change in her from the girl +he had known all the summer was so startling that he felt that he was +about to propose to someone he had never seen before.</p> + +<p>"Do I like you?" she repeated slowly, and her lips parted in a smile.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, looking at her hands that seemed to belong to the earth +into which they were pressing—"Because I want you to marry me——"</p> + +<p>The moment of her surprise had come before—now she only said very +quietly—</p> + +<p>"Why—what do you know about me?"</p> + +<p>"I know—enough—to ask you," he said, stumbling over his words. He was +now afraid that, after all, she intended to refuse him, and the terror +of this made his heart stop. No words would come. He stared at her with +all the fright in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Roddy" (she had never called him that before), "do you care——"</p> + +<p>Then she stopped.</p> + +<p>She began again. "I don't want to talk nonsense. I want to say exactly +what I feel. I suppose most girls would want to be free a little longer, +would want to have a good time another two or three seasons—but I +don't—I hate being free—I want somebody to keep me, to prevent my +doing silly things, to look after me ... and ... I'd rather you did +it—than anybody else...." Then she went on quickly—"But it is more +than that. I do like you most awfully, only I suppose I'm not the kind +of girl to be frantically excited, to be wild about it all. I'm not +that. I do like you—better than any other man I know—Is that enough?"</p> + +<p>"I think—we can be most awfully good pals—always," he said.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she cried suddenly, putting her hand on his and looking straight +into his face. "That's what I want—that, that—If that's it, and you +think we can, why then, I'd rather marry you, Roddy dear, than anyone in +the world."</p> + +<p>"Then it's settled," he said. But he did not take her hand or touch her. +They sat for quite a long time, looking at the rippling corn and the +house, that was like a white boat sailing on the green far below them.</p> + +<p>They said no word.</p> + +<p>Then, without speaking, they got up from the grass and walked down the +path to the little wood. But when they came to the place where they had +been the night before he caught her to him so furiously that his own +body was bent back, and he kissed her again and again and again.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BOOK_II" id="BOOK_II"></a>BOOK II</h2> + +<h3>RACHEL</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IA" id="CHAPTER_IA"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>THE POOL AND THE SNOW</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And trains of sombre men, past tale of number,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But even for them awhile no cares encumber<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the charm they have broken."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Robert Bridges</span>.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>In the early days of the December of that year, 1898, the first snow +fell.</p> + +<p>Francis Breton, standing at his window high up in the Saxton Square +house, watched the first flakes, as they came, lingering, from the heavy +brooding sky; as he watched a great tide of unhappiness and restlessness +and discontent swept over him. His was a temperament that could be +raised to heaven and dashed to hell in a second of time; life never +showed him its true colours and his sensitive suspicion to the signs and +omens of the gods gave him radiant confidence and utter despair when +only a patient quiescence had been intended. During the last three +months he had risen and fallen and risen again, as the impulse to do +something magnificent somewhere interchanged with the impulse to do +something desperate—meanwhile nothing was done and, standing now +staring at the snow, he realized it.</p> + +<p>He had never, in all his days, known how to moderate. If he might not be +the hero of society then must he be the famous outcast, in one fashion +or another London must ring with his name.</p> + +<p>And yet now here had he been in London since the end of April and +nothing had occurred, no steps, beyond that first letter to his +grandmother, had he taken. He had not even responded to the advances +made to him by his old associates, he had seen no one save Christopher, +Brun once or twice, the Rands and his cousin Rachel.</p> + +<p>Throughout this time he had done what he had never done before, he had +waited. For what?</p> + +<p>A little perhaps he had expected that the family would take some step. +Looking back now he knew that the shadow of his grandmother had been +over it all. He had always seen her when he had contemplated any action, +seen her, and, deny it as he might, feared her. She confused his mind; +he had never been very readily clear as to reasons and instincts—he had +never paused for a period long enough to allow clear thinking, but now, +through all these weeks, he had been conscious that that same clear +thinking would have come to him had not his grandmother clouded his +mind. He felt her as one feels, in a dream, some power that prevents our +movement, holds us fascinated—so now he was held.</p> + +<p>The other great force persuading him to inaction was Rachel Beaminster, +now Rachel Seddon.</p> + +<p>Long before his return to England the thought of this cousin of his had +often come to him. He would speculate about her. She, like himself, was +by birth half a rebel, she <i>must</i> be—She <i>must</i> be. He had sometimes +thought that he would write to her, and then he had felt that that would +not be fair. Behind all his dreams and romances he always saw some +destiny whose colours were woven simply for him, Francis Breton, and +this confidence in an especial personally constructed God had been +responsible for his wildest and most foolish mistakes.</p> + +<p>Often had he seen this especial God bringing his cousin and himself +together. Always he had known that, in some way, they two were to be +chosen to work out, together, vengeance and destruction against all the +Beaminsters. When, therefore, that meeting in the Rands' drawing-room +had taken place he had accepted it all. She was even more wonderful +than he had expected, but he had known, instantly, that she was his +companion, his chosen, his fellow-traveller; between them he had +realized a claim, implied on some common knowledge or experience, at the +first moment of their meeting.</p> + +<p>From the age of ten, when he had been petted by one of his father's +mistresses, his life had been entangled with women; some he had loved, +others he had been in love with, others again had <i>loved him</i>.</p> + +<p>He did not know now whether he were in love with Rachel or no—he only +knew that the whole current of his life was changed from the moment that +he met her and that, until the end of it, she now would be intermingled +with all his history.</p> + +<p>At first so sure had he been of the workings of fate in this matter that +he had been content (for the first time in all his days) to wait with +his hands folded. During this period all thought of action against the +Beaminsters on the one hand or a relapse into the company of the friends +of his earlier London days on the other, had been out of the question. +This certainty of Rachel's future alliance with himself had made such +things impossibly absurd.</p> + +<p>Then had come the announcement of her engagement to Seddon. For a moment +the shock had been terrific. He had suddenly seen the face of his +especial God and it was blind and stupid and dead....</p> + +<p>Then swiftly upon that had come thought of his grandmother. This was, of +course, her doing—Rachel was too young to know—She would discover her +mistake: the engagement would be broken off.</p> + +<p>During this time he had met Rachel on several occasions, and although +the meetings had been very brief, yet always he had felt that same +unacknowledged, secret intimacy. After every meeting his confidence had +risen, once again, to the skies.</p> + +<p>Then had come the news of her marriage.</p> + +<p>From that moment he had known no peace. At first he had wildly fancied +that this had happened because he had not come to her and more plainly +declared himself; his picture of her idea of him was confused with all +the dramatic untruth of <i>his</i> idea of her; then, interchanging with +that, had come moods when he had seen things more plainly as they were +and had told himself that all relations between herself and him had been +invented by himself, that any kindness that she had shown him had been +kindness sprung from pity.</p> + +<p>During the early months of the autumn Rachel and her husband were +abroad, and during this time, Breton told himself that he was waiting +for her return before taking any action. Then a certain Mrs. Pont, a +lady whose beauty had been increased but her reputation lessened by +several scandals and a tiresomely querulous Mr. Pont, had suggested to +Francis Breton a continuation of certain earlier relationships.</p> + +<p>He knew himself well enough to be sure that one evening in Mrs. Pont's +company would put an end to his struggles, so weak was he in his own +knowledge that the only possible evading of a conflict was by the denial +of the enemy's very existence.</p> + +<p>He denied Mrs. Pont and, throughout those dark gloomy autumn weeks, +clinging to Christopher and Lizzie Rand, waited to hear of Rachel's +return.</p> + +<p>Although he would confess it to no man alive, he longed now, with an +aching heart, for some sort of reconciliation with the family. He would +have astonished them with his humility had they given him any sign or +signal. He fancied that Lord John or even the Duke might come.... Once +admitted to his proper rank again and what a citizen he would be! Vanish +for ever Mrs. Pont and her tribe and all that dark underworld that +waited, like some sluggish but confident monster, for his inevitable +descent. Wild phantasmic plans crossed his brain every hour of every +day—nothing came of it all; only when at last it was announced that +Sir Roderick and Lady Seddon had returned to England he discovered that +he had nothing to do, nothing to say, no step to take.</p> + +<p>That return had been at the end of October; from then until the end of +November he waited, expecting that she would write to him; still, by +this anticipation, were Mrs. Pont and Mrs. Pont's world kept at bay.</p> + +<p>No word came. Driven now to take some step that would shatter this +silence, he wrote to her a long letter about nothing very much, only +something that would bring him a line from her.</p> + +<p>For ten days now he had waited and there had come no word. As these +first flakes of snow softly, relentlessly, fell past his window the +nebulous cloud of all the uncertainties, disappointments, rebellions, of +this pointless wasted thing that men called Life crystallized into +form—"I'm no good—Life, like this, it's impossible—I'm no good +against it—I'd better climb down...."</p> + +<p>And here the irony of it was that he'd never climbed <i>up</i>.</p> + +<p>The awful moments in Life are those that threaten us by their suspension +of all action. "Just feel what's piling up for you out of all this +silence," they seem to say. Breton's trouble now was that he did not +know in what direction to move. His relation to Rachel was so nebulous +that it could scarcely be called a relation at all.</p> + +<p>He only knew that she alone was the person for whom now life was worth +combating. He had told her in his letter that she could help him, and +the absence of an answer spoke now, in this threatening silence, with +mighty reverberating voice. "She doesn't care."</p> + +<p>Well then, who else is there? Almost he could have fancied that his +grandmother, there in the Portland Place house, was withdrawing from him +all the supports in which he trusted.</p> + +<p>Now the snow, falling ever more swiftly, ever more stealthily, seemed to +be with him in the room, stifling, choking, blinding.</p> + +<p>He felt that if he could not find company of some kind he would go mad, +and so, leaving the storm and the silence behind him in his room, he +went to find Lizzie Rand.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Lizzie Rand did not conceal from herself now that she loved him. So long +had her emotional life been waiting there, undesired, that now it could +be kept by her utterly apart from her daily habit, but it became a +flame, a fire, that lighted with its splendid warmth and colour the +whole of her accustomed world. She indulged it now without restraint, +through the long dark autumn she had it treasured there; she did not, as +things then were, ask for more than this splendid knowledge that there +was now someone upon whom she loved to spend her care. She had not loved +to spend it upon her mother and sister, but that had been a duty defined +and necessary. Now everything that she could do for Breton was more fuel +to fling to her flame. That further question as to whether he might care +for her she kept just in sight, but nevertheless not definite enough to +risk the absolute challenge.</p> + +<p>At least, now, as the weeks passed, he sought her company more and more. +She helped him, she cheered and comforted him, enough for her present +need.</p> + +<p>Even, beyond it all, could she survey herself humorously. This the first +love affair of her life made her smile at her capture and defeat.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm just like the rest—And oh! I'm glad, I'm glad that I am."</p> + +<p>Finally she knew that there was still a step that might be taken, +between them, at any moment. He had, she knew, something to tell her. +Again and again lately he had been about to speak and then had caught +the impulse back.</p> + +<p>This too she would not examine too closely, but from the moment that he +should demand from her definite concrete assistance, from that moment +she would be to him what she knew no one now living could claim to be.</p> + +<p>Breton was glad when the little maid told him that Mrs. Rand was out, +but that Miss Lizzie was at home. He saw her in the warm cosy room, +sitting before the fire with her toes on the fender and her skirts +pulled up, drying her shoes.</p> + +<p>She looked up and smiled at him and told him to sit down, but did not +move from her position.</p> + +<p>"Mother's out at a matinee with Daisy. I got away early this afternoon. +Do you hate snow, Mr. Breton?"</p> + +<p>"I hate it to-day. I've got the dumps. I had to find someone to talk to +or I'd have gone screaming into the street——"</p> + +<p>"Couldn't find anyone better, so took me—thank you for the compliment. +But I like the snow. Your pool's more like a pool now than ever, Mr. +Breton."</p> + +<p>He went across to the window and stood there looking at the little +square now white with the gaunt trees rising black from the heart of it +and the grey houses that hemmed it in. Over it the snow, yellow and grey +and then delicately white, swirled and tossed.</p> + +<p>He came back and sat down beside her and wondered at her neat comfort +and air of calm control of all her emotions and desires.</p> + +<p>She, looking at him, saw that he was ill. Dark lines beneath his eyes, +his cheeks pale and an air of picturesque melancholy that made her want +first to laugh at him and then mother him.</p> + +<p>"I know what's the matter with you," she said, nodding her head.</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Something to do. That's what you want." She turned towards him, looking +at him with a little smile and yet with grave seriousness in her eyes. +"Oh! Mr. Breton, why don't you? What is the use of sitting here month +after month, doing nothing, just waiting for something to +happen—something that can't happen unless you make it? Things don't +fall into people's mouths just because they sit with them open."</p> + +<p>He coloured. "Everybody's always scolding me," he said. +"Christopher—you—everybody. Nobody understands—how difficult...."</p> + +<p>He broke off. So intangible were his difficulties that no words would +define them, and yet, God knew, they were real enough.</p> + +<p>"I know—" she said, nodding her head. "It's the thought of them all at +Portland Place that's holding you back. You began by fancying that you +wanted to cut their throats, and you still wouldn't mind slaughtering +them if only they in their turn would do something definite. It's their +doing <i>nothing</i> that just holds you up. But really as long as your +grandmother's alive I'm afraid that it's no good thinking of them. When +she's dead—and she <i>can't</i> live for ever—anything may happen. +Meanwhile why not show them what you <i>can</i> do?"</p> + +<p>"But what <i>can</i> I do?" he answered her fiercely. "I've never been +brought up to do anything—except what I oughtn't—There's my arm and +one thing and another—Besides, there's more than that in it, Miss Rand. +It's the fact that—well, that there's nobody that cares that's—so +freezing. If only somebody minded——"</p> + +<p>As he spoke Rachel rose, beautifully, wonderfully, before him. There, as +she had been on that first day when she had had tea there, bending +forward, listening, her dark wondering eyes on his face.</p> + +<p>Lizzie at the sound of the appeal in his voice had felt her heart +expand, beat, so that her body seemed to hold, suddenly, some great +possession that hurt her by its force and urgency.</p> + +<p>But she answered almost sharply:</p> + +<p>"Nonsense, Mr. Breton. Excuse me, but I've no patience with that kind of +thing. People are meant to stand alone, not to go leaning about for +other people's support. You're cursed with too much imagination, Mr. +Breton, and you remember too clearly everything that's happened before. +Begin now, as though you were born yesterday, and startle the family by +your energy——"</p> + +<p>"Now you're laughing at me," he said hotly. "I dare say I deserve it, +but I don't feel as though I could stand—very much of it from anyone +to-day——"</p> + +<p>Then he was astonished by the sudden softness of her voice. "No, no, +please," she said; "I understand so well. But indeed you have got +friends who believe in you. Dr. Christopher, myself, if you'll count me, +and lots more. You'll win everyone in time if you're not impatient and +don't despair. Don't think of your grandmother too much. The mere fact +of your not seeing her makes you imagine her as something portentous and +dreadful, and she weighs you down, but she isn't really anything at all. +She can't stop one's energies if one's determined to let them go. +Please, please don't think I'm laughing. I only want to help——"</p> + +<p>"I know you do," he answered warmly, "I owe you more than I can say. All +these last weeks you and Christopher have been the two people who've +held the world together for me. But there's more than you know, Miss +Rand. There's——"</p> + +<p>He bent towards her. She knew that the confidence was at last to be +hers. It needed her strongest control to prevent the trembling of her +hands. His eyes were alight, his whole body eloquent. At the thought of +what he might be about to tell her the room turned before her.</p> + +<p>Voices in the little hall. Then the door opened and in came Mrs. Rand +and Daisy. They had been to the play—<i>Such</i> nonsense. One of these new, +serious plays with long, long conversations—Mrs. Rand wanted tea. Daisy +wanted admiration.</p> + +<p>Between Lizzie and Breton the precious cup had fallen, smashed to the +tiniest atoms.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile aimless conversation was more than he, in his present mood, +could endure.</p> + +<p>He made some excuse and, scarcely knowing what he did, found his hat and +coat and went out into the square.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>There had come to him one of those agonies of loneliness that no +argument, no reasoning can destroy.</p> + +<p>The absence of any letter from Rachel seemed to show that she had +abandoned him. In all this vast thickly peopled world there was now no +one to whom his presence or absence, his fortunes or disasters mattered. +The snowstorm gathered him into its folds; the snow fell against his +mouth, his eyes, and before him, behind him, around him there was a +world deserted of man, houses blind and without life.</p> + +<p>The snow might fall now to the end of time. It would creep up and up, +falling from the heavens, rising from the earth, swallowing all +creation—the end of the world.</p> + +<p>He pressed into the park and there under the trees stretching like +gallows against the throttling sky temptation to give it all up, to go +under and have done with it all, leapt, hot and fierce, upon him. Mrs. +Pont and the others were waiting for him. They would be good to him. The +Upper World would not hear nor see nor think of his disasters, and +slowly, with the others, life would recede, he would crumble and decay +and cease to care, and death would come soon enough.</p> + +<p>Then the wind smote his face and tore at his coat: the snow died away, +beyond the black bare trees a very faint yellow bar threaded the thick +grey—promise that the storm was at an end.</p> + +<p>Suddenly with the cessation of the storm the long field of white seemed +good and restful, and beyond the park the houses showed light in their +windows.</p> + +<p>The yellow spread through the sky, and stars, very slowly, came and the +wind died away.</p> + +<p>Courage filled him. Rachel might never come or write or care, but he +would make the thought of her the one true thing in his heart, and with +that he would do battle so long as he could.</p> + +<p>Christopher and Miss Rand ... he thought of them as he trudged his way +home—and when he saw the white silence of Saxton Square and the golden +sky breaking above its peace and quiet he thought that, for a time +longer, he would keep his place and hold his own.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IIA" id="CHAPTER_IIA"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>A LITTLE HOUSE</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Each in the crypt would cry,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">'But one freezes here! and why?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">'When a heart, as chill,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">'At my own would thrill<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Back to life, and its fires out-fly?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Heart, shall we live or die?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The rest ... settle by-and-by!'"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Robert Browning</span>.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Rachel at Seddon Court watched, from her window, that first fallen snow.</p> + +<p>Seddon Court is about three miles from the town of Lewes and lies, +tucked and cornered, under the very brow of the Downs. It is a grey +little house, old and stalwart, with a courtyard and two towers. The +towers are Norman; the rest of the house is Tudor.</p> + +<p>Beyond the actual building there are gardens that run to the very foot +of the Downs, with only a patch and an old stone wall intervening. Above +the house, day and night, year after year, the Downs are bending; +everything, beneath their steady solemn gaze, is small and restless; as +the colours are flung by the sun across their green sprawling limbs the +house, at their feet, catches their reflected smile and, when the sun is +gone and the winds blow, cowers beneath their frown; everything in that +house is conscious of their presence.</p> + +<p>Rachel had been at Seddon Court for a month and now, at the window of +her writing-room, looking across the garden, up into their dark shadows, +she wondered at their indifference and monotony. Anyone who had known +her before her marriage would be struck instantly, on seeing her now, by +a change in her.</p> + +<p>Her whole attitude to the world, during her first season in London, had +been an attitude of wonder, of expectation, of the uncertainty that +comes from expectation.</p> + +<p>With that expectation were also alarm, distrust, and it was only when +some sudden incident or person called happiness into her face that that +distrust vanished.</p> + +<p>Now she was older, that hesitation and awkwardness were gone, but with +their departure had vanished, too, much of her honesty. Her dark eyes +were as sincere as they had ever been, but to anyone who had known her +before her attitude now was assumed. Nothing might catch her unprepared, +but what experiences were they that had taught her the need for armour?</p> + +<p>Sitting in her room looking on to a lawn that would soon be white and to +Downs obscured already by the thick tumbling snow, she knew that she was +unhappy, disappointed, even alarmed. Suddenly to-day the uneasiness that +had been gathering before her throughout the last weeks assumed, on this +afternoon, the definite tangibility of a challenge.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter—with me, with everything?... What's happened?"</p> + +<p>Her room, dark green and white, had no pictures, but a long low +book-case with grave handsome books, an edition of someone in red with +white paper labels and another edition of someone else in dark blue and +another in gold and brown, an old French gilt mirror, square, with a +reflection of the garden and the foot of the Downs in it, an old Queen +Anne rosewood writing-table, some Queen Anne chairs, a gate-legged +table—a very cool, quiet room.</p> + +<p>At her feet with his head resting on her shoe there lay a dog. This dog +about a fortnight ago she had found in a field near the house with a +kettle tied on to his tail, and his body a confused catastrophe of mud +and blood.</p> + +<p>She had carried him home; it had needed some courage to introduce him +into the household, for Roddy possessed many dogs all of the finest +breeds, and this was a mongrel who defied description. He was very +short and shaggy and stumpy. He was much too large for a Yorkshire +terrier and yet that was undoubtedly his derivation. There was something +of a sheep-dog in him and something of a Skye; his hair fell all over +his face and, when you could see them, his eyes were brown. His nose was +like a wet blackberry and his ears were long and full of emotion; when +he ran his short tail, on which the hairs were arranged like branches on +a Christmas tree, stuck up into the air and he resembled a rabbit.</p> + +<p>In the confusion of the moment Rachel had called him Jacob, because she +thought that Jacob was, in the Bible, the "hairy one".... After all, you +<i>could</i> not call a dog Esau.</p> + +<p>Yes, to retain him had needed courage. Thinking of Roddy's attitude to +the dog brought so many other attendant thoughts in its train. Roddy in +his devotion to animals (and oh! he <i>was</i> devoted), had no room for +those that were not of the aristocracy.</p> + +<p>Concerning dogs who were mongrels he was kind but thought them much +better dead. Unkind he would never be, but the way in which he ignored +Jacob was worse than any unkindness.</p> + +<p>Jacob, sensitive perhaps from early suffering, knew this and avoided +Roddy, ran out of the room when he came into it, showed in every way +that he must not expect to rank with the other dogs.</p> + +<p>Very characteristic this attitude of Roddy, but very characteristic, +too, the affection that Jacob was now receiving from his mistress. There +was something that Jacob drew from Rachel that none of the fine, noble +dogs of the house was able to secure.... Why?... What, again, was the +matter? Why was Rachel unhappy?</p> + +<p>Rachel was unhappy, and the answer came quite clearly to her as the room +was darkened by the great storm of snow now falling over the Downs and +the garden, because marriage with Roddy had not lessened in any way that +uneasy disquiet that had stirred, without pause, beneath her life +before her marriage; that uneasiness had, indeed, during the last three +months, increased....</p> + +<p>Was this her fault or Roddy's?</p> + +<p>Attacked now by a scrutiny that refused dismissal she delivered herself +up to the investigation of these months of her married life.</p> + +<p>She knew that she had only once been happy since her marriage—that was +on the first evening, when, the noise and clamour of the London wedding +having died away, she had walked with Roddy in the peace of the Massiter +garden (Lady Massiter had lent her house for the first weeks of the +honeymoon), had felt his arm about her, had believed that there had +really come to her that comfort and safety for which she longed.</p> + +<p>After that there had followed a fortnight of great unreality—the +strangest excitement, the most adventurous wonders, but a wonder and +excitement that were from herself, the real Rachel Beaminster, most +absolutely removed. It was as though she had watched closely but +detached the experiences of some other girl. Roddy had, during those +times, been a most ardent and passionate lover; she had tried to respond +and had hidden, as best she could, her failure.</p> + +<p>Then, suddenly, with the time of their going abroad, passion had left +him; it had left him as swiftly as the passing of wind over a hill. It +was there—it was gone.</p> + +<p>But he remained the perfect husband. His kindness, his charm, his +simplicity, his affection for her—an affection that could never for an +instant be doubted—these things had delighted her. He was now the +friend, the strong reliant companion that she had wanted him to be. +During those first weeks in Italy and Greece happiness might have come +to her had she not been stirred by her remembrance of the earlier weeks. +The passion that had been in him, although it had not touched her, now +in retrospect lit fires for her imagination. Instantly back to her had +come the whole disquiet and unrest. The things that Roddy called from +her now, she suddenly discovered with a great shrinking alarm, were all +the Beaminster things. All the true emotions, qualities, traditions that +made up her secret life were roused in her by their own inherent +vitality, never by his evocation of them. <i>He</i> was Beaminster—Roddy was +Beaminster. With his kindness and courtesy his eyes saw the world with +the eyes of his ancestors, his tongue spoke the language that had in it +no sincerity, his heart wished for all the ceremonies and lies that the +Beaminster had believed in since the beginning of time.</p> + +<p>But her discovery did not lead her much further. She had, in her heart +of hearts, always known that Roddy was a Beaminster. Why then had she +married him? She had married him because she had been untrue to herself, +because she had herself encouraged the Beaminster blood in her to blind +her eyes, because she had desired deceit rather than truth, because she +had wanted the comfort that the man could give her rather than the man +himself, because she had muffled and stifled and silenced that Power in +her—the Power that made her restless and unquiet; the Power that was as +hostile to the Beaminster faith as heaven is to hell—</p> + +<p>And yet this vehemence of explanation did not altogether explain Roddy. +Roddy was not <i>simply</i> a Beaminster like Uncle John or Uncle Richard or +Aunt Adela. There was an elemental direct emotion in Roddy that was +exactly opposed to Beaminster conventionality.</p> + +<p>These two elements in him puzzled and even frightened her. His attitude +during that first fortnight of their marriage she saw, again and again, +in lesser degrees during their time abroad. She had seen him so +primitive in his joy and excitement over places and people and +moments—colour, food, storms, towns, passers-by, anything—that she had +been astounded by the force of it. Emotions swept over him and were +gone, but, whilst they were there, she knew that she counted to him for +nothing. Strangest of ironies that when he was least a Beaminster, then +was she farthest from him—strangest of ironies that her link with him +should be the Beaminster in him.</p> + +<p>She was frightened of his primitive passions. She had in her the +instinct that one day they would touch his relationship to her and that +that contact would rouse in her the full tide of the unhappiness of +which she was now so conscious, and that then ... what might not +happen?...</p> + +<p>And yet behind it all she felt a strange, almost pathetic satisfaction +because he, after all, had in him, just as she had, his two natures at +war. There at least they found some common link; her eagerness to find +some link was evidence enough of the affection she had for him.</p> + +<p>After their return to England the wilder nature in him had extended and +broadened. Everything to do with Seddon Court drew it out of him; his +passion for the place was wonderful to witness. Every stone of the +little grey building was a jewel in his eyes; the servants, the cattle, +the horses, the dogs, the flowers, the villagers, even the townspeople +of Lewes drew sentiment from him.</p> + +<p>"My old place," he would say, cuddling it to himself; he was never +"sloppy" about it, but direct and simple and straightforward. It was +obviously <i>the</i> great emotion above all other emotions.</p> + +<p>He was most anxious that Rachel should share this with him, and during +her first weeks there she thought that she would do so. Then the +disquiet in her spread to the place. The house spread itself out before +her now as the lure that had from the beginning tempted her.</p> + +<p>"It was for this place and quiet that you were false to yourself——"</p> + +<p>Roddy felt that she did not share his enthusiasm, and their difficulty +over this was exactly their difficulty over everything else; simply that +Roddy was the least eloquent person in the world. He could explain +nothing whatever of the vague unhappiness or dissatisfaction at his +heart. Rachel <i>could</i> have explained a great many things, but Roddy, she +felt, would only look at her in his kind puzzled way and wonder why she +couldn't take things as they were.</p> + +<p>Perhaps during these last weeks he had himself felt that all was not +well. Rachel thought that sometimes now through, all his kindness she +detected a floating, wistful speculation on his part as to whether she +were happy.</p> + +<p>He <i>wanted</i> her to be happy—most tremendously he wanted it—and did she +explain to him that she was not happy because she was, now, for ever +attended by a sense of her own disloyalty to all that was best in her, +he would have suggested a doctor or have made her a present.</p> + +<p>Had she been some stranger and had the case been presented to him he +would have probably dismissed it by saying that "having made her bed she +must lie on it." "After all, she married the feller—Well then, that's +<i>her</i> look-out."</p> + +<p>So, perhaps, if this had been simply her trouble she would have done her +bravest best to endeavour.</p> + +<p>But there was more behind it all—far, far more.</p> + +<p>She saw her marriage to Roddy, her struggling for self-respect, her +present morbid introspection as a stage in what was now developing into +a duel between herself and her grandmother.</p> + +<p>Her grandmother had planned this marriage. Her grandmother was +determined to destroy the honesty and truth in her and had chosen a +Beaminster for her agent and now waited happy for the death of Rachel's +soul.</p> + +<p>But Rachel's soul should not so readily die! During all these weeks the +thought of her grandmother had been continually with her. How she hated +her, and with what fervour did Rachel return that hatred!</p> + +<p>There was no melodrama in this hatred. When she had been a very little +girl Rachel had somehow believed that her grandmother had been very +cruel to her mother and father—She had hated her for that. Then she had +seen that her grandmother disliked her and wished to tease her—so she +had hated her for that also.</p> + +<p>Her older amplification of this into principles and instincts had not +altered the original vehemence of the passion, it had only given it +grown-up reasons for its existence.</p> + +<p>And so, thinking of her grandmother, she thought also of Francis Breton.</p> + +<p>Some weeks ago she had received a letter from him and that letter was +now lying in the desk of her writing-table.</p> + +<p>She had thought that her marriage would have snapped her interest in her +cousin because it would have broken that hostility with her grandmother +upon which her relationship with her cousin so largely depended. But now +when she saw that marriage had only intensified her hostility to the +Duchess, so therefore it had intensified her perception of Breton. His +letter had aroused in her, just as contact with him aroused in her, +everything in her that now, for her own peace of mind, she should keep +at bay. His letter had amounted to this:</p> + +<p>"You are a rebel as I am a rebel. We have said very little, but you have +recognized in me the things that I have recognized in you. You have +escaped through marriage, but for me there is no escape, and if you +would, for the sake of those things that we have in common, keep me from +going utterly under, then you must help me—as only you can."</p> + +<p>He did not say this nor anything at all like this. He only, very +quietly, congratulated her on her marriage, hoped that she would be very +happy, said that London was a little desolate and difficult, hoped that +she would not think more harshly of him than she could help, and, at the +very end, told her that meeting her made him feel that he was not +entirely abandoned by everybody.</p> + +<p>It was the letter of a weak man and she knew it, but it was the letter +of a man who was weak exactly in the places where she also failed. And +this, more than anything else, moved her.</p> + +<p>They two alone, it seemed, were struggling to keep their feet in a world +that did not need them. It had been, through these months, Rachel's +sharpest unhappiness, the consciousness that Roddy and indeed everything +at Seddon Court could get on so very well without her.</p> + +<p>Nobody in London needed her—nobody here needed her. If you accepted the +Beaminster doctrine, then no wife would demand more from a husband than +Roddy gave Rachel—but was this not simply another proof that Rachel had +made a Beaminster marriage?</p> + +<p>Rachel had been flung straight from the schoolroom into marriage and the +sensitive agonizing cry of a child to be loved by somebody—the cry that +had always been so urgent in her—was urgent still.</p> + +<p>It was exactly this comfortable sense of being a help that Roddy had not +given her. Now this letter gave it to her.</p> + +<p>But if this letter was an appeal, just as the mongrel Jacob, now at her +feet, was an appeal, on the part of someone wounded and outcast, to her +pity, so also was it an invitation to rebellion.</p> + +<p>It was also a temptation to deceit and, did she answer the letter, she +encouraged Breton to write again; she opened up not only a new +relationship to him, but also a new relationship to all the forces that +were most hostile to Roddy and her married happiness. May Eversley had +once said to her: "Sit down and see, without any exaggeration or false +colouring, what you've got. Take away, ruthlessly, anything that you +imagine that you've got but haven't. Take away ruthlessly everything +that you imagine that you would like to have but are not confident of +securing—See what's happened to you in the past—Take away ruthlessly +any sentimental repentances or sloppy regrets, but learn quite +resolutely from your ugly mistakes."</p> + +<p>Long ago she had written this down—now was the first necessity for +applying it.</p> + +<p>The doctrine of Truth—Truth to Oneself, the one thing that mattered. +She knew that the pursuit of Truth was to her, and to every rebel +against the Beaminsters, the restive Tiger. In marrying Roddy she had +been untrue to herself. In writing to Breton she would be true to +herself but untrue to Roddy. She was fond of Roddy although she did not +love him, nor did he, really, love her. The anxiety on both their parts +to avoid hurting one another was proof enough of that, she thought.</p> + +<p>There then was the whole situation. As she felt Jacob's warm head +against her foot a great agitation of loneliness and dismay and +helplessness swept over her.</p> + +<p>Tears were in her throat and eyes—Then with a strong disdain she pushed +it all from her. She was growing morbid, losing her sense of humour and +proportion. Here in the house there was Nita Raseley staying; in the +country there were people to be called upon, to be invited, to be +interested in, there was Roddy, a perfect husband.</p> + +<p>She strangled that other Rachel, there in her room. "Now you're dead," +she felt, and seemed to fling a lifeless, crumpled figure out into the +snow—</p> + +<p>She looked at herself in the glass.</p> + +<p>"You're not Rachel Beaminster now—you're Rachel Seddon. Act accordingly +and don't whine—" She washed her face and brushed her hair, and combed +Jacob's hair out of his eyes, and then, determined to be sensible and +cheerful and civilized, went down to tea.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>The room called the Library was the pleasantest room in the house; an +old, long, low-ceilinged room with windows that stretched from floor to +ceiling, with a large stone open fireplace and book-cases running from +end to end and old sporting prints above them.</p> + +<p>Before the great fireplace the tea was waiting and there also was Nita +Raseley, very charming and fresh and pink in the face and golden in the +hair. It was strange that Nita Raseley should have been their first +guest since their marriage, because Rachel, most certainly, did not like +her; but, after that meeting at the Massiters' the girl had flung a +passionate and incoherent correspondence upon Rachel and had ended by +practically inviting herself.</p> + +<p>Roddy liked her; Rachel knew that—so perhaps after all it had been a +good thing to have her there. Rachel's dislike of her was founded on a +complete distrust. "She's all wrong and insincere and beastly. I'll +never have her here again...." And yet, really, Miss Raseley had behaved +herself, had been most quiet and decorous and <i>most</i> affectionate.</p> + +<p>The electric light was delicately shaded, the curtains were drawn, +outside was the storm, here cosiness and shining comfort.</p> + +<p>"Oh! <i>darling</i> Rachel—I <i>am</i> so glad you've come—I do so want +tea——"</p> + +<p>"Where's Roddy?"</p> + +<p>"Just come in—He'll be here in a minute——"</p> + +<p>Rachel came over to the fire and was busy over the tea-table.</p> + +<p>"Well, Nita, what have you been at all the afternoon?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! that silly old book. Rachel, how <i>could</i> you tell me——"</p> + +<p>"What book?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! <i>you</i> know—you lent it me. Something like drinking—<i>you</i> know. By +that man Westcott—<i>such</i> a silly name."</p> + +<p>"<i>The Vines!</i>—Didn't you like it?"</p> + +<p>"Like it! My dear Rachel, why, they go on for pages about each other's +feelings and nothing happens and I'm sure it's most unwholesome. They're +all so unhappy and always hating one another. I like books to be +cheerful and about people one knows—don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Well, Nita dear, it's a good thing we don't all like the same things, +isn't it? Sugar?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear, you know—lots—Darling, have you got a headache? You <i>do</i> +look rotten—you <i>do</i> really."</p> + +<p>Rachel knew that she must keep an especial guard to-day: she was +irritable, out of sorts. She would have liked immensely to send Nita to +have her tea in the nursery, were there one.</p> + +<p>"No, I'm all right. But I wanted to get out and this storm stopped me."</p> + +<p>"You do look dicky! Oh! what do you think! Roddy's taking us over to +Hawes to-morrow to lunch if the weather's anything like decent. He's +just fixed it up—sent a wire——"</p> + +<p>"To-morrow? But <i>I</i> can't.... He knows. I've got Miss Crale coming +here——"</p> + +<p>"Only old Miss Crale? Put her off——"</p> + +<p>"I can't possibly—I've put her off once before. She wants to talk about +her Soldiers' Institute place—" Then Rachel added more slowly, "But +Roddy knew——"</p> + +<p>"Oh! he said you'd got some silly old engagement, but he <i>knew</i> you'd +put it off!"</p> + +<p>"He knows I can't. He was talking about it this morning. He knew +how——" Then she stopped. She was not going to show Nita Raseley that +she minded anything.</p> + +<p>But Roddy had always said that they would go over together to Hawes—one +of the loveliest old places in the world—He had always promised....</p> + +<p>She knew perfectly well what had occurred. Nita had caught Roddy and +clung on to him and persuaded him—Roddy was such a boy—But she was +hurt and she despised herself for it.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she said, laughing. "That's all right. You two must just go over +together—that's all! I'll go another time——"</p> + +<p>"Well, you see, Roddy <i>did</i> send a wire and the Rockingtons would <i>hate</i> +being put off at the last moment.... Oh! You beastly dog! He's been +licking my shoe, Rachel. Really he oughtn't to, ought he? So funny of +you, Rachel, when he's <i>such</i> a mongrel and Roddy's got such lovely +darlings—Of course Jacob's a dear, but he <i>is</i> rather absurd to look +at——"</p> + +<p>Jacob glanced at her, shook his ears and then, hearing a step that he +knew, retired, instantly, under a sofa in a far corner of the room.</p> + +<p>Roddy came in and stood for a moment laughing across at them. He was in +an old tweed suit with a soft collar and his face was brick-red; looking +at him as he stood there, the absolute type of health and strength and +cleanly vigour, Rachel wondered why she felt irritable. She certainly +was out of sorts.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, you two," Roddy said, "you do look cosy! Talkin' secrets, or +will you put up with a man?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! <i>Roddy</i>," said Nita Raseley, "why, of <i>course</i>. Rachel's only just +come down, hasn't been any time for secrets. Come and get warm."</p> + +<p>Room was made for him. Rachel smiled at him as she gave him his tea. +"Well, Roddy, what have <i>you</i> been doing? I've been trying to write +letters and Nita's been abusing a novel I lent her. I hope you've been +better employed——"</p> + +<p>"I've been botherin' around with Nugent over those two horses he bought +last week. And—oh! I say, Rachel, you'll come over to Hawes to-morrow, +won't you?"</p> + +<p>"You know I can't. I've got Miss Crale coming to luncheon——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I say! Put her off——"</p> + +<p>"Can't—I've put her off before and she doesn't deserve to be badly +treated——"</p> + +<p>"Oh! dash it! But I've gone and wired. The Rockingtons won't like my +changin'——"</p> + +<p>"Well, don't change—you and Nita go over——"</p> + +<p>"No, but you know we'd always arranged to go over together. You see, I +felt sure you'd put old Miss Crale on to another day. <i>She</i> won't +mind——"</p> + +<p>"No, Roddy, thank you. That's not fair on her. It can't be helped. You +go over with Nita."</p> + +<p>Then there occurred between them one of those little situations that +were now so frequent. Rachel was hurt, but was determined to show +nothing; Roddy knew that she was hurt, but was quite unable to improve +relations, partly because he had no words, partly because "a feller +looks such a fool tryin' to explain," partly because there was in him a +quality of sullen obstinacy that was mingled, most strangely, with his +kindness and sentiment.</p> + +<p>He was absolutely ready to fling Nita and the Rockingtons into limbo, +but he was quite unable to set about such a business.</p> + +<p>Moreover now there was Nita Raseley—It was at this moment that Jacob, +having fought in the dark recesses of the sofa between his dislike of +Roddy and his love of tea, declared for his stomach and walked slowly, +and with the dignity required by the presence of an enemy, across the +room.</p> + +<p>"Hullo! there's the mongrel—" Roddy endeavoured to cover earlier +awkwardness by easy laughter, but the laughter was not easy and his +attempt to pat Jacob was frustrated by a sidling movement on the dog's +part.</p> + +<p>Then Nita Raseley laughed.</p> + +<p>Roddy now thought that women were damnable, that his wife had no right +to drag a mongrel like that about with her, that he'd show them if they +laughed at him, and that if Rachel couldn't come to-morrow, why then, +she must just lump it—The last thought of all was that Rachel was +always finding a grievance in something.</p> + +<p>He waited a little while, talked in a stiff and unnatural fashion and +then went.</p> + +<p>"This weather <i>is</i> very trying, dear, isn't it?" said Nita. "If I were +you I really would go and lie down. You do look <i>so</i> seedy!"</p> + +<p>"I think I will," said Rachel.</p> + +<p>As she went slowly upstairs to her room she knew that she would answer +Francis Breton's letter.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IIIA" id="CHAPTER_IIIA"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>FIRST SEQUEL TO DEFIANCE</h3> + +<blockquote><p>"He began to love her so soon, as he perceived that she was +passing out of his control."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Jane Austen</span>.</p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Next morning Rachel wrote the following letter to Francis Breton:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Mr. Breton</span>,</p> + +<p>It was good of you to write to me and I must apologize for +allowing your letter to remain so long unanswered, but, on my +return from abroad, there were naturally a great many things to +do and a great many people to see.</p> + +<p>My husband and I enjoyed our time abroad immensely: it was my +first visit to Greece and Italy and I loved every bit of +it—Athens is to me more wonderful than now, here so snugly in +England, seems possible; Florence and Rome very beautiful of +course but spoilt, don't you think, by tourists and the modern +Italian who has learnt American habits—</p> + +<p>How is London? I've not yet had a good look at it since I came +back, but we shall be coming up soon, I expect, and have taken +a flat in Elliston Square, between Portland Place and Byranston +Square.</p> + +<p>Your letter sounds a little dismal; it is kind of you to say +that I can help you, but, indeed, if writing to me helps do so. +It is only fair to say that at present my husband shares the +family point of view and, so long as that is so, I cannot ask +you to come and see me, but I hope that soon he will see the +whole affair more sensibly.</p> + +<p>Yours very sincerely,</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Rachel Seddon</span>."</p></blockquote> + +<p>She was not proud of this letter when she read it. She whose impulse was +for truth seemed to be flung, at every turn, into direct dishonesty. No, +she would not seize on the excuse of some vague tyrannical fate.</p> + +<p>She was herself her own agent in this affair and she bitterly, from her +heart, condemned herself ... and yet, strangely, this letter to Breton +seemed, in obedience to some inward impulse, her most honest action +since her marriage.</p> + +<p>Yet why did she not go to Roddy now and say to him that she had written +to Breton and was determined to act as his friend?</p> + +<p>Roddy would forbid any further relationship; she knew that. And then?...</p> + +<p>No, she could not see beyond—</p> + +<p>She banished the letter from her mind, saw the two of them off to Hawes, +and entertained Miss Crale to luncheon. Miss Crale was a broad and +shapeless old maid with huge boots, a bass voice and a moustache. She +was behind most of the charitable affairs in the county, was popular +everywhere, and the most energetic character Rachel had ever met—</p> + +<p>Rachel liked her and she liked Rachel, and after she had departed, +breathless and red-faced, on some further visit concerned with some +further charity, Rachel felt braced and invigorated and happier than she +had been for many weeks.</p> + +<p>It was a day of frosted blue and the sun flashed fire on to the great +field of snow that stretched from sky to sky. The Downs lay humped +against the blue and the whole world was frozen into silence.</p> + +<p>The only sounds were the soft stir the snow, falling from branches or +walls, made and the sharp cries of some children playing in a field near +at hand.</p> + +<p>When Miss Crale had gone Rachel went off for a walk. Jacob was with her. +She struck up the winding path on to the Downs. The snow was hard and +yielded a pleasant friendly crunch beneath her feet. Shadows that were +dark and yet were filled with colour lay across the snow; beneath her a +white valley against which trees and buildings seemed little wooden toys +and, in the far distance, hills rising, cut, with their iridescent glow, +the blue sky.</p> + +<p>No clouds; no movement; no sound: and soon the sun would be golden and +then hard and red, and then across all the snow pink shadows would creep +and the evening stars would burn—</p> + +<p>In the heart of the snow, a valley between the shoulders of the Downs, a +black clump of trees clustered; she could see, now, Seddon Court like a +grey box at her feet, very tiny and breathing rest and peace.</p> + +<p>Some of her trouble slipped from her under this clear sky and in this +sharp air; from these quiet hills she saw all her introspection as an +evil thing, morbid, cowardly; from here it seemed to her that her +trouble with Roddy had been because he did not know what introspection +meant and could not understand the appeals that she made to him.</p> + +<p>But was it not unfair that men should have so many things that could +take the place of love? For Roddy there were a thousand emotions to give +meaning to life: for Rachel all experience seemed to come to her only +through people and her relations with people.</p> + +<p>Soon the valley and the little toy houses were behind her and she had +only the white rise and fall of the hill on every side. Dropped into a +hollow was a little dark deserted house with bare trees about it; +otherwise there was no dwelling-place to be seen.</p> + +<p>This absence of human life suddenly drew up before her, as sharply and +with as living an actuality as though some mirage had cast it +there—London—</p> + +<p>Three months in the country had flung the London that she knew into a +vivid perspective that was quite novel to her. By the London that she +knew she did not mean the London of parties and theatre, the London of +Nita and her kind, but rather the actual London of the streets and +squares and fountain and parks and dusty plane trees and tinkling +organ-grinders.</p> + +<p>She felt now quite a thrill of excitement to think that, in another week +or two, she would be back in it all and would see all the lamps coming +out and the jingling cabs and the heavy lumbering omnibuses, and that +she would hear again the sharp crying of the newspaper boys and the +ringing of church bells and the thud of the horses down the Row and the +hum of voices above the orchestra during the intervals of some play.</p> + +<p>She thought of Portland Place and the park and the Round Church and the +little shops and Oxford Circus and the buses tumbling down Regent Street +into Piccadilly and then tumbling down again into Pall Mall. From +Portland Place she seemed to look down over the whole of London and to +see it like a jewel, with its glow dazzling the night sky—</p> + +<p>She knew now that although she hated her grandmother she did not hate +the Portland Place house and she was glad that Roddy had taken a flat +near there. No other part of London would ever be quite the same to her +as that was: it would always be home to her more than any other place in +the world, with its space and air and sense of life crowding around it.</p> + +<p>And, as she walked, she was fired with the desire to have some real +active share in the London life; not in the sham life of pleasure and +entertainment, but to be working, as all kinds of men must be working, +with London behind them, influencing them, sometimes depressing them, +sometimes exalting them, always moving within them.</p> + +<p>That was a fine ambition to work towards a greater London, a greater, +finer, truer world, and whether you were politician or artist or +journalist or merchant or novelist or clerk or philanthropist, still by +your working honestly you would deserve your place in that company.</p> + +<p>If she could have some share in such things, then her miserable doubts +and forebodings would vanish in a vision too bright and glorious to +contain them—</p> + +<p>As she walked her face glowed and her body moved as though it could +continue thus, swinging through the clear air, for all time.</p> + +<p>She determined that on this very evening she would tell Roddy about +Breton. Whatever might be the result life in the future should be clear +of Beaminster confusions. She would even ask Roddy to help her about +Breton, to influence, perhaps, her grandmother with regard to him—</p> + +<p>Then, in a few days, Nita Raseley would be gone, and, afterwards, she +would discipline all her wit and energy towards establishing a fine +relationship with Roddy.</p> + +<p>Something had, throughout all these months, been wrong; she would +discover where that wrong lay—She would curb her own impatience, would +fling herself into his interests, would learn the things that Roddy +wanted from her and give them to him—</p> + +<p>Then, as the sun sank lower and the yellow shadows crept up the sky, she +felt desolate and lonely. Vigour left her—She had descended now into +the valley and had come to the deserted house with the stark frowning +trees. This place, she had heard, had in the eighteenth century been a +private mad-house, and now behind its darkened windows she could have +fancied shapes and down the wind the echo of voices.</p> + +<p>She fought with all her might against a great tide of loneliness that +was now sweeping up about her. There had always been so many people +around her and yet she had always been lonely. Even May and Dr. +Christopher had not helped her there. She had a sense now of all the +people in all the world who were waiting for the other people who could +understand them; they were always missing one another, so near +sometimes, sometimes touching, and then, after all, going through life +alone.</p> + +<p>Those were the people with feelings and emotions—and as for the people +without them, of what use was life to <i>them</i>?</p> + +<p>Either way, except for the fortunate way, Life was a futile business.</p> + +<p>Then, climbing up from that sinister little valley and seeing that the +sky had turned to violet and that the evening star was there burning as +she had known that it would, she laughed at her morbidity.</p> + +<p>She shook herself free from it, thought once more of the things that she +would do with Roddy, thought of London and the fun that she would have +there, thought of Christopher and Uncle John and even Aunt Adela; then, +as she turned down the little crooked path towards the house, she +thought again of her cousin; she would work without ceasing to bring him +back into the family.</p> + +<p>That, at any rate, was work upon which she might commence on her return +to London, and as she clicked the little wicket-gate, a side-entrance to +the garden, behind her, she was almost happy again.</p> + +<p>The dusk was deepening into darkness, the moon had not yet risen above +the hill. She had entered the garden on the further side of the house +and passed through a long laurel path, her feet silenced by the snow.</p> + +<p>Jacob had stayed, some way behind. She could see the white lawn and +beyond it the lighted house; she was about to step out of the dark +shadow of the laurels when she found, just in front of her, almost +touching her, hidden by the black depth of the trees, two figures.</p> + +<p>She was upon them with a startled cry. A man had his arms about a woman; +bending back a little he had pulled her forward against him and was +kissing her so fiercely that her hands were buried deep in his coat to +steady herself.</p> + +<p>Rachel knew them instantly; they were her husband and Nita Raseley—</p> + +<p>She stepped past them on to the lawn and at that instant they were +conscious of her—</p> + +<p>Then she walked swiftly into the house.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>She went up to her bedroom. No thought came to her, her mind was blank, +but she noticed little things, put some of the silver things on her +dressing-table in order, pulled her blind a little lower, moved to the +fire and pushed the logs into a blaze. She sat there for a long, long +time.</p> + +<p>When the dressing-bell echoed through the rooms she was still sitting +there, thinking nothing—</p> + +<p>Her maid came to her; she told her the dress that she would wear and +after a while sat staring into her mirror whilst her hair was brushed.</p> + +<p>Lucy said, "The snow's begun again, my lady. Coming down fast——"</p> + +<p>Then some absence of light in her mistress's eyes frightened her and she +said no more.</p> + +<p>Someone knocked on the door: a note for her ladyship. Rachel read it:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"It was all a horrible, <i>horrible</i> mistake. Darling Rachel, you +<i>know</i> it was only fun—just nothing at all. Shall I come and +explain? If you'd rather not see me just now say so and I shall +<i>quite</i> understand. I've been so upset that I think I won't +come down to dinner, if it isn't <i>too</i> much bother having just +a little sent up to me. It was all <i>such</i> a silly mistake, as +you'll see when we've explained.</p> + +<p>Your loving</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Nita</span>."</p></blockquote> + +<p>When she came to "we" Rachel coloured a little. Then she said, "Lucy, +bring me the local railway-guide. In my writing-room."</p> + +<p>Lucy brought it to her. Then she wrote:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Nita</span>,</p> + +<p>No explanations necessary. There is a good train up to town +from Hawes at 9.30 to-morrow morning.</p> + +<p>Yours,</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Rachel Seddon</span>."</p></blockquote> + +<p>"I want this taken to Miss Raseley, Lucy—now. She's not very well, so +ask Haddon to see that dinner is sent up to her room, please."</p> + +<p>Then she finished dressing and went down to Roddy.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>He had perhaps expected that she would not come down, but there was no +opportunity given them for speech because the butler announcing dinner +followed her into the library. They went in.</p> + +<p>He sat opposite her, looking ashamed, with his eyes lowered, and the red +coming and going in his sunburned cheeks.</p> + +<p>They talked for the sake of the servants, and she asked him whether +Hawes had been as lovely as ever and whether Lady Rockington's nerves +were better, and how their youngest boy (delicate from his birth) was +now.</p> + +<p>Whilst she spoke her brain was turning, turning like a wheel; could she +only, for five minutes, think clearly, then might much after disaster be +avoided. She knew that in the conversation that was to come Roddy would +follow her lead and that it would be she who would be responsible for +all consequences.</p> + +<p>She knew that and yet she could not force her brain to be clear nor +foresee what the end of it all was to be.</p> + +<p>The dessert and the wine came at last and she went—</p> + +<p>"I'll be in the library, Roddy," she said.</p> + +<p>He gave her a quarter of an hour, and in that pause, with the house +quite silent all about her and the fire crackling and the lights softly +shining, she strove to discipline her mind.</p> + +<p>She had known as soon as she had seen them there that the most awful +element in it was that this had in no way altered the earlier case—it +merely precipitated a crisis and demanded a definition. Nothing could +have proved to her that she had never loved Roddy so much as her own +feeling at this crisis towards him. Therein lay her own sin.</p> + +<p>It was simply now of the future that she must think. The awful chasm +that might divide them after this night, were not their words most +carefully ordered, shook her with fear; peril to herself, for she could +stand aside and see herself quite clearly: and she knew that if to-night +she and he were to say things that they could neither of them afterwards +forget, then, for herself, and from her deep need of love and affection, +there was temptation awaiting her that no disguise could cover.</p> + +<p>Then, as more clearly she figured the scene in the garden, patience +seemed difficult to command.</p> + +<p>She hated Nita Raseley—that was no matter—but she despised Roddy, and +were he once to-night to see that contempt she knew that his after +remembrance of it would divide them more completely than anything else +could do.</p> + +<p>When he came in she had still no clearer idea of what she intended to +say, or how she wished things to go. She was sitting in an arm-chair by +the fire with her hands shielding her face, and he sat down opposite her +and stared at her and cleared his throat and wished that she would take +her hands down and then finally plunged:</p> + +<p>"Rachel—I don't know—I can't—hang it all, what <i>can</i> I say? I've been +a beastly cad and I'd cut my right hand off to have prevented it +happening——"</p> + +<p>She took her hand down and turned towards him—</p> + +<p>"Let's cut all the recrimination part, Roddy," she said. "It was very +unfortunate—that was all. It was rather beastly of you, and as for +Nita——"</p> + +<p>Here he broke in—"No, I say, you mustn't say anythin' about her. She +wasn't a little bit to blame—It just——"</p> + +<p>"Well, we'll leave Nita. She isn't of any importance, anyway. The point +is that things have been wrong for months between us, and as we haven't +been married very long that's a pity. This has just brought things to a +head, that's all——"</p> + +<p>"No," said Roddy firmly. "No, Rachel, that ain't fair to Nita. I know it +isn't nice, but I must put that out fair and square—fair and square to +Nita.</p> + +<p>"We'd had a jolly old drive to Hawes—rippin' day, cold as anythin', +with the horse just spankin' along, and then the Rockingtons were jolly +and the lunch was jolly and back we came. We looked about the house for +you and heard you were still out walkin', so we just strolled about the +garden a bit and then—Well, anyway, Nita simply had nothin' to do with +it. It was so rippin' and jolly after the drive and all, that I just +kissed her. All in a second I just felt I had to ... beastly weak of +me," he finally added in a contemplative tone.</p> + +<p>"Well, that disposes of Nita," said Rachel. "Don't let's mention her +again. Meanwhile what sort of life am I going to have if 'things' are +going to sweep over you like this continually? Besides, it's rather +early days, isn't it? We haven't been married half a year yet."</p> + +<p>"No," said Roddy slowly, "no, we haven't and it's simply beastly. I'm a +perfect swine. When I married you the one thing I meant to do was to be +just as kind to you as I jolly well could be, and give you a perfectly +rippin' time, and here I am hurtin' you like anything——"</p> + +<p>She moved impatiently. "Never mind that, Roddy. You <i>have</i> been very +kind and I'm sure you'd have given anything for me not to have come into +the garden just when I did, so as to have avoided hurting me. But what I +do know is that you're not straight with me. You know I told you before +we were married that the one thing that mattered was Truth—truth to +oneself and truth to everyone else—Well, we haven't been straight with +one another for a single instant. You've done any number of things that +would be wrong to you if I knew about them, but wouldn't be in the least +wrong if I didn't."</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Roddy, "no feller tells his wife everything—that +would be absurd. I think things are worse if people know about 'em whom +it hurts to know—<i>much</i> worse."</p> + +<p>She was suddenly confronted now with a Roddy whose assurance and +confidence in his own personality startled her. Because he had never +been gifted with words and liked to be in the company of dogs and horses +she had fancied that he had no ideas about anything.</p> + +<p>Rachel was a great deal younger than she knew and a great deal more +contemptuous of the other half world than her experience of it +justified. Strangely enough this confidence on Roddy's part angered her +more than anything else could have done.</p> + +<p>"The fact is that since our marriage we've never got to know each other +in the least. We talk and go to places together and you give me things +and I give you things—and that's all. I don't know you and now, after +to-day, I can't trust you——"</p> + +<p>He coloured a little at that, but said nothing.</p> + +<p>She went on, rather fast and her breath coming between her words: "But +I'm not going to be so silly as to make a scene because I saw you +kissing Nita Raseley. She's simply not worth thinking about,—but you +ought to be straighter to me all the way round. If you've wanted to be +kind to me as you say, then you might have taken me more into your +life——"</p> + +<p>"Well," said Roddy slowly, "if you'd managed to love me a bit, Rachel, +things might be different."</p> + +<p>This answer was so utterly unexpected that it took her like a blow. That +Roddy should attack <i>her</i> when he had, only a few hours before, been +discovered so abominably!</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, Roddy?" she stammered angrily. "Love you? But——"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he persisted doggedly, "I know when you accepted me you said you +didn't and I know that I hadn't any right to expect it, but I believe if +you hadn't thought me such a silly ass and hadn't looked all the time as +though you were just indulgin' my silly fancies until somethin' more +sensible had come along, things might have been different. I'm the sort +of feller," Roddy said, choosing his words carefully, "that you could +have made anythin' out of, Rachel. I'm weak in some ways—most men +are—and when a thing comes dancin' along lookin' ever so temptin', why, +then I generally have to go after it. But you could have kept me, +Rachel, more than anyone I've ever known——"</p> + +<p>She was not touched nor moved, only angered that he, so obviously in the +wrong, should attempt justification.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said hotly. "And I suppose in another moment you'll be +telling me that it's silly of me to be angry at what I saw this +afternoon?"</p> + +<p>He thought it out a moment, then answered: "No, it was perfectly natural +of course—only I don't think you ought to mind much. If you really +cared, you wouldn't. It don't matter <i>really</i> so much what I do if I +still like you best. Moments don't count—it's what goes on all the time +that matters. Why, I might kiss a hundred women and still you'd be the +only woman who mattered to me. I've never cared for one so long before," +he added simply.</p> + +<p>Then as she said nothing he went on: "I've never been sort of +educated—never cared enough for anyone to give things up. I would have +given things up for you if you'd wanted me to, but you didn't +really——"</p> + +<p>"Aren't we a little off the point, Roddy?" she flung back. "The point is +how are we going to get along all the years and years we've got in front +of us? What are we going to do?"</p> + +<p>"Everybody's just the same," said Roddy quietly. "It takes a lot of +years before married people settle down. We can't expect to be any +different——"</p> + +<p>But although he spoke so quietly he watched her, hoping for some +yielding on her part; in an instant, had she come to him, she would have +seen a Roddy whom she had never seen before and from that moment onwards +would have had a power over him that nothing could have shaken.</p> + +<p>So delicately hung the balance between them. But she was filled with a +sense of her own wrongs, her loneliness, the injustice of it all. At +that moment all affection for Roddy had left her, she would only have +been glad if she had known that she was never to see him again. His slow +voice, his way of thinking out his sentences, his thick clumsy hands and +his red face, everything came to her now as a continuation of the chains +that she had worn all her days.</p> + +<p>She got up and confronted him—</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said fiercely, "that's exactly it. Life is to be like +everyone else. We're to say the things, do the things that our +neighbours say and do. Because your friends at Brooks's kiss their +wives' friends, therefore you are to do so. Because the men you know +never say what they mean and lie about everything they do, therefore you +do the same. Oh! I know! Haven't I heard it all my life? Haven't my +precious family lived on lies? You've caught it all from my delightful +grandmother! I congratulate you!"</p> + +<p>"What if I have?" he said. "She's a friend of mine, Rachel. She's been +dashed good to me—You're not to say a word against her."</p> + +<p>"I hate her," Rachel cried passionately. "All my life she's been over +me—for years she's been my enemy. If she stands for everything that you +believe, then it isn't any wonder that we have nothing in common, that +you should be proud of this afternoon, that—that——"</p> + +<p>She was biting her lips to keep back the tears. Over his face had crept +a sulky obstinate look that might have told her, had she seen it, that +she was driving him very far.</p> + +<p>"She's fine," he said. "She's made England what it is. You're all for +ideas, Rachel, and for Truth and lots of things, but you're difficult to +live with."</p> + +<p>"Very well, Roddy. Thank you. Now we know how we stand. I at least owe +Nita a debt for having cleared up the situation. If you find it +difficult with me I can at least return the compliment—and I have at +any rate this added advantage, that I speak the truth."</p> + +<p>As he looked at her across the room he saw in her that same figure that +he'd seen once just before proposing to her—someone foreign, +unknown—He felt as though he were quarrelling with a stranger....</p> + +<p>She turned and went.</p> + +<p>For a long while he stood gazing into the fire, his hands in his +pockets. How had it all happened? Why had they let it come to that kind +of quarrel when they might so easily have prevented it?</p> + +<p>And she, crying bitterly in her room, asked herself the same question.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IVA" id="CHAPTER_IVA"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>RACHEL—AND CHRISTOPHER AND RODDY</h3> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Christopher had snatched his first holiday for two years and was abroad +during the January of 1899 when the Seddons were in town.</p> + +<p>February, March and April they spent at Seddon Court, and it was not +therefore until early in May that Christopher saw Rachel.</p> + +<p>She had dreaded with an almost fantastic alarm this meeting. No other +human being knew her so honestly and accurately as did Christopher, and +the change in her that he would at once discern would, when she caught +the reflection of it in his eyes, mark definitely the sinister country +into which these last months had carried her.</p> + +<p>It had seemed as though some malign spirit had been determined to make +the most of that quarrel that Nita Raseley had provoked.</p> + +<p>Both Roddy and Rachel hated scenes—upon that, at least, they were +agreed—and from their determination never to have another arose a +deliberate avoidance of any plain speaking. Rachel, longing for honesty, +found herself caught in a thousand deceits—Roddy, avoiding any kind of +analysis, found that everything that he provided in conversation seemed +to lead to danger.</p> + +<p>He was now always ill at ease in Rachel's company; he had stood on that +fatal evening, more strongly for the Beaminster interest than he had +intended, but from his very determination to maintain his new +independence, he produced the Duchess for Rachel's benefit at every turn +of the road.</p> + +<p>Roddy knew that the Duchess feared that Rachel would lead him from her +side and that she received with rejoicing every sign on his part of +irritation against Rachel. She had wanted him to marry her granddaughter +because that bound him more closely to her, but she had not, perhaps, +been prepared for the probable effect of Rachel's character upon him.</p> + +<p>The Duchess therefore made, throughout these months, a third member of +their company. Roddy, finding Rachel's society a growing embarrassment, +spent more and more of his time with his animals and his tenants and +labourers. But all this time he was conscious, in a dumb way, of +unhappiness and a puzzled dismay, so that his very affection for Rachel +produced in him a growing irritation that it should be so needlessly +thwarted. Things were all wrong and his resentment of his own failure to +right them reacted, without his will, upon the very person whom he +wished to propitiate.</p> + +<p>For Rachel these months were baffling in their hideous discomfort. Her +affection for Roddy was there, but it was swallowed by her desperate +efforts to analyse a situation that was, in definite outline, no +situation at all.</p> + +<p>As Roddy withdrew, her loneliness wrapped her round, and in every day +that added to her distance from Roddy she saw the active and malignant +agency of her grandmother. She was intelligent enough to be aware that +in this constant vision of the Duchess she was outstepping the +probabilities; but her early years and the precipitation with which she +had been shot out of them into an atmosphere that unexpectedly resembled +their own earlier surroundings seemed to point to some diabolical +agency.</p> + +<p>"Oh! when I get free of this," had been her earlier cry, and now the +foreboding that she was never to be free of it until she died terrified +her with its possibility. Imagine her brought up in a stuffy house with +windows tightly closed, in full vision of a high road, imagine her +promised the freedom of the road at a future time; imagine her +liberated, at last, rushing into the new life and finding that, after +all, the walls of the house were still about her, and about her now for +ever.</p> + +<p>Her one reserve during the early months of the year at Seddon had been +her letters to Francis Breton. His letters to her had been a series of +self-revelation; he had restrained himself in so far as appealing to her +simply on the score of their relationship and his enmity to the head of +the house. She had replied revealing her sympathy, hinting at rebellion +on her own side and feeling, after the writing of every letter, a hatred +of her own deceit, a curiously heightened sense of affection for Roddy, +above all a conviction that impulses were, of their own agency, working +to some climax that she could not, or would not, control.</p> + +<p>The foreign blood in her, the English blood in him, baffled their +advances toward one another. Everything that Rachel did now seemed to +Roddy so close to melodrama that it was best to use silence for his +weapon. All Roddy's actions were to Rachel further illustrations of +Beaminster muddle and second-rate personality.</p> + +<p>Had Roddy called out of Rachel the great depth of passion and reality +that she inherited from her mother her own love of him would have solved +everything—but that he could not call from her, nor ever would.</p> + +<p>For Rachel, she saw in him now a possibility of perpetual infidelity, +and at every suspicion of it her disgust both at herself and him grew +because that possibility did not move her more.</p> + +<p>They came up to London at the beginning of May and hid, very +successfully from the world, the widening breach.</p> + +<p>To Rachel, it was sheer terror to discover the thrill that the adjacence +of Elliston Square to Saxton Square gave her. In this one +self-revelation there was enough to present her with night after night +of sleepless misery. She visited the Duchess and found that her presence +was continually demanded. Every visit was a battle.</p> + +<p>"Show me how you are treating him, whether he cares for you. Have you +found him out? Tell me everything——"</p> + +<p>"I will tell you nothing. I will come here day after day and you shall +gather nothing from me. I have escaped you."</p> + +<p>"Indeed you have not escaped me. My power over you is only now +beginning——"</p> + +<p>No word between them but the most civil. There was no trace in the old +woman now of her earlier irony—no sign in Rachel of irritation or +rebellion.</p> + +<p>But the girl knew that war was declared, that her only ally was one in +whose alliance lay, for her, the very heart of danger.</p> + +<p>All these things she might hide from the world—from Christopher she +knew that she could hide nothing.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>It was on an early afternoon in May that Christopher had tea with +Rachel. He had waited for his visit with very real anxiety; the letters +that he had had from her had been unsatisfactory, not because they were +actively expressive of unhappiness, but because there was an effort in +every word of them—Rachel had never found it difficult to write to him +before.</p> + +<p>He was also uneasy because he had been against this marriage from the +beginning. He did, as he said to the Duchess, know Rachel better than +anyone else knew her; he knew her from his love for her, and also from +that scientific study that he applied in his profession. And he had +found, too, in her, as he had found in Breton, some strain of fierce +helplessness, as of an animal caught in a trap, that especially moved +his interest and affection—</p> + +<p>Was Rachel's marriage a disaster? If so she had certainly managed to +conceal it, for even the Duchess did not know—of that he was sure.</p> + +<p>If Rachel were indeed unhappy would she come to him as she used to come +to him?</p> + +<p>What change had marriage wrought in her?</p> + +<p>It was one of those May days when the weather is hot before London is +ready. It was a day of tension; buildings, streets quivered beneath a +sun in whose gaze there was no kindliness nor comfort. Christopher drove +from Eaton Square, where, for some hours he had been engaged in +preventing an old man from dying, when both the old man himself and all +his friends and relations were convinced that death was the best thing +for him—</p> + +<p>Sloane Street ran like white steel before his eyes, not dimly veiled as +he had so often seen it; Park Lane offered houses that stared with +haughty faces upon a world that would, they knew, do anything for +money—</p> + +<p>Elliston Square itself was white and sterile; the town was, on this +afternoon, irritated, sinister ... feet ached upon its pavements and +hearts were suddenly clutched with foreboding.</p> + +<p>As he ascended in the lift to her flat he knew that, did he find that +this marriage was, truly, a misadventure for Rachel, then, until his +death, he would reproach himself for some weak inaction, some hesitation +when first he had heard that it was to be.</p> + +<p>He <i>had</i> protested, but now he felt that he should have done more.</p> + +<p>Soon he had his answer to all his questions.</p> + +<p>He saw at once that Rachel was no longer the impulsive, nervous girl +whom he had always known. She was a girl no longer.</p> + +<p>Her eyes greeted him now steadily, she seemed taller and her body was in +perfect control—very tall and slim and dark, her cheeks pale but +shadowed a little with the shadow deepening beneath her eyes. Her mouth, +that had always been too large, had had before a delightful quality of +uncertainty, so that smiles and frowns and alarms, distress and +happiness all hovered near. It was now grave and composed.</p> + +<p>Her limbs had always moved unsteadily and with the awkward lack of +control of a child, now there was no kind of impulse, every movement was +considered, and that was the first thing that Christopher saw, that +nothing that Rachel now did or said was spontaneous.</p> + +<p>There was less in her now to remind him of her foreign blood.</p> + +<p>The flat was comfortable, but more commonplace than it would have been +had it been Rachel's only.</p> + +<p>He kissed her, as he had always done, and he fancied that she clung for +a moment to him, as her hands went up to his coat.</p> + +<p>He settled his big loose body and looked across at her.</p> + +<p>Christopher was no subtle analyser of other people's emotions. His own +feelings were never complicated and he expected life to run on plain and +simple lines of likes and dislikes, sorrow, anger, love and hatred. If +someone of whom he was fond made a direct appeal to him his simple +remedies were often wonderfully useful—he was no fool and he had been +brought, during a great number of years, into the most direct relations +with men and women, but, if that direct appeal was not made, then he was +frightened and baffled.</p> + +<p>He was frightened of Rachel now; he knew instantly that instead of +appealing she would defend herself from him.... Some mysterious +conviction seemed to forebode that he would not be able to help her. He +was, essentially, of those who, believing in goodness and virtue and the +glorious Millennium, are contented, quite simply, with that belief and +might, if they stated those simplicities, irritate the scoffers. But he +was saved because he made statements on the rarest occasions and lived +his life instead.</p> + +<p>Here, however, was a crisis in his relations with Rachel that no +platitudes could satisfy. Did he not touch her now he might never touch +her again.</p> + +<p>In a situation that was beyond him he was always hopelessly +self-conscious. His love for Rachel was so tremendous a thing in him +that a statement of it should surely have been the simplest thing in +the world. But he saw in her eyes that to challenge her with—"My dear, +you know how I love you. Tell me what's the matter," would frighten her +to absolute silence. "I'm going to tell you nothing," she seemed to say +to him, "unless you move me in spite of myself. But, if I don't tell you +now I shall never tell you."</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear," he said, smiling at her, "how are you after all this +time?"</p> + +<p>"I'm all right," she answered, smiling back at him. "It is good to see +you again. Tell me all about your holiday."</p> + +<p>"Tell me about yours first."</p> + +<p>"Oh! There isn't very much to tell. I enjoyed it all enormously, of +course."</p> + +<p>"What did you enjoy most?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! some of the smaller towns—Rapallo, for instance.—Oh! yes, and +Bologna was fascinating."</p> + +<p>"Not Rome and Florence?"</p> + +<p>"In a way. But there were too many tourists. Rome one's got to stay in, +I'm sure. That first view was disappointing."</p> + +<p>"And how did Roddy—if I may call him Roddy—enjoy it?"</p> + +<p>"Immensely, I think. He liked the country better than the towns though."</p> + +<p>"You saw lots of pictures?"</p> + +<p>"Heaps. Roddy enjoyed them enormously. I'd no idea he knew so much about +them. Oh! it was all lovely, and such colours, such light—London seems +like a cellar, even in June."</p> + +<p>There followed then a pause that swelled and swelled between them until +it resembled some dreadful monster, horribly stationed there to separate +them.</p> + +<p>Christopher looked at Rachel, but she refused to meet his eyes.</p> + +<p>"I've lost her. I shall never see her again!" he thought with despair. +Two years ago he would have gone to her, put his arms around her, +kissed her and drawn from her at once her trouble.</p> + +<p>He could not do that now.</p> + +<p>"Your turn, Dr. Chris dear. Tell me about your holidays."</p> + +<p>"Oh, mine don't count. I went to Brittany first, then up to St. Andrews +with another man to play golf."</p> + +<p>"You're looking splendidly well and you're thinner. What was Brittany +like?"</p> + +<p>"Delightful. Have you ever been there?"</p> + +<p>"Never. I must get Roddy to take me. Just suit him, I should think."</p> + +<p>To Christopher's intense relief tea was brought. He came to the table +and then, for an instant, he did catch her eyes, saw tears in them, and +behind the tears some appeal to him to help her. Her hand was shaking.</p> + +<p>"How silly of me to spill your tea. I'm so sorry. Let me pour it +back...."</p> + +<p>"Rachel——" he began, but a servant entered with something and he +waited. When they were alone again, standing over her as though he were +afraid that she would escape him, he plunged.</p> + +<p>"Rachel dear. We're talking as though we'd never met before. You've +never been shy with me like this. If marriage is going to make a +stranger of you, I shall break young Seddon's neck——"</p> + +<p>"No," she said in a voice that was between laughter and tears. "Of +course, Dr. Chris. Things are just the same between us, only, +only—well, I'm married and—one thing and another, you know."</p> + +<p>He caught both her hands.</p> + +<p>"You're perfectly happy?"</p> + +<p>She met his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Perfectly."</p> + +<p>"Happier than you've ever been in your life?"</p> + +<p>She dropped her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Happier than I've ever been in my life."</p> + +<p>"And you'll come to me just the same if there's any kind of trouble?"</p> + +<p>"Of course."</p> + +<p>"You promise?"</p> + +<p>"I promise."</p> + +<p>They talked then, for a little time, of other things. But he was not +satisfied. Rachel's soul, caught away in alarm, was still beyond his +grasp.</p> + +<p>At last, feeling that the moments were precious and that Roddy might at +any instant appear, he sat down on the sofa beside her.</p> + +<p>"Rachel dear. Something's worrying you. You won't tell me?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing's worrying——"</p> + +<p>"Ah, but I know—well, if you won't you won't—but if you knew how much +I loved you you'd feel that you were cruel not to let me help you."</p> + +<p>"<i>Dear</i> Dr. Chris—but there is <i>nothing</i>."</p> + +<p>But her eyes were full of tears.</p> + +<p>"Look here," he said. "Perhaps you'll feel later on you can talk to me. +Just come straight away if you do feel that."</p> + +<p>He went on. "Don't be frightened, my dear, if there are a whole heap of +new emotions, new instincts, stirred in you by marriage. Just take them +all as they come. It's all progress, you know. Don't be frightened of +anything. Just take the animal by the head and look at it."</p> + +<p>That led him to speak about Brun's Tiger. He explained it—the force in +people, the way they either grappled with the creature, and at last +trained it to help them with their work in the world, or ignored it, +silenced it, allowed it at last to die, and so, cosy and lazily +comfortable, passed to their day's end, but had, nevertheless, missed +the whole purpose of life.</p> + +<p>He enlarged on that and showed the connection of the individual Tiger +with the welfare of the world, so that everyone who denied his Tiger +added to his world's muddle and confusion, and at last there would come +an inevitable crisis when war would spring up between those who had +grappled with their Tiger and those who had not.</p> + +<p>"One knows one's own Tiger—absolutely of oneself one knows it and has, +of oneself, the choice whether to grapple or not—at least that's what I +gathered he meant—I know it struck me at the time."</p> + +<p>"Oh," she said, with a sigh that quivered through her whole body. "It's +so <i>easy</i> to talk.... But it's true what he says. I know it."</p> + +<p>At last Christopher got up to go. He did not know whether he had done +any good; he felt that he was a miserable failure, and he had a +foreboding that one day he would be ashamed indeed that he had not +helped her.</p> + +<p>"Do something," a voice seemed to tell him. "You'll regret ... all your +life you'll regret."</p> + +<p>He turned and held again her hands in his.... "Rachel—dear—tell +me——"</p> + +<p>Her hands were chill and lifeless. Her voice caught. "Oh! Dr. Chris!..." +Then she suddenly stepped back from him—</p> + +<p>"<i>It's</i> all right.... I'm all right. Come again soon, Dr. Chris +dear—come soon."</p> + +<p>He left her and found his way into the hot, breathless street.</p> + +<p>After he had gone Rachel sat, staring beyond the room out on to the +white walls of the houses and the green branches of the trees in the +square.</p> + +<p>Roddy came in.</p> + +<p>All the afternoon he had been thinking about her; at one moment he was +furious with the discomfort that life was now becoming to him, at +another moment he was imagining little plans that would sweep all the +discomfort away.</p> + +<p>All this spring they had been miserable together. Now was beginning a +time that was always jolly in London and yet he could not enjoy a moment +of it. Did she dislike him instead of liking him, or did he like her +instead of loving her, it would all be so easy—just the same as any +other couple.</p> + +<p>Ever since that silly Nita incident there had been this restraint, and +yet how could that be the cause?</p> + +<p>Rachel had made nothing of it; it was because it had meant so little to +her that he had chafed so at the remembrance of it.</p> + +<p>She was fond of him—he knew that—she was miserably unhappy.</p> + +<p>He loved her—and he was miserably unhappy.</p> + +<p>Damn this weather.</p> + +<p>He looked at her, wondered what would happen did he cross over and +suddenly kiss her, knew that he would see her struggle to be kind, to +give him what he wanted, knew that that would hurt most damnably, and +that he would be in a bad temper for the rest of the evening and would +wonder why—</p> + +<p>So, with a muttered word he went out and up to his dressing-room, had a +bath, and then lay reading with serious brows <i>The Winning Post</i> until +his man told him that it was time to dress.</p> + +<p>Slowly and with the absorbed care that he always gave to these +preparations he made himself ready for the Beaminster dinner.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VA" id="CHAPTER_VA"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>LIZZIE'S JOURNEY—I</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comes home again, on better judgment making;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In sleep a king; but waking no such matter."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">William Shakespeare</span>.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>During this year Lizzie Rand was glad that she had so much to do. As she +had never until now given the romance in her an opportunity for freedom, +so had she never before realized the amazing invasion upon life that +that same romance might threaten.</p> + +<p>Indeed by the early summer months of 1899 "threaten" was no longer an +honest definition, for, now this same Romance had invaded, had +conquered, had confronted the very citadels of Lizzie's heart, citadels +never surveyed nor challenged at any time before.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, even now, Portland Place noticed no change in Miss Rand. +Norris, Mrs. Newton, Dorchester would still, had they been challenged, +have protested that Miss Rand had no conception of the softer, more +sentimental side of life; she was there for discipline and order—Norris +had been known to be led a fearful dance by young women "time and +again"—Mrs. Newton had passionately adored the late Mr. Newton until a +sudden chill had carried him to St. Agnes, Bare Street Cemetery, whither +Mrs. Newton, every Sunday, did still make her stately pilgrimage—even +Dorchester had once, it was said, paid grim attentions to a soldier who +had, unhappily, found in some fluffy young woman a more hopeful comfort.</p> + +<p>Here, above and below stairs, passion had marked its victims ... Miss +Rand only could have felt no touch of it.</p> + +<p>She sometimes wondered at herself that she could so calmly and +dispassionately separate the one life from the other. Never, within that +neat stern room at Portland Place, was there a shudder or sudden +invading thrill at some flashing recollection or imagination. To her +work every nerve, every energy was given. Now, indeed, more than ever +before in her experience of it did 104 Portland Place demand her +presence. Increasingly throughout these months of 1899 was the solemn +heavy air unsettled.</p> + +<p>Lizzie, to whom all impression came with sharpening acuteness, had seen +in the appearance, success and marriage of Rachel Beaminster the +disturbing elements at work—"Things will never be the same here +again"—she had said to herself.</p> + +<p>It was, of course, through Lady Adela that Lizzie studied the house. The +Duchess she never saw, but it was Lady Adela's attitude, before and +after those interviews with her mother, that told their story. Lady +Adela had never until now appeared an interesting figure to Lizzie, but +now forth, from the dry sterile husk of her, a life, pathetic, +struggling against heritages of dumb years, tried to come.</p> + +<p>Lady Adela was unhappy; the very foundations of her existence threatened +to dismay her, at any moment, by their insecurity. Within her the +Beaminster tradition urged, before Lizzie Rand at any rate, the +maintenance of dignity and indifference, but the novelty to her of all +this disturbance brought with it a hapless inability to deal with it, +and again and again little exclamations, little surprised wonders at +what the world could be coming to, little confused clutchings at +anything that offered stability, showed Lizzie that trouble was on every +side of her. Then through the house rumour began to twist its way—Her +Grace was not so well—"The Old Lady was breaking up" (this, in the +close security of shuttered rooms below stairs).</p> + +<p>No one could say whence these whispers gathered. Dorchester would admit +nothing. Her own position in the servants' hall was that of a lofty +uncompromising female Jove, and she knew well enough that her supremacy +over Norris and Mrs. Newton depended on her mistress's supremacy over +the world in general. Not for her then to admit ill health.</p> + +<p>"Indeed no—Her Grace has been better of late than for years past."</p> + +<p>But Norris and Mrs. Newton were not to be taken in. They were truly +proud now of their alliance with the Beaminster family royal, but, +supposing Her Grace were to leave this world to rule in a better one +("Here to-day, gone to-morrow 'igh or low," as Norris remarked), why, +then "Le Roi est mort—Vive le Roi," and the Crown might, in the +meanwhile, have passed elsewhere.</p> + +<p>"You mark my words," Mrs. Newton said to Norris, "'er Grace will go, old +Victorier will go, and where'll the Beaminster crowd be then, I ask you? +Times are movin' too quick. I wouldn't give a toss for your Birth and +Debrett and all in another twenty years."</p> + +<p>To Lizzie also there came other signs of the times. She noticed that now +the relations and friends of the family gathered more frequently +together than ever before within her memory. The Duke, Lord Richard were +continually in the house, and the adherents, Lady Carloes, Lord Crewner, +the Massiters and all the others, called, dined, came to tea.</p> + +<p>Throughout it all there was no expression of any change in the family +policy. To Lizzie Lady Adela admitted nothing, only there were occasions +when, almost against her will, she asked for advice, was uncertain a +little, vague a little, even appealing a little.</p> + +<p>Here Lizzie was exactly right, assisted and yet admitted no need for +assistance. Her tact was perfect.</p> + +<p>Lizzie had also Lady Seddon to besiege her attention.</p> + +<p>To her considerable surprise Rachel had written to her three times +during this year. On each occasion there had been some definite reason +for writing, but behind the reason there had been some implied +friendliness and Lizzie had, in her turn, sent answers that were more +than businesslike replies.</p> + +<p>Lizzie had seen Rachel several times in January and at each meeting her +impression of Rachel's unhappiness had grown.</p> + +<p>"There've been three of you," Lizzie said to herself. "There was the +girl in the schoolroom, and a fierce awkward difficult creature she was. +There was the girl in her first season, and a delightful, joyful, +radiant creature she was. And now—well, there's a girl married, fierce +again, suffering again—above all, afraid of herself."</p> + +<p>In May Rachel asked Lizzie to go and see her, and Lizzie went. That +meeting was in no way personal: Rachel seemed less friendly than she had +been on that day, a year ago, when she had been to Lizzie's, but behind +all that outward stiffness the appeal was there.</p> + +<p>"She wants me to help her," thought Lizzie. "She's too proud now to ask +me: the time will come though."</p> + +<p>All this was connected, she knew, with the fortunes of the house. +Through Lord John, Lord Richard, the Duke, Lady Adela, Dorchester, +Norris, Mrs. Newton the spirit of uneasiness was abroad.</p> + +<p>The Duchess, during these months, more than ever before, was present in +every room and passage of the house—</p> + +<p>The shadow of some coming event hovered.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Over Lizzie's other life, also, the Duchess hovered. Were any disaster +to snatch Her Grace from the domination of this world into a +comparatively humble position in the next, Lizzie did not doubt that the +Beaminsters would once more take Francis Breton into their ranks. It was +the Duchess who held the gate against him.</p> + +<p>The romantic side of her did not hold complete dominion. She knew that +were Francis Breton once more accepted by the family, his distance from +her would be greatly increased. Were he, on the other hand, to marry +her whilst he was yet an exile, then had she no fear of after +consequences. She could hold her own with anyone.</p> + +<p>She had now very little doubt that he loved her. She had seen, during +the last year, the flame of some passion burning in his eyes, +increasingly he depended upon her and found opportunities for being with +her. There was no other woman whom he saw, of that she was convinced.</p> + +<p>Often he had been about to tell her some secret and then had refrained; +she thought that he was waiting until he could be quite assured that she +loved him, and she had fancied that since that day in last December when +the first snow had fallen and they had had that little talk together he +had been much happier, as though he were now convinced of her love for +him.</p> + +<p>The spring passed and still his confession did not come. With the early +summer he seemed to be once more unhappy and unsettled, and throughout +May she scarcely saw him.</p> + +<p>Then in July he asked her whether she would dine with him and go to the +theatre. He had two dress circle tickets for <i>Mrs. Lemiter's Decision</i>.</p> + +<p>Something told her that on this evening he would speak to her.</p> + +<p>As she dressed her fingers trembled so that buttons and hooks and laces +were of terrible difficulty. In the glass she saw her cheeks flaming; +she wished she were taller, not so sturdy. The lines of her face, she +thought, were all so set as though they knew well for what purpose they +were there. "Business <i>we're</i> here for ..." they seemed to say.</p> + +<p>For once she envied her sister's fair rounded fluffiness. Her black +evening dress was fashionable, almost smart, but just a little stern: +she fastened some dark red carnations into her waist and hung around her +throat a chain of tiny pearls, her only piece of jewellery. Her hair was +restrained and disciplined—she could not extract from it any waves or +soft indulgencies.</p> + +<p>At the end, staring at her reflection, she let herself go.</p> + +<p>"He's seen me all this time as I am. How silly to try to alter things!" +Her face glowed, the pearls and carnations seemed to smile encouragement +to her.</p> + +<p>What possibilities had this new, this wonderful Lizzie Rand! What a life +might be hers! What a happy, fortunate woman she was!</p> + +<p>God, how grateful she was!</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rand saw them off in a four-wheeler with an air of reluctance. It +always hurt her that anyone should go to the theatre without her.</p> + +<p>Of course Lizzie was old enough by now to look after herself, but at the +same time this Mr. Breton was no safe character and it would have been +altogether "nicer" if Lizzie had suggested her company—</p> + +<p>Lizzie had not suggested it; with a shiver Mrs. Rand resigned herself to +an evening made hideous by a vision of a world crowded with theatres +through whose portals gay audiences were pouring—</p> + +<p>"Of course it's selfish of her," she said again and again to +Daisy—"Selfish is the only word."</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the cab was, for Lizzie, a chariot of happiness. He looked +splendid to-night, more romantic than he had ever been, with his pointed +beard, his armless sleeve buttoned across on to his coat, his top-hat +shining, his clothes fitting so perfectly. Poor though he was, he always +stood up as smart as anyone, the Duke or Lord John were no smarter.</p> + +<p>Did he realize, she wondered, that the edge of his hand touched the silk +of her dress? Did he notice the absurd way that the pearls jumped up and +down on her throat? Did he feel the little shiver of happiness that ran +through her body and out at her toes and fingers?</p> + +<p>The chariot was dark, but beyond it there were piled lighted buildings; +before these ran streets that flung dark figures, here one by one, now +in throngs, against the glittering colour.</p> + +<p>She could not believe that anyone there by the lumbering cab could show +happiness that could equal hers.</p> + +<p>Had she been coldly surveying, from the careful distance of an outside +observer, these emotions in some other woman she would have demanded her +reasons for such expectation of happiness, but it was her very +inexperience of any other such affair in her life that allowed her now +to rest assured. As he touched her hand to help her into the restaurant +she was sure, by the beating of her heart, that she could not be +deceived.</p> + +<p>The restaurant was in Pall Mall, and as she went in she noticed the +string of faithful people waiting round the corner of Her Majesty's +Theatre; she was glad that there were so many others enjoying themselves +to-night.</p> + +<p>They sat at a little round table on a balcony and below them other happy +people were laughing and talking—Flowers, lights, women not so +beautiful that they disheartened one, and, from the open windows, a +whir, a rattle, a shout, a cry, a bell, a hurdy-gurdy, a laugh—Oh! the +world was turning to-night!</p> + +<p>There was a beautiful dinner, but she was far too happy to eat much. He +seemed to understand. They both talked a little, but it was, it +appeared, implied between them that their real conversation should be +postponed.</p> + +<p>She was, to herself, an utterly new Lizzie Rand to-night, inarticulate, +uncertain, confused.</p> + +<p>"What's this the papers say about South Africa?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it looks as though there were going to be trouble there. But you +can trust Milner—a strong man——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I suppose so—but it seems a pity that this Conference that they +hoped so much from has all fallen through, doesn't it? They do seem +obstinate people."</p> + +<p>"Well, they are. I was out in Pretoria in '95—obstinate as mules. But +there won't be much trouble—a troop or two of our fellows have only got +to show their faces——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course. Isn't that a pretty woman down there? There to the +right—with the black hair and the diamonds—tall—"</p> + +<p>But tall women with black hair and Boers in South Africa were merely +points to catch hold, and, for an instant, the thrill of the contact and +the anticipation and the glorious vision of the wonderful future.</p> + +<p>Him all this time she closely observed. He was not entirely at his ease, +when she had been in public with him before she had noticed it, his +glance at every new-comer, his conscious summoning of control lest it +should be someone whom he had once known, someone who might now, +perhaps, not know him.</p> + +<p>It made him in her eyes all the younger, all the more happily demanding +her protection; how terribly she loved him she had never, she thought, +realized until this moment.</p> + +<p>The Haymarket Theatre, where <i>Mrs. Lemiter's Decision</i> had been given to +a grateful world for nearly two hundred nights, was next door.</p> + +<p>In a moment they were there and the band was playing and the lights were +up, and then the band was not playing and the lights were down, and she +was instantly conscious of the places where his body touched hers and of +his hand lying white upon his knee.</p> + +<p>She, Lizzie Rand, most perfect of private secretaries, most sedate and +composed of women, found it all that her self-control could secure that +she should not then and there have touched that hand with her own.</p> + +<p>It was not really a good play. There was a lady, Mrs. Lemiter, who had +once done what she should not have done. There were a number of ladies +and gentlemen, placed round her by the author, in order that she should, +for the benefit of as many audiences as possible, confess what she <i>had</i> +done.</p> + +<p>During the first and second acts Mrs. Lemiter made little dashes towards +escape and the author (naturally omniscient) always placed someone in +front of her just in time and there were cries of "Not this way, my good +woman." At the end of the third act, Mrs. Lemiter, thoroughly bored and +exasperated, turned on them all and, for a good twenty minutes, told +them what she thought of them.</p> + +<p>During the fourth act they all assured her that they liked her very much +and that, as it was now eleven o'clock and she'd lost her temper so +successfully that the house would certainly be filled for many months to +come, they'd all better have tea or dinner, whilst a young couple, who +had throughout the play loved one another and quarrelled, made it up +again.</p> + +<p>When the play was at an end Lizzie did not know what it had been about. +She took his hand and when he was about to hail a cab stopped him.</p> + +<p>"Let's walk," she said, "it's such a lovely night."</p> + +<p>He eagerly agreed and they started.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>She knew that her moment had come; he knew too—she could tell that +because all the way up the Haymarket he said nothing.</p> + +<p>Piccadilly Circus was a screaming confusion. A music-hall invited you to +come and hear "Harry and Clare, drawing-room entertainers." Lights—red +and green and gold—flashed and advised drinks and hair-oil and tobacco. +Ladies, highly coloured and a little dishevelled; stared haughtily but +inquisitively about them, boys shouted newspapers and dived under horses +and appeared, miraculously delivered from the wheels of omnibuses.</p> + +<p>It was a rushing, whirling confusion and through it his arm led her, +happier in his secure guard than in anything else under heaven.</p> + +<p>Regent Street was quiet and softly coloured above the maelstrom into +which it flowed. He suddenly began:</p> + +<p>"I've got something I want to tell you—something I've wanted to tell +you for a long time. You must have seen——"</p> + +<p>Her voice coming to her as though it were a stranger's, said, "Yes." At +the same time, looking about her, almost unconsciously, she registered +her memory of the place and the hour—the shelving street, rising with +its lamps reflected, before them, a bank of dark cloud that had suddenly +appeared and hung, sinister against the night sky, behind the white +houses, a slip of a silver moon surveying this same cloud with anxiety +because it knew that soon its darkness would engulf it.</p> + +<p>"I've wanted to tell you," he began again, "this long time. It's needed +courage, and things during this last year have rather taken my courage +away from me."</p> + +<p>"You needn't be afraid," she said with a little laugh. "You ought to +know by this time that you can tell me anything, Mr. Breton."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do know," he said earnestly. "Of course I know. What you've been +to me all this last year—I simply can't think how I'd have kept up if +it hadn't been for you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, please," she said.</p> + +<p>"No, but it's true. Even with you it's been a bit of a fight."</p> + +<p>He paused. She saw that the black cloud had already swallowed up the +moon and that a few raindrops were beginning to fall.</p> + +<p>He went on: "You must have seen that all this time something's been +helping me. I've never spoken to you, but you've known——"</p> + +<p>The moment had come. Her heart had surely stopped its beat and she was +glad, in her happiness, of the rain that was now falling more swiftly.</p> + +<p>"I don't know—" he stammered a little. "It's so difficult. It's come to +this, that I must speak to somebody and you're the only person, the only +person. But even with one's best friends—one knows them so +slightly—after all, perhaps, you'll think it very wrong——"</p> + +<p>At that word it was as though a great hammer had, of a sudden, hit her +heart and slain it. The street, shining with the rain, rose ever so +little and bent towards her.</p> + +<p>"Wrong?" she said, looking up at him.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I don't know about your standards—you've been always so kind to +me and put up with my faults and so I've been encouraged——"</p> + +<p>Her relief should have awaked the gods of Olympus with its triumph.</p> + +<p>"I've meant everything I've ever said——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'm sure you have and that's why I think you'll understand. As I +say, I've got to tell someone or I'll burst. It's just this—it's my +cousin Rachel—Lady Seddon. Ever since we first met in your room she's +been my whole world. Nothing else has mattered. It's she that's kept me +all these months from going under. She's my life, my whole existence now +and in the world to come, if there is one. Oh! Thank God!" he cried. +"I've told someone at last. If you don't approve I can't help it. I know +you'll keep my secret and, after all, it's nothing very terrible. I'm +content to go on like this, just seeing her sometimes, writing to her +sometimes. Now you know, Miss Rand, what's been my secret all this time. +I've felt it's been between us and that's why I had to tell you. We'll +be twice the friends that we were now that I've told you. And I must, I +<i>must</i> have someone to talk to about her sometimes. It's been killing +me, getting along without it."</p> + +<p>Now that he had begun words poured from him. He did not know that it was +raining; he saw only Rachel with her white face and dark hair.</p> + +<p>Lizzie pulled her wrap about her; she was very cold and the rain was +coming fast.</p> + +<p>He was suddenly conscious of this.</p> + +<p>"I say, what a brute I am! It's pouring!" He called a passing hansom and +they climbed into it.</p> + +<p>He was aware that she had said nothing.</p> + +<p>"There!" he said, "you wish I hadn't told you. I know you do. You're +shocked."</p> + +<p>"No," she said, struggling to prevent her teeth from chattering.</p> + +<p>He felt her shiver. "Why! you're shaking with cold! We oughtn't to have +walked, but I did so want to speak to you about this. We must talk about +it another time. But, I say, you aren't really horrified about it, are +you?"</p> + +<p>"No," she said again. "Another time though—There must be thunder. This +storm makes my head ache."</p> + +<p>She could say no more. The rest of the drive was in silence. In the hall +she thanked him for her delightful evening.</p> + +<p>She looked through the drawing-room door and wished her mother and +sister good night, but did not stay to discuss incidents.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mrs. Rand, who had a fine list of questions ready about the +play—"There's selfishness!"</p> + +<p>Lizzie locked her door, undressed and lay down.</p> + +<p>Like a sword jagging through and through her brain and piercing from +there down to her heart stabbed the refrain:</p> + +<p>"Oh! I hate her! I hate her! I hate her!"</p> + +<p>So, wide-eyed, she lay throughout the night.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIA" id="CHAPTER_VIA"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>ALL THE BEAMINSTERS</h3> + +<blockquote><p>"We must expect change," returned Mrs. Chick.</p> + +<p>"Of weather?" asked Miss Tox in her simplicity.</p> + +<p>"Of everything," returned Mrs. Chick. "Of course we must. It's +a world of change. Anyone would surprise me very much, +Lucretia, and would greatly alter my opinion of their +understanding, if they attempted to contradict or evade what is +so perfectly evident. Change!" exclaimed Mrs. Chick, with +severe philosophy—"Why, my gracious me, what is there that +does <i>not</i> change! Even the silkworm, who I am sure might be +supposed not to trouble itself about such subjects, changes +into all sorts of unexpected things continually."</p> + +<p><i>Dombey and Son.</i></p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>At four o'clock on the afternoon of Wednesday, October 11th, in this +year 1899 war between England and South Africa was declared.</p> + +<p>At that same hour on that same afternoon an afternoon party was given by +Lady Adela Beaminster at 104 Portland Place, and all the more important +believers in the Beaminster religion were present.</p> + +<p>The Long Drawing-room had the happy property of extending to accommodate +its company and now, shadowy as its corners always were, it yielded the +impression still of size and space, its mirrors reflecting its dark +green walls that receded from the figures that thronged it.</p> + +<p>The Duchess (now Ross's portrait of her) hung above the Adams fireplace +and a little globe of light shone, on this dark October day, up into +that sharp and wizened face and lit those bending fingers and flung +forward the dull green jade and the dark black dress.</p> + +<p>Many people were present. The Duke, Lord John, Lord Richard of +course—also, of course, Lady Carloes, the Massiters, Lord Crewner, +Monty Carfax, Brun, Maurice Garden the novelist, and his wife—also a +fine collection of ladies and gentlemen, important in politics, in the +graver camps of society—also a certain number who belonged by party to +those whom Brun had once called the Aristocrats, the Chichesters, the +Medleys, the Darrants. Old Lady Darrant was there looking like a cook, +and Fred Chichester and his kind and freckled features, and Mrs. Medley +who had married Judge Medley's only son.</p> + +<p>Of the Democrats—of the Ruddards, the Denisons, the Oaks, not one to be +seen.</p> + +<p>The men and women who stood about in the room seemed strangely, oddly, +of one family. No human being present was without his or her +self-consciousness, but it was a self-consciousness that had about it +nothing vulgar or strident. No voice in that room was raised, the very +laughter implied, "Here we are, in the very Court of our Temple; we may +then relax a little. For a time, at any rate, we know who we all are."</p> + +<p>This security was implied on every hand. It was: "Young Rorke's going +out—he's the son of Alice Branches—he married old Truddits' daughter," +or—</p> + +<p>"No, I don't know him personally, but Dick Barnett has seen him once or +twice and says he's a very decent feller," or—</p> + +<p>"Well, I should go carefully, if I were you. Neither the Massiters nor +the Crawfords know her and, in fact, I can't find anyone who does."</p> + +<p>Had a stranger penetrated into the fastnesses of the Chichesters or the +Medleys he would have been overwhelmed with courtesy and politeness and, +unless he had full credentials, would have been utterly excluded at the +end of it. Had he boldly invaded the Denisons he would, unless he could +prove his contribution to the entertainment of the day, have been told +frankly that he was not wanted.</p> + +<p>Had he passed the doors of No. 104 and had no proof of his Beaminster +faith upon him, Norris would have exchanged with him a quiet word or two +and he would have found himself in the bright spaces of Portland Place.</p> + +<p>Rachel and Roddy had come to the party. Rachel sat on a high chair and +looked stiff and pale; Lady Darrant, bunched up in an arm-chair, was +beside her. Lady Darrant's emotions were divided between the welfare of +the church in her parish in Wiltshire and the welfare of her only son, a +boy aged twenty who, supposed to be studying for the Diplomatic Service, +was really interested in race meetings and polo. Lady Darrant had, like +most of the Aristocrats, a tranquil mind. Sorrow, tragedies, +perplexities might come and go, the plain surface stability was in no +way disturbed. She would have liked to possess more money that she might +bestow it upon the church, and she would have preferred that her son +should place foreign languages above horses, but, since these things +were not so, God knew best and the world might have been much worse: +none of her friends were ever agitated, outwardly at any rate. Life was +calm, sure, proceeding from a definite commencement to a definite +conclusion and—God knew best. Rumours came to her of atheists and +chorus girls and American millionaires, but she was neither alarmed nor +dismayed.</p> + +<p>At a Beaminster entertainment she felt that she was among strangers. Her +account of such an affair given afterwards to friends implied that this +world into which she had glanced was not her world. Lady Adela +frightened her and the mere suggestion of the Duchess, whom she had +never seen, threatened more fiercely her tranquillity than any other +event or person.</p> + +<p>Now, every minute or so, she flung little agitated glances at the +portrait. At the back of her mind, this afternoon, was the reflection +that there was going to be a war and that quite certainly her boy, Tony, +would insist on helping his country.</p> + +<p>She was proud that he should insist, but, had she not been quite so +confident of God's care for her, would have been very near to most real +agitation.</p> + +<p>She looked at Rachel timidly and wondered whether that strange, fierce, +pale girl would be sympathetic. She had heard of Rachel and her +marriage, and she knew that that rather stout healthy-looking young man +standing and talking to Lord John Beaminster was the husband.</p> + +<p>He looked kinder than she did, Lady Darrant thought.</p> + +<p>"It's terrible about this horrid war, isn't it?" she said at last.</p> + +<p>Rachel, watching the room, was absorbed by her own thoughts; she +scarcely noticed the little woman beside her.</p> + +<p>She saw Uncle John, his white hair and happy smile and large rather +shapeless body, his way of laughing with his head flung back, the look +of him when he was thinking, his face precisely that of a puzzled +pig—simply to see him there across the room brought back to her a flood +of memories.</p> + +<p>She knew that she had avoided him lately and she knew, too, that he was +unhappy about her. He was unhappy, poor Uncle John, about a number of +things—always behind his laughter and cheerful greetings there was the +little restless distress as though Life were offering him, just now, +more than he could control.</p> + +<p>Rachel looked and then turned her eyes away.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said to Lady Darrant, "I hope it won't be very much. They say +that a week or two will see the end of it."</p> + +<p>Truly, for herself, this afternoon was almost too difficult for her. She +had received, that morning, a letter from Francis Breton asking her to +go to tea with him in his rooms, one day within the following week.</p> + +<p>She had never been to his room; she had not met him once during the +whole year.</p> + +<p>She had known, during all these last twelve months, that meeting him had +nothing at all to do with the especial claim that they had upon one +another. That claim had existed since that day of their first coming +face to face and nothing now could ever alter it.</p> + +<p>But the next time that they met must be, for both of them, a definite +landmark. She might either decide, now, once and for all, never to see +him again, or grasp, quite definitely, the possible result of her going +to him.</p> + +<p>The writing of this letter brought, at last, upon her the climax that +she had been avoiding during the last year.</p> + +<p>Sitting there in the Beaminster camp it was difficult to act without +prejudice. With the exception of Uncle John and Roddy she hated them +all.</p> + +<p>After all if she were to refuse to see Francis Breton did it solve the +question? Did it help her—and that was the great need of her present +life—to love Roddy any better?</p> + +<p>And if she went to his rooms and saw him, would not the truth emerge +from that meeting and the miserable doubts and temptations that had +shadowed her since her marriage be cleared away for ever?</p> + +<p>She liked Roddy and did not love him—nothing could alter that.</p> + +<p>Breton and she belonged to a world that was hostile to this world that +she was now in—nothing could alter that.</p> + +<p>Yes, she would go and see Breton. She got up, smiled at Lady Darrant and +went across the room to talk to Uncle John.</p> + +<p>On this afternoon she had a great overpowering longing for someone to +love her, to care for her, to pity her, to take her into their arms and +whisper comfort to her. It was so long—oh! so long, since Dr. Chris and +Uncle John had done that.</p> + +<p>And yet—the irony of it—there was Roddy eager to do it all: and from +him, the fates had decreed that it should mean nothing to her.</p> + +<p>"Why can't he touch me? Why can't he give me what I want? Is it my +fault? Whose fault is it?"</p> + +<p>And when she came to Uncle John she was almost afraid to look at him +lest he should see the unhappiness in her eyes.</p> + +<p>But, in spite of her unhappiness, she could be satirically observant. +Her grandmother, up there on the wall, controlled, like the moon, this +tide of human beings. They flowed forward, they retreated. About them, +around them, behind and in front of them hovered this War....</p> + +<p>Rachel knew that it was the Beaminster doctrine that anything that +occurred to the nation was to be attributed, in the main, to Beaminster +principles. She could tell at once that they had seized upon this war as +an example of Beaminster government. Had diplomacy prevented it, behold +the triumph of Beaminster diplomacy; now, as it had not been prevented, +a swift and total triumph would assert the genius of Beaminster +militancy.</p> + +<p>"A week out there ought to be enough.... It's tiresome, of course, but +they'll soon have had enough of it...."</p> + +<p>Even Rachel, looking up at the portrait, might, not too fantastically, +imagine that this war presented the last great manifestation of power on +the part of that old woman.</p> + +<p>Everyone in the room, perhaps, felt the same.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Many eyes were upon her as she moved across to Lord John. This girl, +with the foreign colour and bearing, having, apparently, so little of +the Beaminster about her and making so quickly so conventional a +marriage ("One hadn't expected her to care about a man like Seddon"), +stirred their curiosity.</p> + +<p>Monty Carfax, licensed transmitter of public opinion, reported her +unpopular. "Met her one week-end at the Massiters'—that very time when +Seddon proposed. Didn't like her and, really, can't find anyone who +does. Conceited, farouche. It's my opinion Roddy Seddon finds her +difficult." "Yes, but she's interesting," someone would reply, "unusual. +Dissatisfied-looking—not at all happy, I should say."</p> + +<p>Lady Adela, stiff, awkward but important, in an ugly grey dress found +Lord Crewner the only helpful person in the room. He seemed to +understand the way that worries accumulated about one and yet refused to +be defined.... He stayed near her throughout the afternoon. She saw +Rachel moving across to her brother and the sight of her stirred all her +discomfort.</p> + +<p>"Why need she look as though she hated everyone?" she thought.</p> + +<p>Rachel came at length to Uncle John and found him talking to Maurice +Garden. That large and prosperous gentleman hastily proclaimed his +delight in meeting Rachel again, but she had very little to say to him.</p> + +<p>He left them, secretly determined that he would never speak to the girl +again if he could help it.</p> + +<p>Uncle John regarded her with an air of supplicating nervousness.</p> + +<p>"Come along, my dear," he said. "We haven't had a talk for weeks. Let's +find a corner somewhere——"</p> + +<p>They found a corner and then were both of them uncomfortable. The girl +whom Uncle John had known and loved had had her tempers and +intolerances, but she had also had her wonderful spontaneous affections +and tendernesses.</p> + +<p>Now she sat there looking straight before her and replying only in +monosyllables to his questions.</p> + +<p>She was saying to herself: "Shall I go? Shall I go?"</p> + +<p>At last he said timidly:</p> + +<p>"You'll see mother before you leave?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Rachel said.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid she's not very well."</p> + +<p>"Not very well?" Rachel looked up at him sharply, Lord John stared away +from her. No one had ever said that publicly before, Lord John himself +wondered at his words when he had spoken them.</p> + +<p>"Of course she doesn't admit it," he said hurriedly. "No one <i>says</i> +anything about it—even Christopher. I oughtn't perhaps to have said +anything myself—but I thought——" He broke off. Rachel knew that he +meant that she should be kind and considerate on this visit.</p> + +<p>Before she could say anything the Duke came up and joined them.</p> + +<p>It always amused Rachel to see her two uncles together. The Duke was a +little dried-up wasp of a man, absolutely selfish, with a satirical +tongue and a self-conceit that nothing could pierce. He wore high white +collars, over which his brown sharp face searched for compliments. He +walked on his toes, his hands were most wonderfully manicured and his +trousers were so stiff and rigid over his thin little legs that they +looked like iron. The one soft spot in him was a strangely tender +affection for his sister Adela which was in no way returned; for her, +and for her alone, he would forget his selfishness. Richard and John he +despised.</p> + +<p>"Well, John," he said. "Well, Rachel?"</p> + +<p>"Well, Uncle Vincent," she said. The Duke was afraid of Rachel because +her tongue was as sharp as his, but he respected her for that.</p> + +<p>"Going up to see mother?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Rachel. Should she go? Should she go?</p> + +<p>Suddenly, arising, as it seemed, out of that crowd of moving figures and +coming and standing there in front of her, was her answer.</p> + +<p>Yes, she would go. All these months of indetermination should be ended. +She should know, once and for all, what this Francis Breton meant to +her, what that other life of hers meant to her, and so, in opposition, +what Roddy meant to her. She would, as Christopher would have put it, +grapple with her Tiger....</p> + +<p>Instantly, the relief, the glad, happy relief showed her how wretched +life had been.</p> + +<p>"What about this war, Uncle Vincent?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Well—hem—well—no need to worry—<i>I</i> assure you—no need to worry!"</p> + +<p>"It seems a pity," said Lord John, still looking furtively at Rachel and +wishing that he could carry her off into some other corner and just ask +her whether she were really happy or no.</p> + +<p>"Why, John," said the Duke, cackling. "You'll have to go out, 'pon my +word, you will—fight 'em, by Jove—Ha! ha! You'd make a fine soldier, +old boy."</p> + +<p>Rachel got up, hating Uncle Vincent very much. She put her hand on Uncle +John's fat arm.</p> + +<p>"You may go, Uncle Vincent," she said. "We all give you leave—Uncle +John we love too much: if it's a question of bravery he'd be quite +certainly the first of this family." She gave his arm a squeeze.</p> + +<p>Uncle Vincent looked at her, smiling—</p> + +<p>"Well," he said. "None of us would dream of going ... we're all much too +comfortable."</p> + +<p>"I'll see you before I go, uncle dear," she whispered to Lord John. Then +she moved away.</p> + +<p>Slowly making her path through the room she left it and climbed the +great stone staircase.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Outside her grandmother's door she paused; so she had always paused, and +now, as she waited there, all the procession of other days when she had +stood there came before her. Conditions might be changed, but her +agitation was the same. Never until she died would she open that door +without wondering, in spite of common sense, whether she might not be +caught by some disaster before she closed it again.</p> + +<p>She went in and found her grandmother sitting back in her stiff chair +and looking at some patterns of bright silks that lay on a little table +beside her.</p> + +<p>A great fire was burning and the room seemed to Rachel intolerably hot; +she noticed at once that what Uncle John had said was true. Before she +had heard Rachel's entrance the Duchess looked an old, tired woman. Her +head was drooping a little over the blue and purple silks; she seemed +half asleep.</p> + +<p>But at the sound of the door she was alert; when she saw that it was her +granddaughter who stood there, tall and stately, her large black hat +shadowing her face, she seemed in a moment to be transformed with energy +and life—her head went up, her eyes flashed, her hands stiffened on her +lap.</p> + +<p>"May I come in for a moment, grandmother?" Rachel said.</p> + +<p>By the door she had wondered—how could she be afraid of this old sick +woman? Now as she crossed over to the fire her sternest self-command was +summoned to control her alarm. She was frightened by nothing but +this—here it was indeed as though there were some spell that seized +her.</p> + +<p>"Certainly, my dear—come in." The Duchess gave a last look at the silks +and then turned to her granddaughter. "I'm afraid you'll find it very +hot—I must have a fire, you know."</p> + +<p>She had a trick of drawing in her lower lip as she spoke, so that her +words hissed a little over her teeth. She did not do this with everybody +and Rachel believed that it was only because she had noticed that Rachel +as a little girl had been frightened of it that she did it now.</p> + +<p>Rachel sat down opposite her and the heat of the fire and a scent of +something that had violets and mignonette in it—a scent that was always +in the room—stifled her so that her head began to swim and the rings on +the Duchess's hand to hypnotize her.</p> + +<p>"There's a great party going on downstairs," she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I know. John came up for a moment and told me about it—and how +are you?"</p> + +<p>"Very well, thank you, grandmamma. Roddy and I have been ever so +sociable lately, given several dinner-parties and one musical thing."</p> + +<p>"You're not looking very well. Roddy here?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Hope he'll come and see me before he goes. Hasn't been to see me much +lately."</p> + +<p>Their eyes met. Rachel held her ground and then, beaten as though by a +physical blow, lowered her gaze.</p> + +<p>"Oh! hasn't he? He's been here a lot, I thought. He's been very busy +over some horses that he's had to go up and down to Seddon about."</p> + +<p>"H'm. Well—I dare say he'll remember me again one day—so we're in for +a war?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. They don't seem to think it very serious though—Uncle Richard +says——"</p> + +<p>"Your Uncle Richard knows nothing about it—nothing. However, I don't +think anyone need be alarmed."</p> + +<p>There was in this last sentence a ring in the Duchess's voice that flung +her words out for the nation to grasp at. "No need, my good people, for +you to worry—<i>I</i> have this in hand."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm very glad," said Rachel. "It's such a long while since +anything has happened that it seems quite odd for everyone to have +something to talk about except dinner-parties and scandal——"</p> + +<p>The old woman looked across at her and then very slowly a smile rose, +stiffened between her old dried lips and stayed there—</p> + +<p>"What would you say, my dear, if Roddy thought it his duty to go and +defend his country?"</p> + +<p>There was, suddenly, the sharp ring in her voice that Rachel knew so +well.</p> + +<p>"I know," Rachel said quietly, "that Roddy would do his duty, and of +course I would want him to do that."</p> + +<p>The Duchess, with her eyes still upon her granddaughter's face, +said—"I've heard a good deal about a young friend of yours lately."</p> + +<p>"Who is that, grandmamma?" Rachel said, and, in spite of herself her +hand trembled a little against her dress.</p> + +<p>"Nita Raseley."</p> + +<p>Rachel caught her breath.</p> + +<p>"I gather that you and she haven't seen so much of one another lately."</p> + +<p>"Oh! I think we have. We never were great friends, you know."</p> + +<p>"Did she enjoy her time at Seddon? A clever little thing. I shouldn't +drop her, Rachel, if I were you."</p> + +<p>"She seemed to enjoy Seddon, grandmamma. I must be going, I'm afraid, +with the patient Roddy waiting for me. Shall I tell him to come up?"</p> + +<p>The old hand struck the arm of the chair and the rings flashed.</p> + +<p>"No, thank you, my dear. If he can't come of his own accord, I'd prefer +that he had no prompting. There was a time when it was otherwise."</p> + +<p>Rachel got up. Their eyes met again, and their hatred for one another +was so settled, so historic, so traditional an affair, that their glance +now was almost friendly.</p> + +<p>Then Rachel bent down very slowly and kissed her grandmother's cheek. +How much, she wondered, did she know of the Nita affair? Nita's spite +would, assuredly, have found a happy ground in which to plant its seed. +Oh! how she loathed this thick clouded atmosphere, this deceit, this +deceit! It seemed that, at every turn since her marriage, she had been +dragged into an atmosphere of disguise and subterfuge and +double-dealing.</p> + +<p>Well, she was soon to be done with it. At the thought of what her +grandmother would say did she know of her friendship with Breton her +heart beat triumphantly. There at any rate was a weapon!</p> + +<p>"Well, good-bye, my dear. Come and see me again soon."</p> + +<p>"Yes, grandmamma—good-bye."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>In the carriage with Roddy she suddenly laughed.</p> + +<p>All those people, moving so solemnly with such self-importance about +that room. The Duke, Lord Richard, Aunt Adela ... Norris, the +footman....</p> + +<p>Over them all that fierce commanding portrait. And upstairs that old, +sick woman....</p> + +<p>And beyond, away from that house, a war that that old woman and those +self-important people saw only as a means of increasing their own +self-importance.</p> + +<p>It was all as a box of tin soldiers and a parcel of stiff china-faced +dolls—</p> + +<p>What were they all about? What did they think they were all doing? What, +after all, was she, Rachel? Had they no conception of the sawdust that +they all were beside this real, swiftly moving, death-dealing War that +was suddenly amongst them?</p> + +<p>"What is it?" said Roddy.</p> + +<p>"Grandmother—grandmother—my dear, delightful, wonderful grandmother. +To think of her sitting all alone up there in her bedroom and all those +people moving about downstairs—all so conscious of her. And yet she +does nothing—<i>nothing</i>." Rachel, in her excitement, struck her knee +with her hand. "She isn't even clever, really—She's never in all her +life been known to say a witty thing—never. She doesn't really know +much about politics.... She just sits there and acts—That's what it's +always been, acting the whole time. If it's effective to be old and +feeble she <i>is</i> old and feeble—if it's effective to be fantastic she +<i>is</i> fantastic—She just sits still and takes people in. Why, if she'd +wanted she could have been going out all these thirty years, I believe!"</p> + +<p>"You're always unfair to her, Rachel," said Roddy. "You know she has +ghastly pain often and often."</p> + +<p>"Yes. I'll give her that," said Rachel. "She's brave—brave as anything. +And after all," she added, "she couldn't affect me more if she were the +wittiest woman in the world——"</p> + +<p>Roddy yawned—"Dam dull party," he said.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIIA" id="CHAPTER_VIIA"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>RACHEL AND BRETON</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Always a little farther: it may be<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Across that angry or that glimmering sea.<br /></span> +<span class="i12">... but surely we are brave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who make the Golden Journey to Samarcand."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>The Golden Journey to Samarcand.</i><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">James Alroy Flecker</span>.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Rachel now awaited her meeting with Breton with restless impatience. It +should afford her, beyond everything, a solution. She was young enough +and inexperienced enough to make many demands upon life—that it should +be romantic, that it should, in the issues that it presented, be honest +and open and clear, that it should allow her to settle her own place in +it without any hurt to anyone else, that it should, in fact, arrange any +number of compromises to suit herself and that it should nevertheless be +so honest that it would admit of no compromises at all.</p> + +<p>She approached life with all the reckless boldness of one who has never +come into direct contact with it. Neither her relations with her +grandmother nor with Roddy had as yet taken from her any of her youngest +nor simplest illusions. Were life drab and uninteresting, why, then one +turned simply to the place where it promised colour and adventure.</p> + +<p>She had not yet discovered that when we go deliberately to grasp at +happiness we are eternally eluded.</p> + +<p>But in spite of her desire for honesty she refused to face the actual +meeting with Breton. She knew him so slightly as Francis Breton and so +intimately as an idea. What she felt in her heart was, that her +grandmother had hoped to catch her by marrying her to Roddy and that +nothing could prove so eloquently that she had not been caught as her +friendship with Breton.</p> + +<p>"I will show her and I will show Roddy that I am my own mistress, free +whatever they may say or do."</p> + +<p>Breton—seen dimly as a rebel against a harsh dominating world—was the +figure of all romance and freedom. "Roddy doesn't care what happens to +me. He'll do anything grandmother tells him to...."</p> + +<p>She was now out to attack the Beaminster fortress; she did not as yet +know that half of her was urgent for its defence.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>When the afternoon arrived she took a cab and was driven to Saxton +Square. She mounted the stairs, knocked on the door and was admitted by +his ugly man-servant.</p> + +<p>"Is Mr. Breton at home?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, my lady," he answered and smiled; she disliked his smile and +before she passed into the room had a moment of wild unreasoning panic +when she wished that she were not there, when Roddy's face came to her, +kind and loving and homely.</p> + +<p>She stepped forward into the room, heard the door close behind her and +felt rather than saw him as he came forward to greet her.</p> + +<p>Then she heard him say—</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm so glad you've come. I was so afraid lest something should stop +you."</p> + +<p>His windows, although only on the first floor, had a wide sweeping view; +a world of chimneys and towers glittering now beneath the sinking sun.</p> + +<p>His room was simple and had the effect of cleanly emptiness; a table +arranged for tea, two rather faded arm-chairs, a dark green carpet, a +book-case, two large framed photographs on the walls, one of some street +in Bombay, the other of the Niagara Falls.</p> + +<p>The sunshine lit the bare room and their faces and she was suddenly +comfortable and at ease.</p> + +<p>He drew one of the easy chairs forward to the window.</p> + +<p>"Sit down in the sun; Marks will bring the tea in a moment."</p> + +<p>She sat back in the chair and looked out on to the shining roofs and +towers, not glancing towards him, but acutely aware of him, of all his +movements. He sat down upon the broad window-seat near her and looked at +her.</p> + +<p>She knew that she had never been conscious, physically, of anyone +before. Roddy's clumsy hands and rather awkward body had always simply +belonged to Roddy and stayed at that; now she felt as if Francis +Breton's hand, close, as she knew, to hers, was joined to her by a +running current of attraction.</p> + +<p>Although he was not touching her, it was as though she were chained to +him. If he moved she felt that she must move with him and every motion +that he made seemed to rouse some response in her.</p> + +<p>She was aware, of course, as she was always aware with him, of the way +that intimacy between them had moved since their last meeting. All her +romantic evocation of life as she wanted it to be helped her to this. It +was as though she said to herself, "Here at least is my true self free +and dominant. I must make the most of it"—and yet, with that, something +seemed to warn her that freedom too easily obtained carried at its heart +disappointment. The ugly man-servant brought in tea and then +disappeared. Breton moved about, waited upon her, then sat down closer +to her, leaning forward and looking into her eyes.</p> + +<p>It was part of his temperament that he should take her coming to him as +an instant acknowledgment of the complete fulfilment of his wishes. He +always saw life as the very rosiest of his dreams until it woke him to +reality. He was ruled completely by the mood of the moment, and his one +emotion now was that Rachel was divinely intended for him alone of all +human beings—</p> + +<p>But he could not wait.... He knew, by this time, that reflection was +always a period of disappointment. He was unhappily made in that he +yielded to his impulses of regret as eagerly as to his impulses of +anticipation—One mood followed so swiftly upon another that collision +might seem inevitable.</p> + +<p>They were, both of them, young enough to see life as something that +would inevitably, in a short time, condemn them both to years of sterile +monotony. Rachel indeed felt that she was already caught....</p> + +<p>They must, both of them, therefore, make the best of their time.</p> + +<p>"I <i>was</i> so afraid," he repeated again, "lest something should have +stopped you."</p> + +<p>"I would have asked you to come to us, only I'm afraid that my husband +still——"</p> + +<p>"Oh! I quite understand."</p> + +<p>"It's natural—Roddy's like that. If he wants to do a thing he doesn't +care for anybody and just does it. But if nothing makes him especially +want to do it, then he just takes other people's opinions. Now he might +ask you suddenly to come and see us—simply because he took it into his +head. Then nobody could stop him.... He's very obstinate."</p> + +<p>She was rather surprised at herself for talking about Roddy. She had a +curious feeling about him as though she were going on a journey and had +just said good-bye to him and had a rather desolate choke in her throat +because she wouldn't see him again for so long.</p> + +<p>"Oh! but I'm glad you've come! If you knew the times and times when I've +imagined this meeting—thought about it, pictured——"</p> + +<p>She saw that his hand was trembling on the window-ledge—</p> + +<p>"I oughtn't to have come, perhaps—But I don't know. I've felt so +indignant at the way that grandmother is treating you. I wanted to +<i>show</i> you that I was indignant...."</p> + +<p>"You don't know," he said, "what a help you've been to me already—You +showed me the very first time that we met that you <i>did</i> sympathize...."</p> + +<p>His voice was tender, partly because her presence moved him so deeply +and partly because the sympathy of anyone about his own affairs made him +instantly full of sorrow for himself—When anyone said that they thought +that he had been badly treated he always felt with an air of surprised +discovery: "By Jove, I <i>have</i> been having a bad time!"</p> + +<p>"Yes—Wasn't it strange, that first meeting in Miss Rand's room? We seem +to have known one another all our lives."</p> + +<p>She looked at him. "That you should hate grandmamma so," she said, "was +a great thing to me. I'd been all alone—fighting her—for so long."</p> + +<p>Rachel felt, in the glow of the occasion, that, all her days, there had +been active constant war-to-the-knife in the Portland Place house.</p> + +<p>"She's been the curse of my life," he said bitterly. "Always keeping me +down, making me unable to do myself justice. Why should she hate me so?"</p> + +<p>"She hates us," cried Rachel, "because we're both determined to be free. +We wouldn't have our lives ruled for us. She wants everyone to be under +her in <i>everything</i>."</p> + +<p>They glowed together, very close to one another now, in a glorious +assertion of rebellious independence. He put his hand upon the back of +her chair—</p> + +<p>"Now," he said, his voice trembling, "now that we've got to know one +another, you won't go back on it, will you? If I couldn't feel that you +were behind me, after being so encouraged, it would be terrible for +me—worse than anything's ever been for me."</p> + +<p>"You needn't be afraid," she said, not looking at him, but tremendously +conscious of his hand that now touched her dress. Then there was a long +and very difficult silence during which events seemed to move with +terrific impetus.</p> + +<p>She was overwhelmed by a multitude of emotions. She was past analysis of +regret or anticipation. Somewhere, very far away, there was Roddy, and +somewhere—also very far away—there was her grandmother, but, for +herself, she could only feel that she was very lonely, that nobody cared +about her except Breton and that nobody cared about him except +herself—and that she wanted urgently to be comforted and that he +himself needed comfort from her.</p> + +<p>She knew that if she were not very strong-minded and resolute she would +cry; she could feel the tears burning her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I oughtn't to have come—Oh! it's all so difficult—with +grandmother—and everything—I thought I could—could manage things, but +I can't—We oughtn't—I wanted to do what was best. I—I didn't +know—You——"</p> + +<p>Then the tears came—She tried desperately to stop them, then they came +rushing; she buried her head in her hands and abandoned herself to +weeping that was partly sorrow for herself and partly sorrow for Breton +and partly, in the strangest way, sorrow for Roddy.</p> + +<p>He was on his knees by her chair, had his arm about her, was crying:</p> + +<p>"Oh! Rachel—Rachel—Rachel—I love you. I love you—Don't +cry—Don't—Rachel——" He kissed her again and again and she clung to +him like a frightened child.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>After a time her crying ceased, she got up from the chair, moving gently +out of his embrace, and then went to the looking-glass above the +fireplace and stood there wiping her eyes.</p> + +<p>Then, smiling, she looked back at him—He was standing in front of the +window and behind him the reflection, from the departed sun, flooded the +town with gold. He seemed a man transformed, gazing upon her with an +ecstasy of triumph, exaltation, happiness.</p> + +<p>"My dear—my dear—Oh! how glorious you are!"</p> + +<p>But she did not move.</p> + +<p>He stirred impatiently, and then, looking at her with adoring eyes, he +whispered, "Oh! my dear! but I love you!"</p> + +<p>"I must go," she said, her eyes, large and frightened, appealingly upon +him—</p> + +<p>He smiled at her, his eyes laughing.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Francis—let me—let me. Now while I can still see what I ought to +do."</p> + +<p>"There's only one thing that you ought to do. You belong to me now." She +plucked nervously with her hands one against the other.</p> + +<p>"Francis, let me go—please—please——" He saw then that she was +unhappy and the laughter died from his eyes. His voice, fallen from its +happiness, was almost harsh, as he replied—</p> + +<p>"You know we love one another, have loved one another ever since that +day when we met in Miss Rand's rooms? You know it as well as I do. You +knew it when you came to these rooms to-day."</p> + +<p>"I oughtn't to have come." Her voice had gathered strength. "It's only +because I realize now what you are to me that I want to go. I thought I +was so strong, that I could be fair to Roddy and to you too ... I didn't +know——"</p> + +<p>"Then stay—stay—" he whispered urgently. "It's a thing that you've got +to face anyhow—We can't stay apart, you and I, now. We can try, but you +know—you know as well as I—that we can't do it."</p> + +<p>"We must—That's what I meant before. That's why I must go now, because +soon I shan't be strong enough. But we've got to part—we've got to."</p> + +<p>"Oh, this is absurd," he cried. "We're human beings, not figures to hang +a theory on—Now just as we realize what we are to one another——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, because of that," she broke in swiftly, urgently. "You know that I +love you—I know that you love me. We've got that knowledge that nothing +can take away from us—and we've got the love—nothing can touch it. But +my duty is with Roddy."</p> + +<p>"You knew that," he said, "when you came here to-day."</p> + +<p>Her face flamed—"That's not fair of you, Francis."</p> + +<p>"No, I beg your pardon. It isn't——" He suddenly came to her, caught +her and kissed her, holding her with his arm close to him, murmuring in +her ear. At first she had struggled, then she lay absolutely still +against him, making no response.</p> + +<p>He felt her passive against his beating heart. He released her and +watched her as she went across to the window and looked out into the +darkening city.</p> + +<p>"I don't care," he said roughly, "I love you. There's no talk about it +or anything else. You belong to <i>me</i>."</p> + +<p>"I belong to Roddy," she answered quietly. "It's all quite clear. My +duty is to him until ... unless, life with him becomes impossible. I've +got absolutely to do my best and while I'm doing that you've got to help +me."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" he said, his eyes upon her.</p> + +<p>"Help me by our not meeting, by our not writing, by our doing +nothing—nothing——"</p> + +<p>"No—No," he answered her, his eyes set upon her.</p> + +<p>"You don't get me any other way. Francis, don't you see that we're not +the sort of people, either of us, to put up with the deceits, the +trickeries, the lies that the other thing means? Some people might—lots +of people do, I suppose—but we're not built that way. We're +idealists—We aren't made to stand quietly and see all the quality of +the thing vanish before our eyes—just to take the husk when we've known +what the kernel was like.</p> + +<p>"Besides, it isn't as though I hated Roddy. If I did I'd go off with you +now, in a minute if you wanted me, although even then it would be a +hopeless thing for <i>us</i> to do. But I'm very fond of Roddy. I'm not in +love with him—I never have been—I told him from the first—But I'm +going to do my best by him."</p> + +<p>"Why did you come here?"</p> + +<p>"I came here because I was driven towards you. I wanted to hear you say +that you loved me—I wanted to tell you that I loved you. We've both of +us said it. We know it now—and we've got to keep it, the most precious +thing in the world.</p> + +<p>"But we should soon hate one another if we destroyed one another's +ideals. For many people it wouldn't matter—For us, weak as we are, it +matters everything."</p> + +<p>"All this talk," he said. "I'm a man. I'm here to love you, not to talk +about it. I've got you and I'm going to keep you."</p> + +<p>"You haven't got me," she cried. "You've got a bit of me. There'll be +times when I'm away from you when I shall think that you've got all of +me. But you haven't—no one's got all of me....</p> + +<p>"And I haven't got you either—You think now for the moment that it is +so—But I know what it would be if we were hiding about on the Continent +or secretly meeting here in London—That's not for us, Francis."</p> + +<p>"I've got you," he repeated. "I'm not going to wait any longer——"</p> + +<p>"It's the only way you'll ever have me," she answered, "by letting me do +my duty to Roddy—I promise you that. If ever life is impossible—if +it's ever better for both of us that I should go, I'll come to you—But +I shall tell him first."</p> + +<p>"Tell him! But he won't let you go."</p> + +<p>"He won't stop me—if it comes to that."</p> + +<p>He pleaded with her then, telling her about his life, its loneliness, +his unhappiness, how impossible it would be now without her.</p> + +<p>But she shook her head.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think," she cried, "that grandmother would be delighted if we +went off? Both of us done for—you never able to return again ... Ah! +no! For all of us, for every reason, it's not to be."</p> + +<p>"I won't let you go—I've got you. I'll keep you."</p> + +<p>"You can't, Francis——"</p> + +<p>"I can and I will——"</p> + +<p>Then looking up, catching a vision of her framed in the window with the +lighted city behind her, he saw in her eyes how unattainable she might +be....</p> + +<p>He had, he had always had, his ideals. There was a long silence between +them, then he bowed his head.</p> + +<p>"You shall do as you will—anything with me that you will."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear," she whispered, "I love you for that."</p> + +<p>Then hurriedly, moving as though she feared her own weakness, she went +to put on her wraps—He came to her.</p> + +<p>"Let me write—let me."</p> + +<p>"No—Better not."</p> + +<p>"Just a line—Nothing that any ordinary person——"</p> + +<p>"No, we mustn't, Francis."</p> + +<p>He put her furs about her neck, then his hand rested on her shoulder. +Her head fell back.</p> + +<p>"Once more"—she said. He kissed her throat, then her eyes, then their +lips met.</p> + +<p>"Stay," he whispered, "stay"—Very slowly she drew away from him, smiled +at him once, and was gone.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIIIA" id="CHAPTER_VIIIA"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>CHRISTOPHER'S DAY</h3> + +<blockquote><p>"I judge more than I used to—but it seems to me that I have +earned the right. One can't judge till one is forty; before +that we are too eager, too hard, too cruel, and in addition too +ignorant."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Henry James</span>.</p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>The War had the City in its grip. There was now, during these early +weeks of November, no other thought, no other anxiety, no other +interest. The shock of its reality came most severely upon those whose +lives had been most unreal. Here, in the midst of their dining and their +dancing, was the sure fact that many whom they knew and with whom they +had been in the habit of playing might now, at any moment, find death—</p> + +<p>Here was a reality against which there was no argument, and against the +harshness of it music screamed and food was uninteresting.</p> + +<p>During that first month of that war, so new a thing was the horrid +grimness of it, that hysteria was abroad, life was twopence coloured. +For everyone now it was the question—"What might they do?"</p> + +<p>Something to help, something to ease that biting truth—"Your life has +been the most utterly useless business—no purpose, no strength, no +unselfishness from first to last—what now?"</p> + +<p>Christopher's life had not been useless and he knew it. The reality of +it had never been in doubt and death—the haphazard surprise of it and +the pathos and melodrama and sometimes drab monotony of it—had been his +companion for many years.</p> + +<p>Christopher, although he had been a hard worker from his childhood, had +always taken life lightly. He loved the gifts of this world—food and +amusement and exercise and pleasant company. He loved, also, certain +people whose lives were of immense concern to him. He also believed in a +quite traditional God about Whom he had never argued, but Whose definite +particular existence was as certain to him as his own.</p> + +<p>He had faults that he tried to cure—his temper—his pleasure in food +and wine.</p> + +<p>He had three great motives in his life—His love of God, his love of his +friends and his love of his work. He hated hypocrites, mean persons, +cruel persons, anyone who showed cowardice or deceit or arrogance. He +was dogmatic and therefore disliked anyone else to be so. He was humble +about his work, but not humble about his position in the world, which he +thought, quite frankly, a very good one.</p> + +<p>His interest in his especial friends was compounded of his love for them +and also of his curiosity about them, and he always loved someone the +more if he or she gave him the opportunity to practise his +inquisitiveness upon them.</p> + +<p>After Rachel Seddon he cared more, perhaps, for Francis Breton than +anyone in the world. He had also of late been interested in Roddy, who +was a far better fellow than he had expected.</p> + +<p>One puzzle, meanwhile, obstinately and continually beset him. What had +happened to Breton during this last year? Something, or in surer +probability someone, had been behind him. Christopher might have +flattered himself that he had been the influence, but he knew that, if +that had been so, Breton's attitude to him would have implied it. Breton +was fond of him, but did not owe that to him. Who then was it?</p> + +<p>On one of these November days he invited a friend and Breton to luncheon +together.</p> + +<p>Christopher's geniality and the supreme importance of the war over +everything else helped amiability. Christopher's little house in Harley +Street showed, beyond its consulting-room, a cheerful Philistine +appreciation of comfort and love. There was old silver, there were old +prints, sofas, soft carpets, book-cases, whose glass coverings were +more important than their contents. Also a luncheon that was the most +artistic thing that the house contained, save only the wine.</p> + +<p>At the side of the round gleaming table Christopher sat smiling, and +soon Breton told the friend about India and the friend told Breton about +Africa.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Christopher watched Breton. He knew Breton very well and, in +the old days, he would have said that that nervous excitement that the +man sometimes betrayed meant that he was on the edge of some most +foolish action.</p> + +<p>He knew that light in the eyes, that excited voice, that +restlessness—these things had meant that Breton's self-control was +about to break.</p> + +<p>To-day there were all these signs, and Christopher knew that after +luncheon Breton would escape him.</p> + +<p>Breton did escape him, went off somewhere in a hurry; no, Christopher +could not drive him—he was going in the opposite direction.</p> + +<p>Whilst Christopher drove, first down to Eaton Square, then back to 104 +Portland Place, he was wondering about Breton....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>It seemed that, on this afternoon, he was unduly sensitive to +impression. The house struck him with a chill, deserted air. There +seemed to be no one about as Norris led him up to the Duchess's rooms, +the old portraits grinned at him, as though they would have him to know +that, very soon, the house would be once more in their possession and +Beaminsters dead and gone be of more importance than Beaminsters alive.</p> + +<p>At any rate it was a cold November day, and always now the streets +seemed to echo with newsboys crying out editions.</p> + +<p>Even through these stone walls, those cries could penetrate; he could +hear one as he climbed the stairs.</p> + +<p>The Duchess, looking peaked and shrivelled, received him with an +eagerness that showed that she was longing for company. The room was +close, but, in spite of that, now and again she shivered a little.</p> + +<p>As he sat opposite her the glance that she flung him was almost +pathetic—struggling to maintain her pride, but showing, too, that she +might now, in his company, a little relax that great effort.</p> + +<p>"I'm not so well," she said; "I've slept badly."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry for that," he said; "what's the trouble?"</p> + +<p>"It's this war," she said, taking her eyes away from his face. "This +war—I don't think I've ever felt anything before, but this—Oh! I'm +old, old at last," she said almost savagely.</p> + +<p>"Everybody's feeling it just now," Christopher answered her quietly. "I +suppose I'm as level-headed as most people, but even I have been +imagining things to-day—Nerves, simply nerves——"</p> + +<p>"Nonsense," she answered him—"Don't tell <i>me</i>, Christopher. What have I +ever had to do with nerves?"</p> + +<p>"Wait a little. All we want is to get used to War: it's a new experience +for all of us——"</p> + +<p>She laughed sharply—</p> + +<p>"It's ludicrous, but really you'd think if you studied my family that I +was responsible for the whole thing. It's positively as though I'd made +some huge blunder which they would do their best to excuse. Adela, +John—I'm now to them an old sick woman who's got to be kept quiet and +away from worry. They wouldn't have <i>dared</i> let me see that six months +ago—"</p> + +<p>Her voice was trembling.</p> + +<p>She went on again, more quietly. "Every hour now one hears some horrible +thing. This morning that young Dick Staveling dead, shot in some +skirmish or another—Fine boy he was. They're all going out, one after +the other—Not useless idiots who aren't wanted here like John or +Vincent—but boys, boys like—like Roddy."</p> + +<p>Again her voice trembled.</p> + +<p>For the first time in his knowledge of her some pity for her stirred in +him, for the first time in her knowledge of him she definitely looked to +him with some appeal.</p> + +<p>"Roddy came to see me yesterday," she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes?" said Christopher.</p> + +<p>"He had not been so often as he used—I told him so; he made some feeble +apology, but I can see that he will not come again so often——"</p> + +<p>He would have interrupted her, but she went on—"He's not happy, but he +loves her madly—madly. He did not tell me so, but I could see that. +That was something I had never reckoned on."</p> + +<p>"You prefer," Christopher said sharply, "to imagine that he is not +happy. I know, unfortunately, what your feeling is about Rachel. Fond of +him though you are you'd prefer that he was unhappy with her."</p> + +<p>"I know that he is unhappy. He would not care for her so much if she +returned it. I know Roddy. But she's clever enough——" She broke off.</p> + +<p>"If Roddy were to go out to South Africa," she said, "I think I would +kill Rachel—then die happy——"</p> + +<p>"Forgive me," Christopher said, "but this is sheer melodrama. Rachel is +devoted to Roddy and Roddy to Rachel. I've the best means for +knowing——"</p> + +<p>Even as he spoke he saw her mouth curve with that smile that was always +the wickedest thing about her. He had seen it on many occasions and it +always meant that, then, in her heart there was something cruel or +remorseless.</p> + +<p>It gave her now an elfin look so that, amongst the absurd furniture of +the room, she took her place as some old witch might take hers amongst +the paraphernalia of her incantations—her cauldron, her bones, her +noxious herbs.</p> + +<p>"That shows, Christopher my friend, that you know very little. I've a +piece of news that will surprise you."</p> + +<p>He said nothing, but, in his heart, made ready for some blow.</p> + +<p>"What would you say if our Rachel—your Rachel and my Rachel—had found +a new friend in my worthy, most admirable nephew, Francis?"</p> + +<p>"Rachel—Rachel and Breton?"</p> + +<p>The Duchess watched him with amusement. "Exactly. I have the surest +information——"</p> + +<p>"What does your—information—say?"</p> + +<p>He hated her at that moment as he had never hated her before.</p> + +<p>"It says—and I know that it is true—that for more than a year now they +have been meeting and corresponding—The other day Rachel went to tea +with him—alone. Was with him alone for some time—I'm sure that Roddy +knows nothing of this——"</p> + +<p>"It's impossible—impossible! Rachel is the soul of honour——"</p> + +<p>"I know that you have always thought so. But what more likely? Their +feeling about myself would, alone, be enough...."</p> + +<p>But he would not let her see how hardly he was taking it. He deprived +her of her triumph, did not even question her as to what she would do +with it, turned the conversation into other channels, and left her at +last—seeming there, amongst her candles, with her nose and thin hands, +like some old bird of most evil omen.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>But for him there was to be no more peace.</p> + +<p>It was now about four o'clock and already the dusk was closing in about +the town. He decided that he would go and see whether Rachel were in.</p> + +<p>He was determined that he would ask Rachel nothing; if she wished to +speak to him he would help her, but it must be of her own free +will—that was the only way at present.</p> + +<p>For how much was the Duchess's malignity responsible? What exactly did +she know? What did she intend to do?</p> + +<p>Oddly enough, for a long time past some subconscious part of him had +linked Rachel and Breton together, perhaps because they were the two +persons in all the world for whom he most cared, perhaps because he had +always known in both of them that rebellious discontent so unlike that +Beaminster acquiescence.</p> + +<p>As he drove through the evening streets, he felt that never, until now, +had he known how dearly he loved Rachel. In his mind there was no +judgment of her, only a sense of her peril; if she would speak to +him!...</p> + +<p>When he asked at the door of the flat for Lady Seddon he was told that +she was out.</p> + +<p>"Sir Roderick is at home, sir." He would see Roddy.</p> + +<p>Roddy was sitting in the little box-like room known as the smoking-room, +poring over a war map. About the map little flags were dotted; he had +two in his hand and, with one hand lifted, was hesitating as to their +position.</p> + +<p>"That was a damned bad mess——" Christopher heard him say as he came +in.</p> + +<p>At the sound of the door Roddy looked up, straightened himself, and then +came forward.</p> + +<p>"Hallo! Christopher," he said. "Delighted. Splendid! Rachel's out, but +she said she'd be back to tea."</p> + +<p>He was not looking well—fat, his cheeks pale and puffy, lines beneath +his eyes.</p> + +<p>"I'm jolly glad you've come," he said. He drew two arm-chairs to the +fire and they sat down.</p> + +<p>Roddy then talked a great deal. He was always a little nervous with +Christopher because he was well aware that the doctor had disapproved of +his marriage.</p> + +<p>Christopher had lately shown him that he liked him, but still Roddy was +not at his ease. He talked of the war, then of golf, then polo, then +horses, Seddon Court—abruptly he stopped and sat there gazing moodily +into the fire.</p> + +<p>"You're not looking well, Seddon," Christopher said quietly.</p> + +<p>"I'm not very—Nobody's at their liveliest just now with fellers one +knows droppin' out any minute.... One feels a bit of a worm keepin' out +of it all—skunkin' rather——"</p> + +<p>Moodily he sat there, his head hanging, dejected as Christopher had +never seen him before.</p> + +<p>Suddenly he said—"That ain't quite the truth, Doctor. I <i>am</i> a bit +worried——"</p> + +<p>"My dear boy," Christopher said, putting his hand on the other's +knee—"If there's anything in the world I can do for you, tell me."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. You're a brick. I'm damned unhappy, Christopher, and that's +the truth——"</p> + +<p>"Rachel——" said Christopher.</p> + +<p>"Yes—Rachel. I got to talk to somebody. I've been goin' along on my own +now for months and I know you're fond of her——"</p> + +<p>"I am," said Christopher, "more than of anyone in the world——"</p> + +<p>"I know. That's how I can talk to you. I wouldn't have you think I'm +complainin' of her. I'm gettin' nothin' but what I asked for, you know. +But it's just this. When she took me she never said she loved me, in +fact she said she didn't, but I thought that it wouldn't matter—all you +wanted in marriage was just to be pals and show up about the town +together and treat one another honourably. Well," said Roddy, taking now +a melancholy interest in his discoveries concerning himself, "damn it +all, if I haven't rotted the bargain by fallin' in love with her. Jove! +Why, I hadn't a ghost's guess at what Love meant before Rachel came +along. Of course it isn't her fault. You couldn't expect her to love an +ordinary sort of chap like me, just like a million other fellers +knockin' about—but she's so unusual there ain't another woman in the +world so surprisin' as Rachel—</p> + +<p>"She's fond of me," he went on, "I know that, but what I want she just +can't give me and that's the long and short of it.</p> + +<p>"Lately it's been terrible hard. She's not happy and that makes me wild, +and every day that passes I seem to want her more. Nothin' else, no one +else matters now. I've been playin' golf, ridin', sittin' down to this +bridge they're all getting mad about, doin' every blessed thing—it +isn't any use. Do you know, Christopher," he said slowly, "I'd give my +soul to make her happy and I just can't——"</p> + +<p>"I know——" said Christopher.</p> + +<p>"But it's worse than that—" Roddy went on, taking up the poker and +knocking on the fire—"Lately she's been having a room of her own. +Started it a while ago as a temporary thing and now she sticks to it. Up +here, in this damned town, we hardly see one another; always a crowd +either here or outside. I know Rachel don't like it and I don't like it, +but there it is—</p> + +<p>"Next week we're going down to Seddon and things may get better +there—But I can't stand it much more—not like this."</p> + +<p>"Wait a bit. It'll come all right." Christopher spoke confidently. "I've +know Rachel since she was a small child. She's half Russian, you +know—you must always remember that—and Russian and Beaminster make a +strange mixture—Wait——"</p> + +<p>"That's so easy to say—" Roddy answered, shaking his head. "It's so +easy to say, but I don't see just what's goin' to make things different +from what they are——"</p> + +<p>"No—one never sees," said Christopher. "And then Destiny comes along +and does something that we call coincidence and just settles it all. +Your trouble will be settled, Roddy, if you're patient——"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," Roddy said slowly, "you could see her a bit—find out——" he +stopped.</p> + +<p>"Anything in the world I can do I will. We'll find a way. Meanwhile, +Seddon, there is a bit of advice I can give you——"</p> + +<p>"What's that?" asked Roddy.</p> + +<p>"Go and see the Duchess more than you've been doing. See her a lot—more +than you did ever——"</p> + +<p>"Oh! the Duchess!" Roddy sighed. "I don't know, but it all seems +different with her now. I've changed, I suppose. All her ideas are +old-fashioned and wrong; I used to think her rather splendid——"</p> + +<p>"Yes—but she's ill and old, and you're the only person in the world she +cares about."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'll go," said Roddy slowly. "I've known I ought to go."</p> + +<p>Voices broke in upon them; the door opened and Rachel, followed by her +friend May Cremlin, once May Eversley, came in—</p> + +<p>"Oh! Dr. Chris! You dear!" she cried, and came forward and flung her +arms about him and kissed him.</p> + +<p>Her cheeks were flushed, from her black furs her eyes shone at him. Some +thought caught him. He knew where he had seen that excited glitter +already to-day—Breton at luncheon—</p> + +<p>They all talked. Then Christopher said that he must go.</p> + +<p>Rachel came with him to the door. In the hall she looked at him +defiantly, that flash he knew so well.</p> + +<p>"You never come now, Dr. Chris: you've given me up."</p> + +<p>"I don't care for you in a crowd very much. There's always a crowd +now——"</p> + +<p>"Ask me alone and I'll come," she said, but still her eyes were defiant.</p> + +<p>"No," he said gravely. "I'll do no asking, Rachel. When you want me I'm +there for you at any time—at <i>any</i> time——"</p> + +<p>For answer she flung her arms again about him and hugged him. Her heart +was beating furiously. Then without another word she left him.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>He could not go back to Harley Street yet. The sense of apprehension +that had been growing with him all day would give him a melancholy +evening, were he to spend it alone. He thought of Brun. Someone had told +him that the little man was in London.</p> + +<p>He found him in his rooms, reading, with a cynical expression on his +face, a French review.</p> + +<p>"I came to see—" said Christopher, "whether you happened to be free +to-night and would dine with me. I'm a pessimist for once this evening +and it doesn't suit me!"</p> + +<p>Brun was very, very sorry, but he was dining with a Russian princess; it +was most tiresome that he should have to waste his time with a Russian +princess when he'd come over to London on this occasion expressly to +study the English people at this interesting crisis of their affairs, +but there it was—he'd no idea how he'd let himself in for it, and how +much rather would he spend the evening with his friend, Christopher.</p> + +<p>Christopher said that he would smoke one cigarette and that then he must +go.</p> + +<p>"And so you feel pessimistic?" said Brun, looking at Christopher +curiously—"It's the war, <i>Je crois bien</i>—How alike you all are!"</p> + +<p>"No," said Christopher, "I don't think the war's much to do with it. I +dare say the war's a very good thing for all of us."</p> + +<p>"Didn't I tell you—?" said Brun, greatly excited—then pulled himself +up—"No, it wasn't you. It was Arkwright. More than a year ago we were +in a picture gallery looking at your Duchess's picture, and coming home +we talked. I said then that something would come, that something <i>must</i> +come, and that then everything, <i>everything</i> would crumple up. And +behold!" cried Brun, his eyes flashing—"See, it crumples!"</p> + +<p>"That's a little previous of you," said Christopher. "Nothing crumpled +yet. We're disturbed of course——"</p> + +<p>"It is most lucky," Brun said, "most lucky. Here we are, you and I, +ordinary people enough, with the end of a Period with its death and the +way it takes it, all for us to watch. <i>Most</i> lucky...."</p> + +<p>"End of Victorian Age ... <i>Voilà!</i>" and with a little dramatic gesture +he waved his hand as though he were flinging the Age and its lumber +away, out of the window.</p> + +<p>"You know, Christopher," he went on, "I've seen things coming over here +for so long. All you people, you couldn't have gone on very much longer +so remote from life. And now this—it will finish your Duchess, your +Beaminsters, your queen in her bonnet, your Sundays and your religion +and your Whigs and Tories, and all your hypocrisies—No names any more +taken just because they've always been taken, but new names made by men +who're doing things. Nothing taken for granted any more.</p> + +<p>"Your Beaminsters will vanish, and then you'll have your Denisons and +Oaks and Ruddards on top. Then you'll see a time. You'll all be spinning +like a top, dancing, dancing like dervishes. Then while you're busy +dancing up the other people will quietly come—all the real people, the +Individualists—Women will have their justice—no man will skunk behind +his garden hedge because he doesn't want to be bothered. No more +superstition, no more inefficiency——"</p> + +<p>"You're a wonderful fellow, Brun," said Christopher, getting up and +flinging away the end of his cigarette. "You've always got any amount to +say—but do you never think of people as people, not as theories or +movements or developments——"</p> + +<p>"No, thank God, I don't. That's for the sentimentalists like you, +Christopher. People are all the same, fools or knaves."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm glad I don't think so," said Christopher.</p> + +<p>"Tell me," Brun put his little hand on the other's elbow, "your +Beaminsters now, how are they?"</p> + +<p>"They're all right."</p> + +<p>"The Duchess? I hear she's not so well——"</p> + +<p>"Oh! nonsense—Well as she's been any time these last thirty years."</p> + +<p>"Yes? So—I'm glad. But the other Beaminsters? Ah! I must go quickly and +call—To see them burst asunder, that will be most amusing——"</p> + +<p>Christopher laughed. "You won't see the Duke or Richard Beaminster +burst," he said—"They're like you—no personal feeling."</p> + +<p>"And the girl?"</p> + +<p>"Lady Seddon?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. She'll stir things up. She's not a Beaminster, or only enough of +one to make her hate the family. And she does hate them, <i>hein</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear Brun, you've got an absurdly exaggerated view about +everything. You'd twist the Beaminsters into anything to make them fit +your theory."</p> + +<p>"Oh, they'll fit it right enough. But I must be in at the death. We'll +meet there together, Christopher. Things will occur before we're much +older, my sentimentalist."</p> + +<p>Christopher shook his head. "There's something sinister about your +appearances in the City, Brun. 'Where the carcases are, there will....'"</p> + +<p>Brun nodded. "It's true enough this time," he said.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IXA" id="CHAPTER_IXA"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>THE DARKEST HOUR</h3> + +<blockquote><p>"So God help us! and God knows what disorders we may fall +into.... Home and to bed with a heavy heart."</p> + +<p><i>Diary of Samuel Pepys.</i></p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>During that terrible December week in 1899, England suffered more +defeats to her arms than during any other week of the century. +Magersfontein, Stormberg, Colenso, their names leapt one after another +on to the screen.</p> + +<p>London was dismayed; London was impatient. Easy enough to declare that +the most criminal blunders had been perpetrated, easy enough to explain +how one would oneself have conducted this or that, man[oe]uvred hither +or thither some pawn in the game.</p> + +<p>Dismay remained—a wide active alarm at the things that Life, so +suddenly real and dominating and destructive, might in the future be +preparing.</p> + +<p>To Lord John this terrible week was simply the climax to a succession of +disturbing revelations of reality. All his days had he been denying +Life, wrapping it up in one covering after another, calling it finally a +box of chocolates or a racing card, a good cigar or a pretty woman, +knowing, at his heart, that somewhere in the dark forest the wild beast +was waiting for him, hoping that he might survive to the end without +facing it.</p> + +<p>Now it was before him and its glittering eyes were upon him.</p> + +<p>He had gone on the Friday of this week, to pay a week-end visit at a +country house near Newmarket. Many jolly, happy week-ends he had spent +at this same house on other occasions, now, from first to last, it was +nightmare.</p> + +<p>On the Monday morning at breakfast a sudden conviction of the impossible +horror of this world struck at his heart. It came as a revelation, life +was for him never to be the same again. His hostess, a large-bosomed +white-haired lady, planted at the end of the table like an enormous +artificial toy in the middle of whose back some key must be turned if +the affair is to amuse the crowd, suddenly horrified him; the women of +the party, their noses a little blue, their cheeks a touch too white, +their voices hard and sharp, the men, red and brown, boisterously hearty +about the animals they hoped to kill before the day was done, the cold +food in a glazed and greedy row, the hot food—kidneys, fish, bacon, +sausages, sizzling and scenting the air—: the table itself with its +racks of toast and marmalade and silver and fruit: the conversation that +sounded as though the speakers were afraid that the food would all +disappear were they spontaneous or natural—all these things suddenly +appeared to Lord John in a very horrible light, so that, in an instant, +racing and women and clothes and food were banished from a naked biting +world in which he was a naked solitary figure.</p> + +<p>He caught a train as one flies from some horrible plague: he arrived in +London, breathless, confused, miserable, the foundations of Life broken +from beneath him.</p> + +<p>Here he found Lady Adela in a like condition.</p> + +<p>He had never cared very greatly for his sister, he had not found her +sympathetic or amusing, she had never appealed to him for assistance, +nor challenged his violent opposition. He had never enquired very deeply +into her interests; she had much correspondence and many acquaintances. +She ran, he supposed, the house or, at least, directed Miss Rand to run +it for her.</p> + +<p>He thought her a rather stupid woman, but then all the Beaminsters +thought one another stupid because they believed so intensely in the +Duchess and she had always made a point of seeing that, individually, +they despised one another, although collectively they faced the world.</p> + +<p>Finally, Adela had always seemed to him unsympathetic towards Rachel and +that he found it very hard to forgive—but then, he often reflected they +were all, with the exception of himself, a most unsentimental family. He +wondered sometimes why he was so different.</p> + +<p>On the afternoon of his return from Newmarket, however, he began to +wonder whether, after all, Adela had not more in common with him than he +had ever expected. He had lunched at the club, had plunged down into the +City to enquire about some investments, it had begun to rain, and he had +returned with the weight of that gloomy day full heavily upon him.</p> + +<p>He did not, as a rule, have tea, but to-day he needed company, and he +found Adela in the little sitting-room next to the library, a little +room with faded wall-paper, faded pictures (groups, some of them, of +himself and Vincent and Richard at Eton and Oxford), faded arm-chairs +and faded chintzes—a nice, cosy, friendly room, full of old +associations and old hopes and despairs.</p> + +<p>This room did not often see either Lady Adela or John, but to-day +Norris, for reasons best known to himself, had put tea there and, to +both of them, as they sat over the fire with the great house so still +and quiet about them, the shabby intimacy of the little place was +grateful.</p> + +<p>John, disturbed, himself, out of his normal easy geniality, noticed that +Adela also was disturbed.</p> + +<p>That dry and rather gritty assurance that had all her life protected her +from both the praise and abuse of her fellow-men and women was, to-day, +absent. She seemed really grateful to John for coming to have tea with +her to-day. He wondered whether she felt as he did that this war, with +all its horrors, foreboded, in some manner, special disasters upon the +Beaminster family, as though it were a portent, to be read of all men, +of the destruction and ruin of that family.</p> + +<p>"Poor Adela," he thought, "she's very plain. If she asks me to help her +I will. She's got something on her mind."</p> + +<p>"Rachel's here," Lady Adela said, looking at her brother nervously.</p> + +<p>"Now?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, she's with mother. She came to say good-bye to her. She and Roddy +are going down to Seddon to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know——" said John.</p> + +<p>"She's very queer—very odd. I don't pretend to understand her."</p> + +<p>"We're all queer just now," said John. "Down at the club to-day it was +too awful. No other subject—fellows killed, fellows going out to be +killed. Blunder, blame, disgrace—all the time. But what's Rachel been +doing odd?"</p> + +<p>"You understand her better than I do," said his sister. "She always +liked you better. I did my best with her, but she never cared about me. +But now I understand her less than ever. She's so excited and hard and +unnatural. Something's happened to her that we don't know about, I'm +sure."</p> + +<p>John said nothing. He was unhappy enough about Rachel, but he did not +intend to talk to Adela about it. He would rather not talk to anyone +about it because talking only brought it more actually in front of him. +Besides, he did not know what to say. He knew that he had been cowardly +about Rachel. He had tried to pretend to himself that she was happy when +he had known that she was not and so, for the sake of his comfort, he +had stifled the most genuine emotion in his life; that indeed was the +Beaminster habit.</p> + +<p>"She's not happy," continued Adela. "I'm sure I don't know why—Roddy's +very good to her—very good. She's so queer. She wants to have Miss Rand +down with her at Seddon for Christmas."</p> + +<p>"Miss Rand?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—she asked me whether I'd let her go. She's got to give a dance and +a dinner-party or two and asked me whether she might have her help. Of +course I said 'Yes.' Miss Rand hasn't been looking at all well for some +time now. A change will do her good."</p> + +<p>"What did Miss Rand say when you told her?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, she was odd. She has been odd lately. At first she thought she +wouldn't go. Then she said she would. I told her it would do her good."</p> + +<p>"How's mother been the last two days?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! the same. She won't say anything—she confides in nobody."</p> + +<p>John looked at his sister and wondered why it was that he had never, +during all these years, considered her as a personality or as anything +actively happy or miserable. She had had, he suddenly supposed, a life +of her own that was, in a way, as acute and sensitive as his and yet he +had never realized this.</p> + +<p>He had always taken his mother's word for it that Adela was a dried-up +stick who resented interference; now he was sure that that judgment was +short-sighted, and then, upon this, came criticism of his mother; +therefore, to banish such disloyalty, he said hurriedly:</p> + +<p>"I didn't enjoy the Massiters a bit—longed to get away—Sunday was +miserable——"</p> + +<p>Adela said—"I never could bear them—John——" she stopped.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, looking across at her. His large good-tempered eyes met +hers and then the colour mounted very slowly into her cheeks. He had +never seen her agitated before—</p> + +<p>"John—" she began again. "I must do something. I can't sit here—just +quietly—going on as though nothing were happening. I know—all one's +life one's stood aside rather, I've never wanted to interfere with +anyone. But now, this war has made one feel differently, I think."</p> + +<p>"Well?" said her brother.</p> + +<p>"Well—an organization is being formed—women, you know—to help in some +way. They're going to do everything, make clothes, have sales and +concerts and get money together. It's to be a big thing—Nelly Ponsonby, +Clara Raddleton, lots of others.... They've asked me to be on the +committee——"</p> + +<p>"Well?" said John, "why not?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him appealingly. "Mrs. Bronson's on it too—one of the +originators of it."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" John was silent. Here was, indeed, a question. Mrs. Bronson, the +Beaminster arch-enemy. Mrs. Bronson, who had snapped her bejewelled +American fingers at the Duchess—Mrs. Bronson, who called the +Beaminsters the most insulting names. Why, a fortnight ago any alliance +with such a woman was unthinkable, incredible—</p> + +<p>"I believe," went on Lady Adela, "that she herself proposed that I +should be asked...."</p> + +<p>A fortnight ago ... and now—</p> + +<p>John knew that he was glad that Adela wished to join the committee, he +knew that he was closer to Adela now than he had ever been at any moment +during their lives together.</p> + +<p>He looked across at her and their eyes met and in that glance exchanged +between them barriers were broken down, curtains turned aside—they +would never be strangers again.</p> + +<p>"Mother isn't well." Adela said quite firmly. "Hasn't been well for a +long time—we've all known it. She has felt this war and—and other +things very much. She will feel my going on to the same committee as +Mrs. Bronson—she will certainly feel it. But I think it's my duty to do +so. After all, on an occasion like this family feeling must give way +before national ones." Why did not the walls and foundations of No. 104 +Portland Place rock and quiver before the horrid sacrilege of such +words? John, himself, almost expected them to do so and yet he was of +his sister's opinion.</p> + +<p>"I think you are perfectly right, Adela," he said.</p> + +<p>"Oh! I'm so glad that you do. I don't want to worry mother, just now. +I'm frankly rather nervous about telling her—but it must be done."</p> + +<p>"It's odd, Adela," said John, leaning back in his chair and crossing +his fat legs. "But something real like this war, a ghastly day with boys +shouting horrors at you followed by another ghastly day with more boys +shouting more horrors, it does shake one's life up. I've been very +cowardly, Adela, about a number of things. I see that now. I've never +really wanted to see it before. It makes one uncomfortable."</p> + +<p>"I don't think one ought to give way," said Adela with a slight return +to her gritty manner, "to one's feelings too much. But certainly one is +beginning to see things differently, which is a dangerous thing for +people of our age, John."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said John, "I suppose it is." He paused and then brought +out—"There's Francis, Adela. We've all been very wrong about +Francis. I've felt it for a long time, but hadn't the courage.... +He's been behaving very well all this time—One oughtn't to hold +aloof—altogether——"</p> + +<p>"Mother refuses to have his name mentioned——"</p> + +<p>"We must take into account," John said very slowly and now without +meeting his sister's eye—"that mother is not so well—scarcely so sure +in her judgment——"</p> + +<p>He broke off. There was a long pause and they looked away from one +another, as though they had been guilty conspirators. Norris came in to +take the tea away.</p> + +<p>"Has Lady Seddon gone?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, my lady. She was with Her Grace a very short time——"</p> + +<p>Adela turned impatiently to John. "So like Rachel. She might at least +have come to say good-bye to us."</p> + +<p>When Norris had gone John got up and walked a little about the room.</p> + +<p>He stopped beside his sister and put his hand on her shoulder:</p> + +<p>"If there's anything I can ever do to help you, Adela, tell me——!" he +said.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, John," she answered.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Rachel had never understood why it was that she was driven so constantly +into her grandmother's presence. The impulse that drove her had in it, +perhaps, something of defiance and something of challenge as though she +cried to some weakness in her that it should not master her and that she +would just show it how little those visits mattered to her. It had all +begun from some reason of that kind, and lately, when she grew older, +she discovered that her grandmother was more terrible through +imagination than she was through actual vision.</p> + +<p>There was never absent from Rachel a lurking presentiment of what her +grandmother might one day do, and she went to see her now to discover +what she might be at, to prove to her that, whatever she be doing, +Rachel was "up" to her.</p> + +<p>On this particular occasion the visit was a very brief one, but there +was one moment in it that after events always produced for Rachel as a +most definite and (on the part of the Duchess) omniscient omen.</p> + +<p>Rachel had said that she had come in only for a moment to say good-bye. +She had talked a little and then, rising, stood by the fire.</p> + +<p>As she stood there her grandmother suddenly looked at her—a glance that +Rachel had not been intended to catch. There was there a malicious +humour, a consciousness of some power, of some disaster that could be +delivered, triumphantly, at an instant's notice.</p> + +<p>Very swiftly Rachel gathered her control, but she had felt what that +look conveyed.</p> + +<p>"Francis ... she knows ... what is she going to do?"</p> + +<p>She strung her slim, tall figure to its finest restraint and without a +quiver in her voice (her heart was beating wildly), "Good-bye, +grandmamma. I promised Roddy to be back."</p> + +<p>But the old lady looked at her—</p> + +<p>"How you do hate me, my dear," she said almost complacently.</p> + +<p>Rachel compelled the other's eyes. "Would I come to see you so often if +I did?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes, my dear, you would. You've got a sense of humour hidden somewhere +although, God knows, we've seen little enough of it lately. Oh! yes, +you'd come all right—if it were only to see me growing older and +older."</p> + +<p>Rachel turned flaming. "There, at any rate, you're unjust. It's you that +have always hated me from the beginning—since I was small. Hated me, +been unjust to me——"</p> + +<p>Her body trembled with agitation—she was not far from one of her old +tempests of passion.</p> + +<p>But the Duchess smiled. "You exaggerate, Rachel, your old fault. At any +rate, I'll be gone soon, I suppose—it will seem trivial enough one +day...." Then as Rachel, turning to the door, left her—"But hurt a hair +of Roddy's head, my dear, and—well, you'll hate me more than ever——"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>When Rachel had gone the Duchess felt very ill indeed. She had only to +touch a bell and Dorchester would be with her, but she did not intend to +summon Dorchester before she need.</p> + +<p>She felt now, at this minute, that her spirit of resistance had almost +snapped. Again and again, throughout the last months, the temptation to +lie down and surrender had swept up, beaten about her walls and then +sunk, defeated, back again.</p> + +<p>But this last week of disaster had tried her severely. Her pride in life +had been largely her pride in the arrangement of it and now all that +arrangement was tumbling to pieces and she powerless to prevent it. For +the first time in all her days she felt that she would like to have +someone with her who would reassure her—someone less acid than +Dorchester.</p> + +<p>Why had she never had a companion—a woman like Miss Rand who would +understand without being sentimental?</p> + +<p>There was pain in every muscle and nerve of her body: it swept up and +down her old limbs in hot waves.... She clutched the arms of her chair.</p> + +<p>Even her brain, that had always been so sharp and clear, was now +confused a little and passed strange unusual pictures before her eyes. +That girl ... yes ... Dorchester had been very clever about that: +Dorchester had been in communication with Breton's man-servant for a +long time past. To go to tea there ... to be alone with him ... Roddy—</p> + +<p>And at that dearly loved name all was sharp and accurate. Night and day +she was terrified lest she should suddenly hear that he was off to South +Africa. She believed that that would really kill her. Roddy—her +Roddy—to go and make another of those ghastly tragedies with which the +newspapers were now full. But let Rachel disdain him and he would go +merely to show her how fine a fellow he was—what idiots men were!</p> + +<p>Or let this other thing become a scandal, then surely he would go.</p> + +<p>She shook there in her chair and then with her eyes fixed on the fire +prayed to whatever gods or devils were hers that he might not go. +Anything, anything so that he might not go. Break him up, hurt +him—only, only he must not go.</p> + +<p>She prayed, thrusting her whole soul and spirit into her urgency—</p> + +<p>Then, even as she sat there, her darkest hour was suddenly upon her. It +leapt upon her, as it were a beast out of some sudden darknesses—leapt +upon her, seized her, tore her, crushed her little dried withered soul +in its claws and tossed it to the fire.</p> + +<p>She was held by the sudden absolute realization of Death. She had never +seen it or known it before. Others had died and she had not cared; many +were dying now and it did not concern her.</p> + +<p>But this beast crouching in front of her, with its burning eyes on her +face, said to her: "All your life I've been beside you, waiting for this +moment. I knew that it would come. I have waited a long time—you have +played and thought yourself important and have cared for meddling in the +affairs of the world, but Reality has never touched you. You have +gathered things about you to pretend that I was not there. You have +mocked at others when they have seen me—you have enjoyed their +terror—now your own terror has come."</p> + +<p>Death.... She had never—until this instant—given it a thought. +Everything was gone before its presence. In a week or two, a month or +two, silence—</p> + +<p>Rachel—she saw her standing there by the fire, full of life and energy, +so young, so strong.</p> + +<p>She, the Duchess of Wrexe, the great figure, courted by kings, princes, +artists, all the men and women of her time, now must crumble into the +veriest dust, be forgotten, be followed by others, banished by this new +world.</p> + +<p>She and her Times were slipping, slipping into disuse. Who cared now for +those other glories? What minds now were fit to tackle those minds that +she had known? What beauty now could stand beside that beauty that had +shone when she was young?</p> + +<p>The beast crouched nearer. The room darkened. She could feel the hot +breath, could be dazed by the shining of those eyes. Behind her, around +her, the trumpery toys that she had gathered faded.</p> + +<p>Darkness rose; a great space and desolation was about her—She tried to +summon all her energy.</p> + +<p>She cried out and Dorchester, coming in, found that her mistress had, +for the first time in her life, fainted, bending, an old, broken woman, +forward in her chair.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XA" id="CHAPTER_XA"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>LIZZIE'S JOURNEY—II</h3> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>The world, during all these months, had seemed to Lizzie Rand a very +silent place. Before that July night it had been loud with incident, +coloured with possibilities, strange and varied and thrilling. Now she +was only conscious of the duties that must be fulfilled between daybreak +and darkness; she was unconscious of all life and movement, only she was +aware of the demands on her deliberate activity—these demands she +obeyed.</p> + +<p>Slowly, as the dreary autumn dragged its days past her, she accustomed +herself to forestall the horrid moments that would leap from some hidden +darkness upon her. There was the moment when a something said: "Fancy +caring for someone who had never asked nor shown any sign...." Another +moment when something said: "Remember how here you stood, with your +heart beating, waiting for him to come—There you caught some light in +his eyes and fancied it a sign...."</p> + +<p>Burning shame was in those moments did she indulge them—a realization, +too, of the bare grey desolation of a world without movement or vision. +She could not see the people about her, her mother, her sister, Lady +Adela, Dr. Christopher (always kind to her), other friends—they were +not there for her at all.</p> + +<p>Only two things were there—that she must cling, at all possible costs, +to her pride and that she hated Rachel. Her pride had been called to her +defence before, but to hate anyone was new to her. She had never hated +any human being and now the restlessness that this new emotion brought +confused her.</p> + +<p>Night after night stretched ironically before her, banishing sleep. All +her life she had slept from the moment that her head was upon the +pillow; now, at that instant, her brain sprang to fire, thought after +thought, memory after memory, passed in dancing procession before her.</p> + +<p>She saw him as little as possible, she supposed that in time she would +not care, would be indifferent to him; she hoped so.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile she went out when he came in; saw his kind distress because +he thought that she was not well, and shuddered at it.</p> + +<p>Then Lady Adela told her that Rachel had asked whether she were free for +Christmas.</p> + +<p>She received a letter:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Miss Rand</span>,</p> + +<p>I wonder whether by any chance you would care to come to us +here for three weeks at Christmas time? I should be so grateful +if you would come and help me a little with some tiresome +social things here. May I add that I have for a long time +wanted to know you better than the London rush ever gives time +for? My aunt says that you have been overworking lately, she +thinks. If you come here you shall have all the rest and quiet +possible.</p> + +<p>Yours sincerely,</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Rachel Seddon</span>."</p></blockquote> + +<p>A funny little letter—stiff and then suddenly impulsive and friendly.</p> + +<p>Of course she would go—she had never doubted that. Here at last was +some food for the burning restlessness that was always at her +breast—Through these months she had longed for some step that would +help to kill the pain.</p> + +<p>Now she would watch Rachel and discover her heart and perhaps find from +that discovery some way for her own release. For her shame, night and +day, was that she still cared, cared, yes, as deeply as she had ever +done—that caring must die.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the sight and knowledge of this other woman would kill it.</p> + +<p>At least here at last was action after the terrible silence and +remoteness of those many months.</p> + +<p>She would go to Seddon and she would not leave it without finding some +way by which she might still make some use of life.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>She had really stayed at very few houses before. The anticipation at any +other time would have excited her, now nothing mattered except that she +would meet Rachel.</p> + +<p>Her mother and sister had watched her during these past months with a +dismay stirred by the sudden absence of her genial friendliness.</p> + +<p>They had taken so much of her kindliness for granted and now when she +refused them the sympathy that they had always demanded for a thousand +unimportant incidents they, clamorously, missed it.</p> + +<p>At first it was easy to say that Lizzie was callous and selfish, +afterwards that she was ill and overworked, finally they hailed with +relief the promise of a three-weeks' holiday. "She'll come back," said +Mrs. Rand, "as fresh as paint, and taken out of herself."</p> + +<p>Meanwhile no solution of Lizzie's trouble occurred to them; that she +should ever feel the tyranny of love, like more sentimental mortals, +was, at this time of day, impossible. "We know Lizzie, thank you," said +Mrs. Rand.</p> + +<p>They watched her, on the afternoon of the 23rd of December, depart in a +cab for Seddon Court. She was grave and pale and beautifully neat. "I do +admire Lizzie, you know," said Daisy, returning with her mother into the +house. "I can't get that kind of tidiness. Her things go on for years, +looking as good as new."</p> + +<p>"Men like a bit of disorder," said Mrs. Rand. "It seems more agitated. +All the same I'd like to know what is worrying Lizzie."</p> + +<p>It was a wet and gusty day and the wind blew the rain with hard +impatient spurts against the windows of the cab. Few people were about: +Hyde Park Corner was grey and deserted, umbrellas like black mushrooms +started here and there from the shining ground.</p> + +<p>Victoria Station also had, on this afternoon, nothing beautiful to +offer. She found her way to her train, chose an empty carriage, sat in +her corner with her hands upon her lap, waited for the train to move.</p> + +<p>People, grey people with white faces, hurried past her carriage. She +wondered whether they too had something in their hearts that made every +thought, every movement a danger.</p> + +<p>Because the train would not move and because for the first time in all +these months she found herself without any occupation, she could not +hold thought at bay. She resisted, she tried to sweep her brain empty, +she surrendered. She, Lizzie Rand, always so fond of her self-discipline +and restraint, found control now slipping from her. Before she had met +Breton her duties, the skilful manipulation and arrangement of detail, +her work and her place as a worker, these had supplied her needs. Now +all those things were dust and ashes; high and lofty above them shone +that bright fire whose warmth and colour she had, for an instant, felt +and seen. What was life going to be, through all the years to come, if +she were never to recapture her tranquillity?</p> + +<p>The train moved off and she sat there, her eyes bright and shining, her +little body stiff and resolute. Somewhere, a long way away, like a +rounded coloured cloud, hovered emotion—emotion that would break her +heart, would tear her to pieces and then perhaps build up for her a new +life. But her eyes now were dry and her heart was cold.</p> + +<p>The train went whir-whack—whack-whir and the telegraph wires flew up, +hung, hesitated, were coming down, flew higher, then with a rush were +buried below the window, and with the noise and movement there danced +before her eyes the questions, "Does she love him?" "Does she love him? +Has she told him that she loves him? What will her husband do? Does she +love her husband?" And then, beyond that, "Why did she come and take +from me all that I had, she who had already so much?"</p> + +<p>And then, most bitter of all, "Ah, but you never had him. She took +nothing from you. He never thought of you except as someone to whom he +could talk——"</p> + +<p>She had no doubt that these weeks were intended for a crisis. Something +was going to happen at Seddon.... Something in which she was to have her +share. She felt as though she had known that she would be sent to meet +Rachel—It had to be....</p> + +<p>Then her thoughts left, for a time, her own miserable little history. +She wondered how Lady Adela would manage without her. Lady Adela had +never been alone before and now that the Duchess had had, a fortnight +ago, that fainting fit, they were all unsettled and alarmed. What would +happen if the Duchess died? Then all the dignity and splendour of 104 +Portland Place would pass away! other people might inhabit it, but the +soul of that house would be dead.</p> + +<p>Everything on every side of her seemed to be hastening to a climax and +Lizzie could see that old woman fighting, behind her closed doors, for +Life, beaten at last, dead, swept away, others laughing in her place—a +new world to whom she was only a portrait cleverly painted by some young +artist.</p> + +<p>Yes, there were other histories developing now besides Lizzie's and she +felt as though she had been whirled, during the last months, into a +wild, tossing medley of contacts and revelations—all this after a life +so grey and quiet and steadily busy.</p> + +<p>As the train plunged into Sussex the rain stayed for a little and the +shining earth steamed upwards to a grey sky broken here and there to +saffron. Little towns quietly rested under the hills and many streams +ran through the woods and the roads drove white like steel through the +crust of the soil. White lights spread in the upper air and the heaving +grey was pushed, as though by some hand, back into the distant horizon. +For a moment it seemed that the sun was bursting through; trees were +suddenly green where they had been black and fields red where they had +been sombre dark—Light was on all the hills.</p> + +<p>But the hand was stayed. Back the grey rolled again, heavily like +chariots the clouds wheeled round and drove down upon the earth—The +rain fell.</p> + +<p>The carriage was very cold. Lizzie's hand and feet were so chill that +they seemed not to belong to her at all. Pictures of houses at Brighton +and the dining-car of some train and two public-houses at the bottom of +a hill stared at her.</p> + +<p>The sense of some coming disaster grew with her. It was as though +someone were telling her that she must prepare to be very brave and +controlled and wise because, very soon, all her restraint and wisdom +would be needed. She summoned now, as she had learnt to do, a stern +armoured resolution that sat always a little oddly upon her. Any +observer who had seen her sitting there would have noticed the mild +softness of her eyes, the tenderness of some curve at the corners of her +mouth, and would have smiled at the lines of resolution as though he had +known that the sternness was all assumed.</p> + +<p>But she was saying that nothing should touch or move her down here at +Seddon; her heart should be closed. She must grow into a woman who had +no need of emotion—and even as she determined that some vision swept +her by, revealing to her the happy dear uses that she could have made of +love and sympathy had life been set that way for her. How she could have +cared!... A dry little sob was at her throat and burning pain behind her +tearless eyes. God, the things that other people had and did not value!</p> + +<p>The train stopped at a wind-swept deserted station and a man and woman +with a little child, the three of them tired, wet, bedraggled, entered +the carriage.</p> + +<p>The man was gaunt with a beard and large helpless eyes, the woman +shapeless, loose-breasted, little eyes sunk in her cheeks, an old black +straw hat tilted back on her head. These two did not glance at Lizzie, +nor was there any curiosity of interest in their eyes, but the small +child, yellow wisps of hair falling about her dirty face, detached +herself from them, crept into the furthest corner of the carriage and +from there stared at Lizzie.</p> + +<p>The train droned on through a country now shrinking beneath a deluge of +rain. The child moved a little, looked at the woman, looked again at +Lizzie, crept to Lizzie's side of the carriage, at last, still without a +word, came close and, finally, stole fingers towards Lizzie's dress.</p> + +<p>Lizzie turned and smiled at the child, who stared back at her, now with +wide terrified eyes. Lizzie looked away, out of the window, and after a +long time, felt the grimy hand upon her knee.</p> + +<p>Once the woman said, "Come away, Cissie. You're worrying the lady."</p> + +<p>"No. Please," said Lizzie. She took the hand in her own and smiled again +at the wide baby face. The child was very, very young and very, very +dirty—</p> + +<p>No child had ever come near her before. She wondered why it had come +now.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>At Lewes a carriage was waiting for her and, in a moment, it seemed that +she was driving through a dark village street and in front of her, like +a great wall topping the skies, the Downs rose.</p> + +<p>When the carriage entered the courtyard and stopped before the broad +stone door Lizzie was seized with terror. She wished, oh! she wished +that she had not come. The sense of descending trouble was so strong +with her that she felt for the first time in her life that she was going +to prove unequal to her task.</p> + +<p>Her life was over and done with! Why had she allowed herself to be +pushed back again into all these affairs of other people?</p> + +<p>She was ushered into a square lighted hall where they were all having +tea round a wide open fireplace. She was conscious of Rachel rising, +slim and tall, to greet her, of the square ruddy-faced country-looking +man who gripped her hand, jolly hard, and was, of course, Sir Roderick; +of a handsome, athletic-looking girl in a riding-habit, of a man or two +and an elderly smartly dressed woman.</p> + +<p>They were all immensely cheerful and friendly and to Lizzie, white and +tired, noisy and horribly robust. She would have liked to have slipped +up to her room and stayed there alone until dinner, but Rachel said:</p> + +<p>"Oh! you must be perished after that wet journey. Tea's just at its +hottest and its freshest. Quick, Roddy—the toast—Never mind the rest +of us, Miss Rand—just drink that tea and get warm."</p> + +<p>They allowed her to sink back into an easy chair somewhere in the shadow +and the tea was very comforting and the stern hall with its crackling +fire and its cosy solid shape most friendly. She listened to them all +noisily discussing people and dances and horses and dinners. She watched +Rachel Seddon, sitting a little gravely, straight in her chair, throwing +in a word now and again.</p> + +<p>This was the woman.... This was the woman....</p> + +<p>She felt a warm tongue that licked her hand. She looked down and saw at +her side the oddest dog, a dog like a mat, shapeless with two brown eyes +behind its hair and a black wet nose.</p> + +<p>There was something about the eyes and the way that the warm body was +pressed against her dress that won her instant affection.</p> + +<p>"What an adorable animal!" she said to Roddy, who was sitting next to +her.</p> + +<p>"Oh! Jacob!" he said, laughing. "He really oughtn't to be in here at +all—servants' hall's his proper place—If you care for dogs, Miss Rand, +I'll show you some——"</p> + +<p>As he spoke she caught the dog's eyes and saw in the depths of them +shame. He had been sitting, very square and upright, with his eyes +gravely fixed, with great interest, upon the company. Then, at the sound +of Roddy's voice his head had dropped, instantly he became furtive, his +eyes searching for some place of escape.</p> + +<p>Her hand caught his rough coat and she drew him to her side and stroked +his ears.</p> + +<p>"I think he's perfectly delightful," she said. "I'm afraid I prefer +mongrels to better dogs."</p> + +<p>"Do you really?" said Roddy, looking kindly at her. "'Pon my word, Miss +Rand, I must show you my little lot. I don't think you'll have much use +for that animal there afterwards."</p> + +<p>At last the girl in the riding-habit and the other woman and the young +man noisily departed.</p> + +<p>Rachel took Lizzie upstairs. "Are you sure," she said, "you'd like to +come down to dinner? Wouldn't you rather, to-night, go early to bed and +have it there?"</p> + +<p>"No, thank you, Lady Seddon." Lizzie looked about the room. "This is all +splendid, thank you. I'm not a bit tired."</p> + +<p>"I'm so glad you've come," said Rachel, searching for Lizzie's eyes. But +Lizzie had turned away.</p> + +<p>At last she was alone.</p> + +<p>Her room was splendid—so wide, and high, and such a fire!</p> + +<p>She flung up her window. There the Downs were, black, huge before her; +the rain came down hissing from the sky and a smell of wet earth and +grass stole up to her.</p> + +<p>"That's the woman ..." she said again to herself—"What shall we say to +one another?"</p> + +<p>Then as she stared into the fire she thought, "She wants me to help +her."</p> + +<p>Afterwards she heard a scratching at the door. A maid had been sent to +her, but she had dismissed her, saying that she would manage for +herself.</p> + +<p>She went to the door and found outside it the shaggy, square dog.</p> + +<p>He walked into her room, sniffed for a time at the bed, pricked up his +ears at the noise that the fire made, listened to the sound of the rain, +at last sat down in a distant corner with one leg stretched at right +angles to his body and watched her.</p> + +<p>She was indignant with herself for the softness in her heart that his +company brought to her.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIA" id="CHAPTER_XIA"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>RODDY IS MASTER</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"I and my mistress, side by side,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Shall be together, breathe and ride,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">So, one day more am I deified,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who knows but the world may end to-night?"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Robert Browning.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Introspection had been always to Roddy a thing unknown. He had never +regarded himself as in any way different from the other men whom he met, +and he would have been greatly distressed had he thought that he <i>was</i> +different.—"What you writin' fellers," he had once said to Garden, "can +find amusin' in inventin' people for I can't think; you've got to make +'em odd for people to be interested in 'em and then they aren't like +anyone."</p> + +<p>Now, however, for the first time in his life he would have been glad of +help from someone who knew a little about the motive of human beings. He +was worried, distressed, perplexed; slowly his temper was rising—a +temper roused by his irritation at not being able to deal with the +situation.</p> + +<p>It was not his way to ask for help from anyone and he always had all the +inarticulate self-confidence of the healthy Englishman, but now, as the +days crept towards Christmas he was increasingly aware that something +must soon happen to prevent his patience giving away.</p> + +<p>He might as well not be married to Rachel at all—and that was an +intolerable position for him as husband, as lover, as master of his +house. Beyond doubt, he knew Rachel less now than he had known her when +he married her. Her very kindness to him, her strange alternations of +silence and affection perplexed him; for a long time he had told +himself that he knew that she did not love him and that he must make +companionship do, but ever since that quarrel about Nita Raseley the +division between them had grown wider and wider.</p> + +<p>Because he loved her he had been very patient with her—very patient for +Roddy, who had always had what he wanted and shown temper if he were +refused.</p> + +<p>But Roddy's character was of a very real simplicity. The men and women +and animals whom he had known had also been, for the most part, of a +simple character and, in all his life, there had only been one horse and +two women who had been too much for him, and even these, at the last, he +had beaten by temper and dogged determination.</p> + +<p>Rachel was utterly beyond him. The strange way that she had of suddenly +becoming quite another woman baffled him; had he only not loved her he +was sure that it would have been easier, much easier.</p> + +<p>But now, as the days passed at Seddon, his irritation thrived. Women +were all the same. They <i>seemed</i> obstinate enough, but there was nothing +like brute force to bring them to heel. He was growing surly—cross with +the servants and the animals. He didn't sleep. His discontent made him +silent so that, when they were alone, instead of talking to her and +interesting her and winning her, perhaps, in that way, he would sit and +look at her and answer her in monosyllables, and, afterwards, would be +furious with himself for behaving so absurdly.</p> + +<p>This trouble sent him out of doors and away over the Downs on his horse. +Fiercely he hurled himself into his fields and lanes and farms, getting +up sometimes very early and riding out to some distant place, thinking +always, as he rode, of Rachel and what he was to do.</p> + +<p>His devotion for the country round Seddon, a devotion that had stirred +his heart since his first conscious sight of the outside world, nobly +now rewarded him. The land seemed to understand that he was suffering, +and drew closer to him and watched him with gentle and loving eyes, and +soothed his soul.</p> + +<p>Before Christmas there came some sharp, frosty mornings; he would go out +very early and would see, first, the garden, the lawn crisp and white, +the grey jagged wall that divided his land from the sweeping Downs, the +grey house behind him so square and solid and comfortable. At the end of +the garden away from the road there was an old iron gate with stone +pillars, and upon these pillars sat old stone gryphons. These gryphons +had been there since long ago and he liked the friendliness of their +faces, the strength of their crouching bodies and the way that they +would look out so patiently, over a great expanse of fields and hedges, +until their gaze rested on the white chalk hollows in the rising hills +away behind Lewes.</p> + +<p>Roddy, standing with the Downs so immediately behind him and this green +spread of land in front of him, was always conscious of happiness. Here +he was at home. He knew those fields, the streams that ran through them, +the farmers, the labourers, the horses and dogs that lived upon them. No +fear here that "one of those clever fellers" would wonder at his +stupidity, no sudden "letting you down" or "showing you up." Behind him +was his house, before him the land that he had always known; here he was +safe.</p> + +<p>He had, too, beyond this, some unformulated recognition of a service and +a worship that here he was called on to pay. He had always declared that +he could understand those Johnnies who worshipped the sun and the earth. +"Damn it all—there's something to catch on to there."—He did not, in +his heart, believe in all this civilization, this preserving of the sick +and tending of the maimed and halt. "You've got to clear out if you're +broken up" was his opinion. "If you can't do your bit, can't see or +smell or anything, you're just in the way."—What he meant was that the +halt and maimed were simply insults to the vigour and vitality of his +fields and sky.</p> + +<p>But indeed, what <i>would</i> he have done during these days had he not had +his riding, farms to visit, shepherds and farmers for company? At first +Rachel had ridden with him and they had been closer together during +those rides than at any other time, but lately she had refused, on one +excuse or another, to come with him.</p> + +<p>He went a good deal now to other houses, but it was awkward because +Rachel would not come with him. She asked people to Seddon and was +charming when they came, but she would not often go out with him when +the country people invited them.</p> + +<p>Since the Nita Raseley episode he had thought that she might show +jealousy did he ride and drive with some girl in the country. He hoped +that she would be jealous, that would have filled him with tingling +happiness—but no, she seemed to be glad that he should find someone who +could take her place.</p> + +<p>Over all these things he brooded and brooded. He would look at his old +friendly gryphons and feel, in some dumb confused way, that they were +being insulted.—"Poor old beggars—I bet she doesn't know they're +there"—And through all of this, he loved her more and more, and was, +daily, more wretched and unhappy.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>The coming of Miss Rand puzzled him. He had, of course, known of her for +a long time—"Adela Beaminster's secretary, most capable woman, simply +runs the whole place."—As a human being she simply did not occur to +him.</p> + +<p>Now she seemed to be the one person whom Rachel wished to know. Another +instance of Rachel's unexpectedness. When Lizzie came he was still more +astonished. This tidy, trim little woman looked as though she ought +always to have a typewriter by her side; her sharp eyes were always +restlessly discovering things that were out of order. Roddy found +himself fingering his tie and patting his hair when she was with +him—not, he would have supposed, the sort of woman for whom Rachel +would have cared.</p> + +<p>Then after a while he discovered another astonishing thing. Miss Rand +did not like his wife, did not like her at all. He watched and fancied +that Rachel soon discovered this and was doing her utmost to force Miss +Rand to like her.</p> + +<p>Miss Rand was always pleasant and polite; she was an immense help about +dinners and this dance that was to be given early in the New Year, but +she yielded to none of Rachel's advances, was always reserved, +unresponsive.</p> + +<p>Roddy was afraid of her but believed in her. She liked animals and loved +the house and the Downs and the country.—"She's all clean and bright +and hard," he thought; "no emotion about her, no sentiment <i>there</i>. A +man 'ud have a stiff time love-making with her."</p> + +<p>But it gradually appeared that, whatever her feelings might be towards +Rachel, she was ready to like Roddy. She walked with him, asked him +sensible questions, listened attentively to his rather lumbering +explanations. After a time, he almost forgot that she was a woman at +all—"Damn sensible and yet she never makes you feel a fool."</p> + +<p>He liked her very much, though she obviously preferred Jacob, the +mongrel, to all other dogs in the place. He wondered as the days passed +whether she might not help him with Rachel. He would not speak to anyone +living about his own feelings for Rachel and his unhappiness, but he +thought that, perhaps, in a roundabout way, he might obtain from Miss +Rand some general wisdom that he could apply to his especial case.</p> + +<p>The afternoon of Christmas Eve was cold and foggy and Roddy and Lizzie +sat over the fire in the hall waiting for Rachel, who had gone out for a +solitary walk. Roddy looking at his companion approved of the sharp +delicate little face with the firelight touching it to colour and +shadow; her dress was grey with a tiny brooch of old gold at her throat, +and she wore one ring of small pearls; the look of her gave him +pleasure.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," Miss Rand said, "that you don't go where you'll get better +hunting—you don't hunt round here at all, do you?"</p> + +<p>"A bit"—Roddy looked gravely at the fire—"I go very little though. You +see, Miss Rand, it's a case of bein' born down here and likin' the +place, don't you know. <i>Of course</i> I'd love to have been born in a +huntin' country, but bein' here I've got fond of it, you see, and +wouldn't leave it for any huntin' anywhere."</p> + +<p>She looked at him sharply: "You do love the place very much—I envy you +that."</p> + +<p>Even as she spoke her consciousness of "the place" faced her; she had +always known that she was more acutely aware of the personality of her +surroundings than were most of her friends, but her experience here was +different from anything that she had ever known before.</p> + +<p>She remembered that in the train she had been warned of some coming +event and now, sitting opposite to Roddy beside the blazing fire, she +was sharply and definitely frightened.</p> + +<p>Rachel had already appealed to her; Roddy was appealing to her now, but +stronger than either of these demands was some force in herself, warning +her and raising in her the most conflicting, disturbing emotions.</p> + +<p>The very silence of the house about them, the long green stretches of +the level fields, came almost personally and presented themselves to +her, and in her heart, growing with every moment of passing time, was +her hatred of Rachel and, from that, tenderness for Roddy, who could +thus be left, so pathetically unhappy, so eloquently without words that +might express his unhappiness.</p> + +<p>Something she knew was soon to occur that would involve all three of +them in a common crisis.</p> + +<p>It was almost as though she must leap to her feet and cry to the +startled and innocent Roddy, "Look out!" her finger pointing at the +closed door behind him.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Roddy had been considering her. She said that she envied him +the place. That was pleasant of her, and he warmed to the urgency with +which she had said it. If she felt in that way about such things, why +then, all the more, he thought, he could speak to her about his trouble +with Rachel. Perhaps, too, although this he would not admit to +himself—his conviction that Lizzie disliked Rachel gave him more +courage.</p> + +<p>Everyone thought Rachel so wonderful—wonderful of course she was, but a +complete sense of that wonder must blind the looker-on to Roddy's point +of view.</p> + +<p>"Places," he said moodily, "ain't everythin'—course <i>I</i> love this old +bit o' ground, but when you love anything a lot you're disappointed +because every feller don't see it exactly as you do."</p> + +<p>Lizzie looked at him.</p> + +<p>"I should have thought, though, Sir Roderick, that you were a very, very +happy person."</p> + +<p>Roddy considered, then slowly shook his head—"No, Miss Rand, not +exactly—no, you know, I shouldn't say that exactly—but then, I +suppose, no man on this earth is absolutely happy."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Lizzie, "a great many people would envy you—your health, +your home, your wife, you've got a good deal, Sir Roderick."</p> + +<p>As she spoke her anxiety to help him seized and held her. He wanted +advice so badly, advice that she could give him, and this English strain +in him prevented him from speaking. Had she gone more deeply into her +motives she would have known that her anger with Rachel, even more +actively prompted, it seemed, by the stones and the fields and the hills +around her, was urging her interference.</p> + +<p>"People envy me," said Roddy, "but then, Miss Rand, people don't know. +It's all my own fault, mind you, that I'm not perfectly happy. It's all +because I'm such a fool, not able to see what people are gettin' at, +always blunderin' in at the wrong moment and blunderin' out again when I +ought to be stayin' in, and that sort o' thing. I used to think," he +concluded, "that all the talk about people's feelin's, studying them and +so on, was rot, but now I'm not so sure. I'd give anythin'—" he stopped +abruptly.</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> all rot," Lizzie said sharply—"I can only speak as a woman, of +course, but I know that what every woman ever born into this world has +wanted is just to be taken by someone stronger than herself and be +beaten or kissed, loved or strangled as the case may be. Believe me, it +is so."</p> + +<p>Roddy looked at her, some new thought, perhaps a prologue to some new +determination, shining from his eyes.</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" he said. "I believe you're right, Miss Rand—I do indeed. +<i>Every</i> woman, would you say?"</p> + +<p>"Every woman," said Lizzie firmly.</p> + +<p>Their eyes met. The sure steadiness of her gaze, the way that she sat +there, her little body so sure and resolute, her very neat composure an +argument against lightheaded reasoning, encouraged him beyond any help +that he had yet found.</p> + +<p>Their gaze seemed long and intimate; the colour rose and flushed his +brown cheeks and into his eyes there crept that consciousness of a +victory about to be won, although the odds were hard against him. The +door opened behind him and he turned at the sound and saw that Rachel +had come in.</p> + +<p>Her entry gave him now, as it always did, a conviction that during her +absence he hadn't had the least idea as to how splendid she really was. +She brought into that little stone hall a wild colour, a strong, fine +challenge to anything small, or shackled or conventional.</p> + +<p>Her walk had given her cheeks a flame, the black furs round her throat, +the black coat falling below her knees, a red feather in her round +black fur cap, all these things set off and accentuated the brilliant +fire and energy of her eyes.</p> + +<p>As she came towards them then so splendid was she that Lizzie was +herself for an instant lost in admiration—She lit the hall, she lit the +house, she lit the country and the evening sky.</p> + +<p>To Roddy, as he looked at her, there stole the spirit of some pagan +ancestor telling him that here was his capture, that this fine creature +was his to bind, to burden, to chastise, as his lordly pleasure might +be.</p> + +<p>Rachel, meanwhile, had come in from her walk, unappeased, unsated; the +exertion had only succeeded in stirring in her a deeper, more urgent +uneasiness. During these last weeks she had known no moment of peace. +She had come down to Seddon determined to do her duty to Roddy; she had +found that at every turn her duty to Roddy involved more than any +determination could force her to give.</p> + +<p>She had not known what that last interview with Breton would do to every +situation that followed it. It seemed to her then that those last words +with him would make her duty plain, they had only made her duty harder.</p> + +<p>She could not now act, think, sleep, move but that last kiss, those last +words of his, that last vision of him standing, struggling so finely for +control—these things pursued her, caught her eyes and held them.</p> + +<p>All her duty to Roddy could not hide from her now that she had, at one +flaming instant, known what life at its most intense could be. She had +felt the fire—how cold to her now these antechambers, these passages so +chill, so far from that inner room. Lizzie had then occurred to her as +the strongest person she knew. She sent for Lizzie, found instantly that +Lizzie disliked her, suspected then that Lizzie knew about Breton.</p> + +<p>She knew Lizzie for her enemy.... During the last week also she had +detected a new attitude in Roddy; she had felt in him some active +growing impatience that quite definitely threatened her safety. That +wild lawlessness in Roddy that she had always known, that had produced +the Nita episode and others, was now turning towards herself.</p> + +<p>But most of all did she fear her thoughts of Breton. She drove him again +and again and again from her mind, she called all her strength, mental, +moral, and physical, to her aid—always, with a smile, with one glance +from his eyes he defeated her.</p> + +<p>Day and night he was with her, and yet at her heart she did not even now +know whether it were Francis Breton whom she loved, or the life with +Roddy, the whole Beaminster scheme of things that she hated. Every day +it seemed to her that Lizzie was more watchful, Roddy more impatient, +Breton more insistent—but afraid of them all as she was, fear of +herself gave her the sharpest terror.</p> + +<p>She rang for tea, reproached them because they had waited for her. Then +they were—all three of them—silent.</p> + +<p>One of the footmen brought in the five o'clock post with the tea and +laid Rachel's letters on the table at her side.</p> + +<p>Lizzie had leant across the table for something and saw, as though +flashed to her by some special designing Providence, that the letter on +the top of the pile was in Francis Breton's handwriting.</p> + +<p>Rachel, busied with tea, had not looked down. Now she did so; the +handwriting rose, as though she had at that instant heard his step +beyond the room, and filled first her eyes, then her cheeks, then her +heart.</p> + +<p>Her eyes met Lizzie's and for the barest moment of time their challenges +met. Rachel seemed to hesitate, then, gathering up her letters, looked +round at Roddy and said, "I think I'll just go up and take my things +off, this fire's hotter than I expected—I'll be back in a moment."</p> + +<p>She walked slowly across the room and up the broad staircase.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>She did not switch on the light. The evening dusk left the room cool and +dim, but by the window, standing so that green shadows met the grey and +through them both a pale light trembled before it vanished, she took the +letter in her hand, allowing the others to drop and be scattered, white, +on the floor at her feet.</p> + +<p>She held the envelope; he had written and he had sworn to her that he +would not do so—she should have been furious at his broken word, +scornful of him for his weakness, indignant at his treating her so +lightly.</p> + +<p>But she could not think of that now, she could only think of the letter. +The envelope was so precious to her that it seemed to return the caress +that his fingers gave it and to have of itself some especial +individuality. She traced his hand on the address, treasured every line +and mark, and then at last tore it open. It was not a very long letter. +He had written to her:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"You will despise me for breaking my word. Perhaps you won't +read this—but I <i>can't</i> help it, I <i>can't</i> help it, and even +if I could I don't think that I would. I know that my writing +to you is just another of the rash, foolish, silly weak things +that I've gone on doing all my life, but let it be so. I don't +pretend to be fine or brave and I have tried all these weeks, +tried harder than you can know. I've written to you every day +letter after letter, and torn them up—torn them all up. I've +fancied that perhaps you've forgotten by now and then I've +known that you've not and then I've known that it were better +if you did.</p> + +<p>I love you so madly that—(here he had scratched some words +out)—I must tell you that I love you so that <i>you</i> can hear me +and not only my walls and furniture and my own self. I'm trying +not to be selfish. I know that I'm doing something now that is +hard on you, but my silence is eating me, thrusting, killing—I +shall be better soon—I will be sensible—soon—I will be——</p> + +<p>But now, oh, my darling! for a moment at least I have caught +you and held you throbbing against me, and put my hands in your +hair and stroked your cheeks and kissed your eyes.</p> + +<p>Don't write to me if you must not, don't be angry with me for +this.</p> + +<p>I will try not to break my word again."</p></blockquote> + +<p>As the letter ended so silence came back into the room that had been +beating and throbbing with sound.</p> + +<p>The pale light had gone, only the Downs were dim grey shapes against a +darker sky—the ripple of some water slipping and falling came from the +garden.</p> + +<p>The letter fell from her hands and lay white with the others on the +floor.</p> + +<p>She tumbled on to her knees by the window and her heart was the +strangest confusion of triumph and fear, exultation and shame.</p> + +<p>For a little time she lay there and felt that she was in his arms and +that his lips were on her mouth and that her hand pressed his cheek.</p> + +<p>She got up, turned on the lights, took off her walking things, brushed +her hair and washed her hands, picked up the other letters, but put his +in the inside of her dress—then went down to the others.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>She found Lizzie sitting alone—"Where's Roddy?"</p> + +<p>Lizzie looked up at her. "He had to go and see about a horse or +something."</p> + +<p>Rachel came down to the table and poured out some tea and then sat +smiling at Lizzie; Lizzie smiled back.</p> + +<p>"I hope you liked your walk."</p> + +<p>"Yes, there's a storm coming up. You've no idea how deeply one gets to +care for these Downs—their quiet and their size."</p> + +<p>They were silent for a little and then Rachel said:</p> + +<p>"Miss Rand—I do hope—that this really has been something of a holiday +for you, being here, away from all your London work!"</p> + +<p>Lizzie's eyes were sharp—"Yes—It's delightful for me. The first +holiday I've had for years...."</p> + +<p>"Don't think it impulsive of me—but I've asked you here hoping that +we'd get to know one another better. I've wanted to know you, to have +you for a friend—for a long time. I've always admired so immensely the +way that you've helped Aunt Adela—done things that I could never +possibly have done——"</p> + +<p>She stopped, but Lizzie said nothing—Then she went on more +uncertainly—</p> + +<p>"You see, I hoped that perhaps you'd teach me a little order and method. +I've married so young—I've hoped...." Then almost desperately—"But you +know, Miss Rand, I don't feel as though your coming here has helped us +to know one another any better."</p> + +<p>The storm had come up and the sky beyond the house was black. Lizzie's +face, lighted by the fire, was white, sharp and set—there was no +kindness in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps, Lady Rachel," she said slowly, "I'm not a very emotional kind +of woman. If one's worked, as I have, since one was small—had to earn +one's living and fight for one's place—it makes one perhaps rather +self-reliant and independent of other people—Our lives have been so +different, I'm afraid," she added with a little laugh, "that I'm a +dried-up, unsatisfactory kind of person—I know that my mother and +sister have always found me so."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Rachel said, "our lives <i>have</i> been different. Perhaps if mine +had been a little more like yours—perhaps if <i>I</i> had had to work for my +living—I...."</p> + +<p>She broke off—a little catch was in her voice—she rose from her chair +and went to the window and stood there, with her back to Lizzie, gazing +into the darkening garden.</p> + +<p>She knew that Lizzie had repulsed her; she was hardly aware why she had +made her appeal, but she was now frightened of Lizzie and to her +overstrung brain it seemed that she could now see Lizzie and Roddy in +league against her.</p> + +<p>She heard a step and turning round found Peters, the butler, large, +square, of an immense impassivity.</p> + +<p>"Please, my lady, might I speak to you a moment?"</p> + +<p>She went out.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Lizzie, left in the darkening room, could think now only of the letter. +The sight of that handwriting had stirred in her passions that she had +never before imagined as hers—that first pathetic appeal of Roddy and +then the sight of that letter!</p> + +<p>Her brain, working feverishly, showed her the words that that letter +would contain—the passion, the passion! There in the very face of her +husband, Rachel was receiving letters from her lover, letters that she +could not wait a moment to read, but must go instantly and open <i>them</i>.</p> + +<p>This hour brought to a crisis Lizzie's agony. Had such a letter been +written to her!</p> + +<p>She tortured herself now with the picture of him as he sat there in his +room in Saxton Square writing it! It appeared to her now as though they +two—there in the very throne of their triumphant love—had plotted this +insult, this snap of the fingers, to show her, Lizzie Rand, how +desolate, how lonely, how neglected and unwanted she was!</p> + +<p>That then, after this, Rachel should appeal to her for friendship! The +cruel insult of it.</p> + +<p>She felt as she heard the fast drops of rain lash the window-frames, +that no revenge that she could secure would satisfy her thirst for it.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>Roddy, meanwhile, had gone out to the stables. That little talk with +Lizzie had determined a resolution that had been growing now within him +for many weeks.</p> + +<p>That little woman, with her assured air and neat little ways, knew what +she was about—knew moreover what others were about. She had watched and +had given him the tip—He would take it.</p> + +<p>Roddy's mind was of far too simple an order to admit of more than one +point of view at a time. He saw Rachel now as a dog or horse, of whom he +was very fond, who needed, nevertheless, stern discipline. He wondered +now how it was that he had allowed himself for so long to remain +indecisive.</p> + +<p>"London muddles a feller," he concluded; "the country's the place for +clear thinkin'."</p> + +<p>He looked at his horses with great satisfaction, they were in splendid +condition—he had never known them better. He also was in splendid +condition—never been better.</p> + +<p>As he walked away from the stables and turned towards the end of the +garden bounded by the gryphons and the stone gate, he felt his body at +its most supreme perfection. He thought, on that afternoon, that he was +strong enough for anything, and perhaps never before in his life had he +been so conscious of the glories of physical things; of all that it +meant to have fine muscles and a strong heart and lungs of the best and +thews and sinews as good as "any feller's."</p> + +<p>"I'm strong enough for anythin'——" He turned back his arm and felt his +muscle. He cocked his head with a little conceited gesture of +satisfaction—"I was gettin' a bit fat in London—got rid of all that."</p> + +<p>To walk, to ride, to fight, to swim, to eat and sleep, to love women and +drink strong drink! God! what a world!</p> + +<p>And then, beyond it all, Rachel, Rachel, Rachel! He had her now—she +should be under his hand, she should be his as she had never been since +the first week of their marriage.</p> + +<p>"No more nonsense, by God!" he said triumphantly to himself—"no more +nonsense."</p> + +<p>He leaned on the stone gate and looked out over the fields—The gryphons +regarded him benevolently.</p> + +<p>He was conscious, as he stood there, of the Duchess—what was the old +lady doing? He'd like to see her. He felt more in sympathy with her than +he had been for a long time past. "She's right after all. You've got to +stand up and run people. No use just lettin' them handle you."</p> + +<p>There was a storm coming up. The white lights of the higher sky were +being closed down by black blocks of cloud that spread, from one to +another, merging far on the horizon above the hills into driving lines +of rain. The white chalk hollows above Lewes stood out sharp and clear; +the dark green of the fields was now a dull grey, the hedges were dark +and a thin stream that cut the flat surface of the plain was black like +ink.</p> + +<p>Roddy welcomed the storm. Had he been superstitious the physical energy +that now pervaded him might have frightened him. He felt as though with +one raising of his arm he could hold up those black clouds and keep them +off. The rain and the wind had not more force than he—</p> + +<p>Life was a vast pæan of strength—"The weak must go"—He was, at this +hour, Lord of Creation.</p> + +<p>As he went back to the house the rain met him and whipped his cheek.</p> + +<p>"By Gad, I'd like to find the old lady sittin' in the house, waitin' for +a chat," he thought.</p> + +<p>When he came down to dinner, he came as one who rules the world. That +simple clear light was in his eyes that was always there when he had +found the solution to something that perplexed him. His expression too +was one that belonged to Rachel's earlier experience of him, one that +she had not seen on his face for a long time past. His strong but +rather stupid mouth had somewhere in its corners the suspicion of a +smile. His chin stuck out rather obstinately—the light in the eyes, the +smile, the set lips, these things revealed the old Roddy.</p> + +<p>After dinner Lizzie went off to her room.</p> + +<p>For a while Roddy and Rachel sat there—She read some book, her eyes +often leaving the page and staring into the fire.</p> + +<p>Then she got up and said good night. She came over and bent down and +kissed him. He caught her arm and held her.</p> + +<p>"I say, old girl, it's time we had the same room again—much more +convenient." He heard her catch her breath and felt her tremble. She +tried to draw her arm away, but he held her.</p> + +<p>"Oh! but soon, Roddy—Yes—but not just now—I——"</p> + +<p>"Yes—now. I'll see about it to-morrow." She stepped back from him, +dragging herself away, and then put her hand to her forehead with a +desperate gesture.</p> + +<p>"No, no—not——"</p> + +<p>He got up and smiling, swaying a little, faced her—</p> + +<p>"Yes—I've made up my mind—all this business has got to come to an +end—Been goin' long enough."</p> + +<p>"What business?"</p> + +<p>"Seein' nothing of you—nothing from mornin' till night. You know, old +girl, it isn't fair—if we didn't care about one another——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know—but don't let's discuss it to-night. I'm tired, +headachy—this storm——"</p> + +<p>He said nothing—She looked at him and at the steady stare in his eyes +and the smile at his mouth turned away.</p> + +<p>She moved towards the door—He said nothing, but his eyes followed her.</p> + +<p>"Good night," she said, turning round to him—but he still said nothing, +only stood there very square and set.</p> + +<p>For a long time he sat, looking into the fire—Then he went up to his +room and very slowly undressed. Afterwards he came out, carefully +closing the door behind him, then, in dressing-gown and pyjamas, went +down the passage to Rachel's door.</p> + +<p>The house was very still, but the storm was raging and the boughs of +some tree hit, with fierce protesting taps, a window at the passage-end.</p> + +<p>He knocked at her door, waited, then heard her ask who was there.</p> + +<p>"It's I, Roddy," he said. There was a pause, then the door was opened. +He came in and stood in the doorway. Rachel was sitting up in bed, her +face very white, her eyes fixed on him.</p> + +<p>"I'm sleepin' here to-night, Rachel," he said.</p> + +<p>Her voice was a whisper—"No, Roddy—no—not—not——"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said firmly.</p> + +<p>"No, not to-night."</p> + +<p>"Yes—to-night—now."</p> + +<p>He walked carefully across the room, took off his dressing-gown, and +hung it over a chair. He looked about the room.</p> + +<p>"Too much light"—he said and, going to the door, switched off all the +lights save the one above the bed.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIIA" id="CHAPTER_XIIA"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>LIZZIE'S JOURNEY—III</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Exile of immortality, strongly wise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strain through the dark with undesirous eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To what may be beyond it. Sets your star,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O heart, for ever? Yet behind the night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Waits for the great unborn, somewhere afar,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some white tremendous daybreak."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Rupert Brooke.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>That night Lizzie had a dream and, waking in the early hours of the grey +dim morning, saw before her every detail of it. She had dreamt that she +was lost in the house. No human being was there. Every room was closed +and she knew that every room was empty.</p> + +<p>It was full day, but only a dull yellow light lit the passages.—She +could not find her way to the central staircase. A passage would be +familiar to her and then suddenly would be dark and vague and menacing. +She opened doors and found wide dusty empty rooms with windows thick in +cobwebs and beyond them a garden green, tangled, deserted.</p> + +<p>She knew that if she did not escape soon some disaster would overtake +her, some disaster in which both Roddy and Rachel would be involved. She +knew also that, in some way, Rachel's safety absolutely depended upon +her—She felt, within herself, a struggle as to whether she should save +Rachel. She did not wish to save Rachel.... But some impulse drove +her....</p> + +<p>She ran down the passage, stumbling in the strange indistinct yellow +light—She knew that, could she only reach the garden, Rachel would be +saved.</p> + +<p>She reached a window, looked down, and saw below her, like a green pond, +the lawn overgrown now with weeds and bristling with strange twisted +plants.</p> + +<p>She flung open the window and tried to jump, but a cold blast of some +storm met her and drove her back. The storm screamed about her, the dust +rose in the room, the plants in the garden waved their heads ... the +wind rushed through the house and she heard doors banging and windows +creaking.</p> + +<p>She knew suddenly that she was too late—Rachel was dead.</p> + +<p>She stood there thinking, "I thought that I hated her—I know now that I +loved her all the time."</p> + +<p>The storm died down—died away. A voice quite close to her said, "You +made a mistake, Miss Rand. People have souls, you know—having a soul of +your own is more important than criticizing other people's.... People +have souls, you know."</p> + +<p>She woke and heard a clock strike seven. As she lay there a sense of +uneasiness was with her so strongly that she repeated to herself, half +sleeping, half waking, "I wish to-day were over, quite over, quite over. +I want to-day to be over."</p> + +<p>She was completely wakened by a sound. She lay there for a little time +wondering what it was. Then she realized that something was scratching +on the door.</p> + +<p>She got out of bed, opened the door and found the dog, Jacob, sitting in +the long dark passage, looking through his tangled hair into space as +though the very last thing that he had been doing had been trying to +attract her attention. Jacob was nearer to a human being than any animal +that she had ever known. He had attached himself to Miss Rand and she +had decided, after watching him, that he knew more about the situation +in the house than anyone else. To catch him, as he watched, with his +grave brown eyes, Roddy or Rachel as they spoke or moved was to have no +kind of doubt as to his wisdom, his deep philosophy, his penetration +into motives.</p> + +<p>He liked Miss Rand, but she knew well that his feeling for her had +nothing of the passionate urgency with which he regarded Roddy or +Rachel. All tragedy—the depths and the heights of it—she had seen in +that dog's eyes, fixed with the deepest devotion upon Roddy.—"He +knows," she had often thought during the last week, "exactly what's the +matter with all of us."</p> + +<p>He always slept, she knew, in a basket in Rachel's room, and she +wondered why he had been ejected. He sat now in the middle of the floor +and seemed deeply unhappy. He sat square with his legs spread out, his +hair hanging in melancholy locks over his eyes, his small beard giving a +last wistful touch to his expression. He did not look at Lizzie or show +any interest in her, he only stared before him at the pattern on the +wall.</p> + +<p>Lizzie did not attempt to pat him—she went back to bed, and, lying +there, saw the light gather about the room.</p> + +<p>Once Jacob sighed. Otherwise he made no movement until the maid came in +with Lizzie's tea—Then he crawled under the bed.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>When she came down to breakfast she felt that she could not endure +another day of this place. She wished now for no revenge upon Rachel, +she had no longer any curiosity as to the particular feelings of any one +of these people for any other ... she felt detached from them all, and +utterly, absolutely weary.</p> + + +<p>She was weighed down with a sense of disaster and she felt that she +must, instantly, escape from it all, fling herself again into her London +work, deal with the tiresome commonplaces of her mother and sister—she +must escape.</p> + +<p>Roddy was sitting alone at breakfast and she saw at once that he was +uneasy. He seemed to avoid her eyes and he coloured as she came towards +him.</p> + +<p>"Mornin', Miss Rand," he said, "Rachel's not comin' down. Bit of +headache—rotten night."</p> + +<p>"I didn't have a very good night either. That storm made me sleep +badly."</p> + +<p>"Yes, wasn't it a corker? It's all right to-day though."</p> + +<p>She looked through the wide high windows and saw out over a country +painted as in a delicate water-colour—The softest green and dark brown +lay beneath a pale blue sky, very still, very gentle. Tiny white puffs +of cloud were blown, like soap bubbles across the sun, so that bright +gleams floated and passed and flashed again.</p> + +<p>She drew a deep breath—"Nothing terrifying in such a day as this."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's beautiful—beautiful! I'm off for the day," Roddy said, +"ridin'——"</p> + +<p>She helped herself to some breakfast and sat down.</p> + +<p>Roddy said, "Well, no one would ever believe <i>you'd</i> had a bad night, +Miss Rand."—"You're fresh as a pin."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," she said, laughing. "But, all the same, I <i>did</i> sleep +badly."</p> + +<p>"I'm not feeling princely myself," he confessed, "that's why I'm goin' +off for a ride, nothin' like a ride to take you out of yourself. Don't +you ever feel, Miss Rand, that you want to get right away from yourself +and be someone else?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him. Roddy was in real trouble. His very physical strength +showed the more clearly that he was unhappy. His fingers moved +restlessly, his eyes were never still. She looked at her letters. There +was one from Lady Adela.</p> + +<p>"Oh! I'm sorry—I'm afraid I shall have to go back almost +immediately—The Duchess is much less well—They're worried about her."</p> + +<p>"The Duchess!" Roddy started up and then sat down again. "I'm sorry—I +was thinking about her only yesterday. What's the matter?"</p> + +<p>"Lady Adela doesn't say, but she asks about you—the Duchess, I mean. +Got it into her head, Lady Adela says, that you're not well or +something."</p> + +<p>"I'll write to her." Roddy spoke slowly as though to himself—"I've not +treated her very well lately and she's always been such a brick to me." +He left his breakfast, walked backwards and forwards once or +twice—"Always been such a brick to me, the old lady has," he repeated.</p> + +<p>Lady Adela really did want Lizzie to return. This horrid war was getting +on her nerves, the house was all in disorder and nobody seemed either +well or happy.</p> + +<p>"Somebody really does want me," thought Lizzie with a certain grim +satisfaction.</p> + +<p>But she was terribly restless that morning. She could settle down to +nothing and ended by walking up and down the garden paths, watching the +pale winter light cross the Downs in sweeping shadow, seeing the bare +branches, all black and sharp against the blue distance.</p> + +<p>How she loved life and how, at every turn, life was thrust from her! For +that other woman, there inside the house, two men were ready, eager to +die—for herself, in all the world, no one cared.</p> + +<p>There came up to her again, borne as it were on the sharp winter air, a +determination to drive down Rachel's defences. The very sense that now, +after Lady Adela's letter, she must shortly return to London, hardened +her resolution.</p> + +<p>Before breakfast she had felt that she did not care, now, quite suddenly +she was determined that she would confront Rachel and drag the truth +from her. How much did Rachel care? Was Rachel already involved in a +liaison with Breton?</p> + +<p>And, at that thought, a pain so fierce clutched her heart that for a +moment she could not see and the garden and the sky mingled like +coloured smoke before her eyes.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, coming to the end of the garden by the stone gate she saw that +a strange thing had happened—one of the gryphons, perched there for +many centuries, had tumbled to the ground and lay in the path, beyond +the garden, broken into two pieces.</p> + +<p>The storm of last night must have driven it down. But what had broken +it?</p> + +<p>She was sorry. She knew how deeply attached Roddy was to those gryphons; +she remembered his pride when he had pointed them out to her.</p> + +<p>The other gryphon looked very lonely.</p> + +<p>"He <i>will</i> be distressed." The dead leaves on the path were trembling +over the broken pieces of stone and whistling, in little excited groups, +above it—"Just as though they are glad," she thought.</p> + +<p>She and Rachel had a very amiable conversation at luncheon. Rachel +confessed to a bad night.</p> + +<p>Lizzie told her about Jacob.</p> + +<p>"How tiresome of him to come and bother you—yes, I couldn't sleep and +he was very restless too, so I put him into the passage. It was after +six—I meant him to go down to the servants' hall. I'm so sorry, Miss +Rand."</p> + +<p>"Oh, he didn't worry me at all. I <i>was</i> awake." That appeal was in +Rachel's eyes to-day more than ever. Lizzie saw it and steeled her +heart. "I must know," she thought. "I <i>must</i> know."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid," she said, "that I'll have to go back to London to-morrow. +I heard from Lady Adela this morning—The Duchess is not so well."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Rachel caught her breath—"oh, Miss Rand, no, no, oh! I hope not! +You <i>must</i> stay! I——!" her colour came and went. "There's the dance. I +don't know what I shall do without you." And she went on more +desperately, catching Lizzie's eyes and evading them. "We are just +beginning to be so happy here. My husband likes you so much. I do +hope——"</p> + +<p>She stopped and the colour left her again; her hands were trembling on +the white tablecloth.</p> + +<p>The strangest impulse flooded Lizzie's breast, an impulse to go to her +and put her arms about her and kiss her and let her, there and then, +unburden her heart—</p> + +<p>Lizzie drove the impulse down, buried it. Her eyes were cold and her +voice hard as she answered—</p> + +<p>"I'm so sorry, but I think I <i>must</i> go. I can't leave Lady Adela if +things are really difficult. I'll come this afternoon, shall I? and we +might go over the dance——"</p> + +<p>Rachel had been thinking; she looked up sharply and stared at Lizzie, +staring as though she had been some stranger whom she saw for the first +time.</p> + +<p>"Yes—Come to the Chinese room at four, will you? We'll have tea up +there."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Lizzie, "at four."</p> + +<p>They were both of them aware that something, now quite irrevocable, had +been settled by these words.</p> + +<p>There was a little old library up in one of the towers, and there Lizzie +went. She had a desperate need of some place where, during the next +hour, she might think and decide upon some plan. The room had little +diamond-paned windows that looked down, on one side, over the courtyard, +and on the other over the garden and the Downs. The shelves went from +ceiling to floor and were filled with books that dimly shone with their +old gold and were dusky in their rich, faded bindings.</p> + +<p>It was very seldom that anyone came here; Lizzie was quite alone as, +perched up in one of the deep-seated windows, she looked down at the +garden, saw the stone gate with the solitary gryphon, watched the +swiftly fading afternoon light fill the green lawn as a pot is filled +with water.</p> + +<p>Even now, early though it was, the little room was growing dark.</p> + +<p>She strove now, resolutely, to discipline her mind. Although the very +thought of Francis Breton now shamed her, it was for him that she must +care. "Poor dear," he was even now, in her heart. "Foolish, +indiscreet—must plunge from one mess into another, needs someone—Oh, +so dreadfully—to help him out."</p> + +<p>Her hostility to Rachel did not prevent her from feeling that here was +someone very young, terribly inexperienced, most unhappily +impulsive—the very last in the world to prevent Breton from having +another catastrophe as bad as the early ones.</p> + +<p>She must know absolutely what it was that he and Rachel were doing, and +only Rachel could tell her that—And here her feeling about Rachel was +compounded of the strangest mixture of anger and suspicion, of +tenderness and compassion, of sympathy and hard callous indifference.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Lizzie thought, "why has all this come to me? Why wasn't I allowed +just to go on with my life as it was—My life that was so safe and sure +and dull?"—</p> + +<p>She was conscious, as she sat there, that she was listening for +something. She felt, in an odd way, that the day had been a direct +continuance of the dream that she had had in the night; all the morning +she had been aware that her ears, in spite of herself, had been waiting +for some sound, a message, or an arrival.</p> + +<p>She sat now in the swiftly darkening room, as though she had been told +that someone was coming at such and such an hour and she had heard the +clock strike and was listening for the grating of the wheels on the +cobbles of the courtyard.</p> + +<p>The calm winter's day passed now into a purple twilight—lights were +coming in the windows—</p> + +<p>She thought she heard a step in the passage and was startled as though +someone had been suddenly, unexpectedly within the room.</p> + +<p>She opened the window and listened—"Someone—several people—will come +down that garden path in a minute—I know they will."</p> + +<p>But the air was very cold and she closed the window; even as she did so +a clock struck four.</p> + +<p>She got up and went to Rachel.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>The Chinese room was so called because its walls were covered with a +stiff golden Chinese paper. It had wide windows looking on to the +garden; Rachel used it a great deal.</p> + +<p>Lizzie fixed upon her mind, very deliberately, all the details of her +surroundings. Rachel was dressed in black with red round her throat and +her waist, and this brilliant colour made her face seem white and there +were deep, heavy black marks under her eyes.</p> + +<p>She looked up when Lizzie came in, seemed, with a violent effort, to +compel control.</p> + +<p>They sat there for some time and discussed the dance; the dusk filled +the room, then tea was brought. There was a light in their corner; +slowly the rest of the room grew dark.</p> + +<p>They finished tea, it was taken away, and Lizzie, sitting quite close to +Rachel, on a little sofa that had a window just behind it, was aware +that again, in spite of herself, her ears were straining for some sound. +The house and all the world were profoundly still.</p> + +<p>When the servant had at last left them alone, Rachel said—"Miss Rand, +you mustn't go away to-morrow—Aunt Adela can manage for another week. +After all, she did promise that you should stay for me over the ball."</p> + +<p>"Why did you ask me here, Lady Rachel?" Lizzie said. Her speech was a +direct challenge and, instantly, when she had spoken she knew that they +had entered upon those personal relations that they had, during all +these weeks, feared.</p> + +<p>"I asked you because I wanted you for a friend—I've no friend—no woman +friend—whom I can trust. I knew that I could trust you—I hoped that +you could help me——"</p> + +<p>"I've been here for some time now and you have told me nothing."</p> + +<p>"No—because you have held me off, have shown me so plainly that you +disliked and distrusted me. You didn't always dislike me—what have I +done?"</p> + +<p>"That's only my way. As I told you this morning, Lady Seddon, I'm not an +emotional person. But I feel more than I show. I would like to help you, +if you will let me."</p> + +<p>Rachel leaned forward and caught first Lizzie's arm, then her hand. Then +she spoke, her voice quivering as though she were forcing upon herself +the most intense control.</p> + +<p>"Oh! you're so strange, so odd I don't know what you feel, whether you +care, but these last months have been so hard for me that even though +you hate me, despise me, it doesn't matter—nothing matters if only I +can get away from myself, you're so different—so dry, so hard, but you +are, you are!—just as hard——" she stopped—Lizzie drew her hand away.</p> + +<p>"Please—don't tell me things if you feel about me like that. It hasn't +been my fault, has it, that we don't get on? <i>I</i> didn't ask to come +here, to know you—let me go—let me go back. Don't bother about +me—leave me alone," she at last brought out.</p> + +<p>But Rachel said more urgently—"No, don't go now. Even though you don't +care, even though you hate me, help me. I've no one else. If only you +knew the things I've suffered these past weeks, how I've hated myself +for my indecision, for my weakness and shame. I don't know why I feel as +though you were the only person to whom I could talk. I'm being driven, +I suppose, by this long silence—and then you're so absolutely to be +trusted—even though you dislike me—you're straight all through—I've +always known that."</p> + +<p>At Lizzie's heart again now that strange confusion of sensation, and +with it a sure conviction that fate had this scene between them in hand, +and that events now, whatever the hours might bring forth, were beyond +her control.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you may trust me," she said drily—"I'm useful, at any rate for +that."</p> + +<p>Lizzie watched her as, in the little pause that followed, Rachel +struggled for concentration and for the point of view that would make +the strongest appeal. <i>That</i>, Lizzie grimly knew, was the thing for +which the girl was struggling and it yielded her the pleasanter irony +because she was, herself, so surely aware of that one fact that all +Rachel's confessions contained—</p> + +<p>For herself she had only confidently to sit and wait.... Then Rachel +plunged—</p> + +<p>"I'm unhappy," she said, "in my married life, miserably unhappy, and +entirely, utterly by my own fault. I've tried, or fancied that I've +tried. I've done what I've thought was my best—Things have happened +now, at last, that have made it impossible—I can't go on any longer."</p> + +<p>She spoke as though she were, very urgently, endeavouring to deliver a +fair honest statement. There was in her voice a note that showed that +life had truly, of late, been very hard for her—</p> + +<p>"I married, in the beginning, for a wrong reason. I knew then that I +didn't love my husband. I married because I wanted to escape. I had +always hated my grandmother and she had always hated me—you knew that, +Miss Rand; everyone who had anything to do with us knew it. She had done +more than hate me, she had made me frightened—frightened of life and +people. Someone came along who was kind and easy and comfortable, and +everyone said it would be a good thing, and so I, not because I loved +him, but because I wanted to escape from my grandmother, married him. +Because I had to silence everything that was honest in me I'm paying +now."</p> + +<p>"It was all quite natural," Lizzie said. "Most women would have done the +same."</p> + +<p>"It was horrible from the beginning; I found that I had not escaped from +my grandmother at all. She had arranged the marriage and now was +always, and in some curious way, influencing it.</p> + +<p>"I soon saw what I had done—that I had been false to myself and +therefore false to everything else. My husband was in love with me—He +was very patient and good to me, but I found that everything that I did +or thought or said in connection with my husband was false. What made it +so hard was that I was, and I am, very fond of him. My training—the +training of all our family had always been—to learn how to be sham, so +that one's real self never appeared all one's life. It ought to have +been easy enough—but I've never been like one of my family—I'd always +been different.</p> + +<p>"I had determined that this year I would do my duty to Roddy—But it's +harder than any determination can govern. It's bad for Roddy, it's +deadly for me ... at last things have happened that have made it +impossible for me—I've made up my mind this morning. I must leave +Roddy, let him divorce me, give him a better chance with someone else."</p> + +<p>She spoke with the desperate immediate determination of youth, staring +in front of her, her hands clenched. Like flame at Lizzie's heart leapt +this knowledge.</p> + +<p>"She and Breton are going—only you can stop them—she and Breton."</p> + +<p>"Don't you think," said Lizzie, "a little of your husband?"</p> + +<p>"I'm thinking of him all the time—It's for his sake—that he should +have a better chance with someone who cared——"</p> + +<p>"No, that isn't true," said Lizzie—"It's because you love someone +else——"</p> + +<p>Rachel, with her head down, whispered, "Yes—it's because ... someone +else."</p> + +<p>"Francis Breton."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Francis Breton."</p> + +<p>That whisper of his name had in it confidence, worship, defiance ... all +these things were torture to Lizzie sitting there, very composed, very +stern, very quiet. <i>She</i> should have been able to say that name with +just that precious intimacy, and she saw, in Rachel's eyes, beyond her +trouble the glad pride that the pronouncing of the name had given her.</p> + +<p>"You know?" Rachel asked at length.</p> + +<p>"Yes——"</p> + +<p>"You've known a long time."</p> + +<p>"Yes—a long time."</p> + +<p>"Oh! If you'd only spoken to me!—All this time I've been wanting you +to—You <i>must</i> have known."</p> + +<p>"Yes—I knew." Then Lizzie brought out slowly, letting her grave eyes +wander over Rachel's face—</p> + +<p>"You yourself insisted on telling me. You have brought it upon yourself +if I say what I must...."</p> + +<p>Rachel caught the hostility.</p> + +<p>"Yes?" she said sharply.</p> + +<p>"I'm older than you—older in every way. You know so little yet, the +harm that you can do.... You must leave Francis Breton alone, Lady +Seddon."</p> + +<p>Rachel laughed—"Of course I knew that you—that it was the kind of way +that you must look at it. But don't you see, we've got past all that +first stage—It isn't, in the very least, any good looking at it from +any general point of view. It's simply the individual happiness of the +three of us, my husband, Francis Breton, myself—It's better for all of +us that I should go."</p> + +<p>"No ... not better for Francis Breton."</p> + +<p>Rachel moved impatiently—"He—he and I—can judge that, Miss Rand——"</p> + +<p>"No—You can't—you're too young. You don't know—I have a right to +speak here, I know him—I have known him all this time——"</p> + +<p>Lizzie broke off. Rachel, suddenly looking up, gazed at her—Lizzie, +fiercely, also proudly as though she were guarding something very +precious that they were trying to take from her, returned her gaze.</p> + +<p>"All this time," Rachel said slowly. "You've known him—of course ... at +Saxton Square...."</p> + +<p>Then, as though the revelation had suddenly broken upon her, "Why +you—you——!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Lizzie, now fiercely indeed, hurling back at the girl the +<i>naïveté</i> of her surprise. "Yes—it's odd, isn't it? I'm not the kind of +woman, am I, ever to care for a man, or to have a man care for me?—To +have any feeling or desire or affection. But it is not so strange as it +may seem—I love him every bit as well as you do—I've cared more +patiently perhaps, more unselfishly even. But there it is ... it gives +me the right."</p> + +<p>Nothing more surprising than that on this special circumstance Rachel +had never reckoned. Feeling it now, blazing there before her, the way +that she was to deal with it was beyond her experience. In an instant +Lizzie Rand was, to her, a new creature. Always she had seen Lizzie +patiently, with method, with discipline, putting things in order—that +was her world and dominion. Lizzie had appeared, to Rachel, to stand for +all the things that she herself was not. Rachel had often envied that +absence of emotion, that security from impulse and passion, and it was +upon that very security that Rachel had wished to depend. It was that +that had driven her to seek Lizzie's friendship. She herself so unsure, +so caught and destroyed by powers too potent for her resistance, had +looked with wonder and desire upon Lizzie's safety—</p> + +<p>Now Lizzie Rand was no longer Lizzie Rand. She was of Rachel's number, +she might, as easily as Rachel, be swept, whirled away,—after death and +destruction.</p> + +<p>But there was more than that. There was the realization that Lizzie must +hate her, that Lizzie was the last person in the world to whom she +should have given her confidence, that Lizzie would fight now to the +last breath in her body to keep Francis Breton from her.</p> + +<p>During a long silence they sat facing one another—the little room was +now nearly dark and it was only by the faint pale shadow from the sky +beyond the window that they could catch, each from each, their +consciousness of their new relationship.</p> + +<p>It was during that silence that Lizzie was again aware that her ears +were straining to catch some sound....</p> + +<p>"I didn't know," Rachel said at last very softly; "it must seem brutal +to you now that I should have told you all this. I wouldn't of course +have spoken."</p> + +<p>"Ah! you needn't mind," Lizzie said grimly. "He's never seen anything of +it. You must never give him any reason to suspect—I trust you for that. +No one in this world knows but you, and you should never have known if +it had not been that I <i>had</i> to prove my right to interfere. Perhaps +even now, you don't see that I <i>have</i> a right, but whether I have one or +no, you've got to reckon with me now——"</p> + +<p>"And <i>you've</i> got to reckon," Rachel answered, with some of Lizzie's own +fierceness, "with a power that's beyond your power or mine or anyone's. +Don't you imagine that we, all of us, haven't tried hard enough. Why! +all these last two years we've done nothing but try. Now it's simply +stronger than we are. If Roddy," she went on, speaking now more slowly, +"hadn't forced it.... If he'd not been impatient—but now—after what's +just happened, it's right—it isn't fair to him, to myself, to any of +us, that things should go on as they are——"</p> + +<p>"I'm thinking," Lizzie answered quietly, "simply of Francis Breton."</p> + +<p>"Well! isn't it fairer too for him? He's been living, as we have, all +this time, a life that's denying all his own <i>real</i> self. Anything's +better than being false to that—life may be hard for us if we go away +together, but at any rate it will be honest——"</p> + +<p>"Ah! that just shows how young you are! Don't I know that pursuit of +truth and honesty as well as you? Don't I know that when life's +beginning for us, the one thing that seems to matter is exposing +ourselves, showing ourselves to the world just as we are! At first it +seems such an easy thing—Just round that corner the moment's coming +when the real person in us is going to stand up and proclaim itself just +as it is, fine and splendid? but always something just comes in the way +and stops it—the years go on and we're further off from truth than +ever.</p> + +<p>"You think that if you go off with Francis Breton now, you'll, both of +you, be leading, suddenly, honest brave lives before the world. I tell +you it isn't so. Things will be just as crooked, just as +shadowed—issues just as confused—it will be worse than it was."</p> + +<p>"But you don't know——"</p> + +<p>"I know Francis Breton. Don't you know too the kind of man that he is? +Don't you know that he's as weak as a man can be, weaker than any woman +ever <i>could</i> be? He's the kind of man who must have society to bolster +him up. If the men of his world are supporting him then he's as good as +gold, as fine as you like. Let them leave him and down he goes. All his +life the world's been down on him and that's why he's been down. Lately +he's been quiet—he's been winning his place back. Soon, if he's +patient, they'll all come round him again. But let him go off with you +and he's done, finished—absolutely, utterly. 'Ah!' everyone will say, +'that's what we expected. That's what we always knew would happen.' +Don't you know what kind of effect <i>that</i> will have upon him? Don't you +know?... Of course you do. It will break him up. His old life abroad, +creeping from place to place, will begin again, only now he'll have the +additional knowledge that he's done for you as well as for himself. It +will be the end, utterly the end of him. And I, who love him, will not +let it be."</p> + +<p>Lizzie's speech had roused in Rachel one of those old storms of anger. +She was exerting now her utmost self-control, but her heart seemed bound +tight with some cord so slender that one movement, one impulse, would +snap it—Then.... She saw in Lizzie now, only moved by a sense of +jealous injury—"She sits there, knowing that I've taken him from her. +That's it.... That's what she's feeling—she's lost him. She can't +forgive me for that."</p> + +<p>But when she spoke her voice was quiet and controlled.</p> + +<p>"That isn't so," Rachel said; "it won't, I think, be like that. There's +so much more between us than you can understand. There's all our early +life—not that we were together, but we seem to have it all in common, +to have known it all together. We're unlike our family—all the +Beaminsters—we're together in that—we are together in everything."</p> + +<p>But Lizzie's voice went on, so coldly, with such assurance that, with +every word, the flame of Rachel's anger climbed a little higher, grew +stronger and steadier.</p> + +<p>"There's another thing too. I watched you, more than you know. No, no +man—no man in the world—will ever keep you altogether—there's +something—I can't tell you what it is—there's something in you that +demands more than just a personal relationship like that—Perhaps it's +maternity—it is, with many women,—perhaps it's a great cause, a +movement of a country—</p> + +<p>"But I know, with certainty, that you will never love Breton as you +should love a man. Realization will never be the thing to you that +anticipation and retrospection are. I believe if you were to lose your +husband now, you'd find that you loved him—All thoughts of Francis +Breton, would go——"</p> + +<p>At that, because at the very heart of her determination burnt +the knowledge that Lizzie's words were true, Rachel's control +was abandoned, her anger leapt: "You think you know—you +think ... why ... why ... you don't know me at all!—you can't know +me—we're strangers, Miss Rand—now—always....</p> + +<p>"Nothing, <i>nothing</i> can ever make us friends again—I'll never forgive +you for what you've said—the poor creature that you take me for—no +doubt you'd have done better had the chance been yours, but you go too +far——"</p> + +<p>"That was unfair of you," Lizzie said very low—"You may say to me what +you please—That's of no importance to anybody. But Francis Breton's +happiness, his success, that is more to me than anything or anyone.—You +<i>shall</i> not break his life into pieces for your own pleasure. There are +more important things than your personal happiness, Lady Seddon——"</p> + +<p>They were both standing, but they could not see one another, save, very +faintly, their hands and faces—</p> + +<p>"It's too late, Miss Rand," Rachel laughed. "I shall write to him +to-morrow. I myself shall tell my husband—there is nothing that you can +do——"</p> + +<p>They stood there, conscious that a word, a movement on either side might +produce an absurd, a tragic scene. Lizzie had never known such anger as +the passion that now held her. Rachel was taunting her with the thing +that she had missed; she stood there, before the world, as the woman for +whom no man cared—she stood there with the one human being who mattered +to her on the edge of complete disaster—nothing that she could do could +prevent it—and the woman at her side was the cause.</p> + +<p>A sudden sweeping consciousness of the things that it would mean if +Rachel were dead flowed over her. Her heart stopped—that way—at +least—Francis Breton might be saved....</p> + +<p>The room, dark as pitch before her, was filled now with a red glow—Her +hands, clenched, were ice in a world that was all of an overpowering +heat.</p> + +<p>Lizzie never afterwards could remember what then exactly happened.</p> + +<p>She was worked to a pitch of anger, she was thinking to herself, "What +would be a way? ... anything to save him...."</p> + +<p>"She shouldn't have taunted me with that"—when, suddenly, exactly as +though someone had taken her brain and emptied it, she had forgotten +Rachel, had forgotten her own personal injury, forgotten her anger, was +only aware that, with every nerve in her body on edge, she was waiting +for some sound—</p> + +<p>Like an answer to an invocation, the sound, through the closed window, +came—</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>She must have made some startled noise, because she heard Rachel say, +"What is it?"</p> + +<p>She fled to the window and opened it. She could see nothing, but she +could hear, as she had known all day that she would hear, steps, +stumbling, falling heavily, upon the heavy gravel path.</p> + +<p>She felt Rachel's hand upon her sleeve: "What is it?" Rachel said +again—"Lizzie, what is it?"</p> + +<p>Both women were seized and held by fear. Their feelings for one another +were lost, sunk in the cold, shattering sense of disaster that had come, +through the open window, into the room.</p> + +<p>They could see lights now and figures—There were murmuring voices—</p> + +<p>"Oh, Lizzie, what is it?" Rachel said for the third time, and then after +a moment—"Roddy!"</p> + +<p>Lizzie said—"Wait there. It may be nothing. I'll see—Don't you come +for a moment."</p> + +<p>She crossed the dark room, and opening the door saw Peters hurrying down +the passage towards her. His face was in complete disorder—the face of +someone who, throughout his life, has had only one kind of face that +has served most admirably for every kind of occasion—suddenly a +situation has arisen for which that face will <i>not</i> serve—</p> + +<p>His body was shaking—</p> + +<p>"Oh! Miss Rand, the master!"</p> + +<p>Lizzie felt Rachel follow her, brush past both of them, down the passage +and out of sight—</p> + +<p>"An accident—flung from his horse and dragged along—been hours on the +hill—a shepherd found him."</p> + +<p>"Is he dead?"</p> + +<p>"No, miss, not dead—not yet, thank God!"</p> + +<p>"The doctor?"</p> + +<p>"Dr. Crane from Lewes—we caught him, miss, most fortunately, on the way +from another patient—he's downstairs now."</p> + +<p>"Quick, Peters, things will be wanted."</p> + +<p>Lizzie passed to the head of the stairs, Peters behind her said, +"They've taken Sir Roderick into the green drawing-room, miss, so as not +to have to go upstairs."</p> + +<p>She came down the stairs and then stood, waiting in the hall. That was, +for the moment, deserted, but the house wore an air of dismay, surprised +alarm, so that every sound was of momentous import. Somewhere, a long +way away, someone—perhaps a frightened kitchen-maid—was sobbing—the +hall door was still open and little gusts of cold wind came in and +stirred and rustled the pages of some illustrated papers on one of the +tables.</p> + +<p>Lizzie went to the door and closed it—what should she do? To go into +the room and ask whether she could be of use? Her quarrel with Rachel +had made any movement now on her part difficult—Rachel might resent her +presence—</p> + +<p>Someone came into the hall: she saw that it was the doctor. He stood, +looking about him, as though he were searching for someone, and Lizzie +went up to him—</p> + +<p>"Doctor, please tell me—I'm staying in the house—is there +anything—anything at all—that I can do?"</p> + +<p>The doctor was tall, thin, black, like an elongated crow.</p> + +<p>"Ah yes—no, I think there is nothing for the moment—there are two of +us here—we instantly wired to London and the London men should be here +if they catch the seven o'clock in an hour and a half. Lady Seddon is +with her husband."</p> + +<p>"There's hope?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes—I think Sir Roderick will live—It's the spine that's damaged."</p> + +<p>He seemed to realize Miss Rand's efficiency. This was no ordinary +country-house visitor. He went to the hall door and opened it. "I'm +waiting for the things from Lewes. I just came on with what I'd got. +Yes, the spine ... afraid will never be able to get about again—such a +strong fellow too."</p> + +<p>"There's nothing I can do?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing anyone can do for the moment. Lady Seddon's taking it +wonderfully, but she'll want you later. I advise you to get some quiet +in the next hour—it's afterwards that they'll need your help——"</p> + +<p>Lizzie went up to her room and lay down on her bed. She did not light +the candles, but lay there in the darkness striving to compel some order +out of the turmoil that rioted in her brain—her first thought was of +Roddy. Roddy had always been to her the supreme type of animal spirits +and vigour—<i>that</i> had been, above everything else, what he stood for. +That <i>he</i> should have been struck down like this!</p> + +<p>The cruelty, the irony of it! Much better that he should die than be +compelled to lie on his back for the rest of his life—anything better +for him than that—</p> + +<p>If he died Rachel would be free. Lizzie faced that thought quite calmly! +her quarrel with Rachel seemed to be now very, very long ago, something +distant and remote, something whose very conditions had been torn +asunder and flung aside—</p> + +<p>As she lay there tenderness for Rachel came sweeping about her—"She +must want someone now—she's so young and so ignorant—never had any +crisis like this to deal with—hard for this to happen to him just after +she'd thought those things ... that must be terrible for her.... Oh! +she'll need someone now."</p> + +<p>Something reminded Lizzie of other things, of Francis Breton, of +Rachel's words, of Lizzie's anger, then—</p> + +<p>"Ah, but that's all so long ago. It doesn't seem to count. There are +things more important than all of that. What will she do now? Perhaps +she still hates me—won't let me come near her—it's my own fault after +all; I kept away for so long, wouldn't let <i>her</i> come near <i>me</i>. Oh! but +she must have someone to help her!"</p> + +<p>After a while Lizzie thought—"She won't be practical—she won't know +the things that ought to be done—I'll wait a little and then I'll go."</p> + +<p>Then she slept. She awoke with a clear active brain; she felt as though +she could be awake now for weeks—a tremendous energy filled her....</p> + +<p>She left her room and at the turn of the passage met a thick-set +clean-shaven man whom she knew for Cramp—one of the most famous of the +London doctors, a man whom she had sometimes seen with Christopher at +the Portland Place house.</p> + +<p>She stopped him—"I'm Miss Rand, Doctor—Lady Adela's secretary—we've +met in London—I want you to tell me how I can help."</p> + +<p>He shook hands with her, eyeing her with approval—</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, of course—How do you do, Miss Rand? Yes, you're just the +sort we want. For the moment Lady Seddon's my chief anxiety—she's borne +up splendidly so far, but now I am a little afraid. I've got her to go +and lie down—would you go to her, Miss Rand? Just be with her a little +and let me know if anything happens——"</p> + +<p>"Sir Roderick?"</p> + +<p>"Pretty bad, I'm afraid—He'll live, I think—afraid will never run +about, though, again."</p> + +<p>Lizzie made her way to Rachel's bedroom. She paused outside the door. +This was the very hardest thing that she had ever, in all her life, had +to do. If Rachel were to repulse her now it would surely be the final +absolute proof that she was of no use, no use to anyone in this whole +wide world.</p> + +<p>She knocked on the door and went in. "Who's that?"</p> + +<p>"It's I—Lizzie."</p> + +<p>The room was dark, but she saw that Rachel was lying on the bed—she +went up to her—Rachel did not move.</p> + +<p>"I came," Lizzie said, "to see whether I could help—if I could do +anything——"</p> + +<p>Rachel said nothing—</p> + +<p>"If you'd rather—if you don't want to see me, of course just say...."</p> + +<p>Rachel turned over and Lizzie heard her say—"I did it—I wanted him—it +was my fault—it was my fault."</p> + +<p>Lizzie knelt down beside the bed. "Rachel dear, you mustn't think that. +It was nothing to do with anyone. But you can help him now, +Rachel—He'll want you, he'll need you now as he's never wanted anyone."</p> + +<p>Rachel gave a bitter cry—Her hand touched Lizzie's, then she flung up +her arm, caught Lizzie's neck, drew her towards her, put both her arms +around her and held her, held her as though she would never let her go.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BOOK_III" id="BOOK_III"></a>BOOK III</h2> + +<h3>RODDY</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IB" id="CHAPTER_IB"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>REGENT'S PARK—BRETON AND LIZZIE</h3> + +<blockquote><p>"Yes," said Mrs. Bright, "he missed it all the time."</p> + +<p>"Missed what?" asked Miss Rankin.</p> + +<p>"'Is good luck," sighed Mrs. Bright.—<span class="smcap">Henry Galleon</span>.</p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Francis Breton had known, during the weeks that preceded his letter to +Rachel, torture that became to him at last so personal that he felt +deliberate malignant agency behind its ingenious devices.</p> + +<p>At first it had seemed that that wonderful hour with Rachel would +satisfy his needs for a long time to come; he had only, when life was +hard, dull, colourless, monotonous, to recall it—to see again her +movements, to hear her voice, to remember to the last and tiniest detail +the things that she had said, to feel that clutch of her hand upon his +coat, and instantly he was inflamed, exultant.</p> + +<p>So, for a time, it was. Into every moment of his daily life he worked +this scene—Rachel was always with him, never, for a single instant, did +he doubt that, in some fashion or another, she was coming to him. He had +purchased an interest in some little business that had to do, for the +most part, with candles, and down to the City now every morning he went. +The candles prospered in a small but steady fashion and he found them of +a more thrilling and romantic interest than he would once have believed +possible. He had always known that he had a business head and now that +his life was equable and regular he was astonished at the useful man +that he was becoming.</p> + +<p>He liked the men with whom he worked, he found that some of his friends +of the old days sought him out ... he was assured that he had only to +wait for the death of his grandmother for his restoration to the +Beaminster bosom.</p> + +<p>He was, during these first weeks, tranquil, almost happy, feeling that +Mrs. Pont and the rest were, with every hour, passing more surely from +his world, nourishing always, like hoarded treasure, his consciousness +of Rachel....</p> + +<p>Then a faint, a very faint restlessness crept upon him. The repetition +of those precious moments was growing dry; from the very frequency of +their recounting came impatience. His assurance that she would, +ultimately, come to him grew chill.</p> + +<p>He needed now something more tangible, and gradually there grew with him +the conviction that she would write. She had said, very clearly and +distinctly, that she would not—but, if she cared as he knew that she +did, then this silence must be as impossible for her as for himself.</p> + +<p>His state of mind now was that he expected a letter. When he came back +from the City at half-past six or seven he expected to find lying there +on the green tablecloth, the letter—In the morning his man appeared +with a jug of hot water in one hand and the letters in the other—There, +one of those tantalizing, mysterious envelopes, must be the letter.</p> + +<p>At first disappointment was reassured with "Oh! it will be there +to-morrow." But as the days passed and the silence grew the torture +developed. Now after that first search in the morning, after that swift +sharp glance to the green tablecloth came physical pain—sickened heavy +drooping of the spirits when the world looked one vast deserted plain of +monotonous dullness, when the hours and hours and days and days that yet +remained to life seemed intolerable in their dreary multitude.</p> + +<p>He would go to bed early in order that the morning letters might come +the sooner; he fled home from the City, his heart beating like a drum, +as he mounted his stairs.</p> + +<p>Only one line, one line, would have been sufficient. It needed only the +reassurance that she thought of him, that she still cared ... <i>such</i> a +short letter would have given him all the comfort he needed.</p> + +<p>The need for some sign came as much from his impatience with the whole +situation as from his love for Rachel, but this, because he always saw +himself as a fine coloured centre of some passionate crisis, he +naturally did not perceive. His whole idea of Rachel was, as the days +passed, increasingly a picture that was far enough from reality—On the +one side Rachel—on the other side his restoration to his family ... now +as he waited it seemed to him that he was in danger of losing both the +one thing and the other.</p> + +<p>There was nothing that so speedily drove Breton to frenzy as enforced +inaction.</p> + +<p>After all, they had been together so little—</p> + +<p>Breton was cursed with his imagination. All his instability of character +came from his imagination. He looked ahead and saw such wonderful +events, he knew why people did this or that; he could see so clearly +what would happen did he act in such and such a way.... He traced future +action through many hazardous windings into a safe, fair Haven, and for +the sake of the Haven embarked on the preliminary dangers—discovered, +of course, too late, that the Haven was a dream. He saw Rachel now, +sitting alone, thinking of him, loving him, forcing herself to be fair +to her blockhead of a husband, feeling at last that she could endure it +no longer, and so writing! or he saw her falling in love with that same +blockhead, forgetting everyone and everything else.</p> + +<p>In all of this his grandmother played her part. He was aware that behind +all the attraction that he had had for Rachel was the consciousness that +he was a rebel against the Duchess—they were rebels together—that, he +knew, was the way that she thought of it.</p> + +<p>He was aware, however, that he was a rebel only because he was forced to +be one. Let his grandmother hold out her old arms to him and into them +he would run! He would be restored to the family—horribly he wanted it! +The spirit with which he had returned to England was one of hot +vengeance that would, indeed, have suited the finest of Rachel's moods, +but that spirit had, he knew, subtly changed—Here then, with regard to +Rachel, he felt a traitor—Would she come to him, why then he would do +anything for her even to pulling the Duchess's nose—but if she would +not come to him, why then he would rather that the Beaminsters should +take him to themselves and make him one of them.</p> + +<p>But he felt—although he had no tangible arguments to support his +feeling—that the old lady was "round the corner"—"she knows, you bet, +all about things—what I'd give for just one talk with her.... I believe +we'd be friends——"</p> + +<p>His weakness of character came, as he himself knew, from his inability +to allow life to stay at a good safe dull level. "To-day's +dull—Something <i>must</i> happen before evening; I must <i>make</i> it happen," +and then he would go and do something foolish—</p> + +<p>London excited him—the lighted shops, the smell of food and flowers and +women and leather and tobacco, the sky—signs flashing from space to +space, the carts and omnibuses, the shouts and cries and sudden +silences, the confused life of the place so that you could never say, +"<i>This</i> is London," but could only, in retrospect say, "Ah, <i>that</i> must +have been London," and still know that you had failed to grasp its +secret.</p> + +<p>The dirt and shabbiness and lack of plan and good humour and crime and +indecency and priggishness—its life!</p> + +<p>Many things out of all this glory called him—racing, women, drink, the +gutter one minute, the stars the next—from them all he held himself +aloof because of Rachel ... and Rachel meanwhile perhaps did not care.</p> + +<p>As Christmas approached he became utterly obsessed by this one +thought—that he must have a letter. His obsession had been able, during +these weeks, to clutch the tighter in that he had seen nothing of +Lizzie Rand. Throughout the autumn he had encountered her very seldom—</p> + +<p>Ever since that night in the summer when he had taken her to the theatre +she had avoided him, and he decided that she had been shocked at his +confession about Rachel—"You never know about women—I shouldn't have +thought that would have shocked her—But there it is; you never can +tell." Lizzie had been very good for him; he missed her now. He would +tackle her, he said, one day.</p> + +<p>Then not only with every day, but with every hour the torture grew. He +avoided Christopher, because Christopher might see things. His work +faded like mist from before him—He could not sleep, but lay on his back +thinking of what she would say if she <i>did</i> write, whether she were +thinking of him—how she found his own silence and what she felt about +it.</p> + +<p>Then he heard the astonishing news that Lizzie Rand had gone down to +Seddon to stay.... At first he thought that he would write to her and +beg her to find out for him all that she could as to Rachel's mind.</p> + +<p>But Lizzie's avoidance of him checked him there—if she had been shocked +at his just telling her, why then she would not be likely to help him +now—No, that would not be fair to Rachel....</p> + +<p>It occurred to him then that Rachel had asked Lizzie in order that she +might speak of him, have with her someone who could tell her about his +daily life, and so, without breaking her word, yet be in some kind of +communication with him—</p> + +<p>Soon this became with him a certainty. It assured him that her patience +was exhausted and that she would forgive, and more than forgive, a +letter from him.</p> + +<p>He wrote—then in an agony would have snatched it back again, and yet +was glad that the post had taken it from him. He had broken his word, +and shown himself for the miserable poor creature that he was. She would +never trust him again, but surely now she would write were it only to +dismiss him for ever.</p> + +<p>He waited and the agony once again grew phantasmal in its terrors; then +swiftly came word first that Roddy Seddon had been flung from his horse +and was hovering between life and death, then that he would not die, +but—"Paralysis of the spine—always have to lie on his back, I'm +afraid" (this from Christopher)—then, finally this note:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Seddon Court</span>,</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Near Lewes</span>,</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sussex</span>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Mr. Breton</span>,</p> + +<p>I have to come up to London next Tuesday for the day—I shall +return here that same evening. I have a message for you. Could +we have tea together that afternoon—or what do you say to a +walk in Regent's Park? Perhaps we could talk there more +easily—I'll meet you at the entrance to the Botanical Gardens +about 3.30 unless I hear from you.</p> + +<p>Yours sincerely,</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">E. Rand</span>."</p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>The effect upon him of Roddy's accident was indescribable. He was sorry, +terribly sorry—dreadful for a man whose whole interests are in physical +things to be laid on his back, like this, for ever. Surely it would be +better for him to die, and then, at that, sober thought would forsake +him—He did not wish Seddon to die, but around the possibility of it, +always turning, wheeling, his mind fluttered.</p> + +<p>He did not know what Lizzie would have to say to him, but, at his heart, +he expected triumph—with so little encouragement, he would wait so +faithfully—</p> + +<p>It was a cold windy afternoon of early spring and up to the gates of the +Botanical Gardens little eddies came sweeping: twigs and dust and pieces +of paper tossing, under a grey sky, beneath branches that creaked and +strained; Breton stood there impatiently; he was ten minutes before his +time; this biting windy world took from him his confidence ... a dirty +little brown dog walked round and round, wagging, now and again, a +pessimistic tail.</p> + +<p>There at last she was, coming, as orderly and neat as ever, up the road; +her grey dress, her little shining shoes, her hair that no breeze could +disturb, her expression as though she were ready for anything and would +be surprised at nothing—these all, to-day, irritated him. Good heavens! +was she so surely tied to her typewriter that she could understand +nothing of the emotions that an ordinary human being might be feeling? +Had she no imagination? Because she had never herself known sentiment +about anyone alive was it beyond her to consider what others might +encounter?</p> + +<p>Breton would have preferred any other ambassador in this affair than the +neat, efficient Miss Rand, forgetting that there had been a time when he +had chosen her as his one and only confidante.</p> + +<p>"How do you do, Mr. Breton?" she said, giving him her little gloved +hand.</p> + +<p>"It's just struck—I was a little early," he answered, feeling confused +and hating himself for his confusion—</p> + +<p>"Let's go round to the left here and turn over the bridge and then out +past the Zoo and back—That makes quite a good round."</p> + +<p>"Yes"—he said.</p> + +<p>"I chose the Park because I thought that we could talk better—We might +have been interrupted at home."</p> + +<p>He caught then a little tremor in her voice and was grateful for it. She +<i>did</i> feel a little that this was important for him; she sympathized +perhaps more than he should have expected.</p> + +<p>"Let's come straight to the point, Miss Rand," he said, "you have a +message for me."</p> + +<p>She nodded, felt in the pocket of her dress and produced an envelope, +which she gave him.</p> + +<p>"She thought it better that I should give it you like this because then +I could say something as well—something she had asked me to say——"</p> + +<p>His hand trembled as he saw the writing on the envelope—"Francis +Breton, Esq., 24 Saxton Square"—During what months and months he had +longed for that handwriting and how often had he imagined that letter +lying, just as it lay now, in his hand—</p> + +<p>He read it, Lizzie walking gravely at his side—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"This letter is not easy to write and you must realize that and +forgive me if I have not put things properly. These last weeks +have all made such a demand on me that I'm tired out....</p> + +<p>"I said once, Francis dear, that I would not write to you until +I meant to come to you. Now I have broken my word—This is to +tell you that everything, anything, that we have felt for one +another must be ended, now and for ever.</p> + +<p>"Don't think that I am angry with you for writing to me. Perhaps +I should have been, but I understood—Only now all my life must +be always, entirely, devoted to my husband. That is now all +that I live for. I feel as though in some way I had been +responsible for the disaster; at any rate his bravery and pluck +are wonderful and it is a small thing that I can do to make his +life as easy as I can, but it will take the whole of me.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps after a time we shall meet—one day be friends—I can't +look ahead or look back; I only know that I am now absolutely, +entirely, my husband's—</p> + +<p>"Don't hate me for this—it was taken out of our hands. I've +asked Lizzie Rand to give you this. She knows everything and it +would make me happy to think that you two had become great +friends."</p></blockquote> + +<p>They had crossed the little bridge, left behind them the strange birds +that chattered beneath it, and had passed into the wide green spaces, +often given up to cricket or football, now empty of any human being—the +Zoological Gardens, a deserted bandstand, a fringe of trees on which the +first tiny leaves were showing; above them the grey sky had broken into +blue and white, the cloud shaped with ribs and fleecy softness like a +huge wing stretching above them from horizon to horizon.</p> + +<p>Over the two of them, so tiny on that broad expanse, this wing brooded +tenderly, gravely—</p> + +<p>Breton had crushed the letter in his hand and stood looking in front of +him, but seeing nothing. His one thought was that he had been brutally +treated,—she had simply, without a thought, without a care, flung him +aside.</p> + +<p>He had, of course, known that this accident to her husband must, for a +time, hold her, but now, in this fashion, she had passed on without +hesitation—leaving him anywhere, anyhow; was it so long ago that she +had said to him that, whether she came to him or no she would always +love him? Had she already forgotten that kiss, that moment when she had +clung to him, held to him?</p> + +<p>He stood there, filled with self-pity. This restraint, this +self-discipline all done for her and now all useless. It was not wanted; +<i>he</i> was not wanted....</p> + +<p>Had she only preserved some relationship, told him to wait, assured him +that he meant something to her, anything but this—</p> + +<p>But there was greater pain at Breton's heart than thought of Rachel +brought him. To every man comes in due time the instant of revelation; +it had flashed before Breton now.</p> + +<p>He saw that his relationship with Rachel was at an end, utterly—However +he might delude himself that, in his soul, he knew. There had been a +moment when they had met and the moment had passed. But he saw more than +this. He saw that he was a man to whom life had always been a succession +of moments—moments flashing, stinging, flying, gone—he, always, +helpless to grasp and hold.</p> + +<p>Had he, on that day, been strong, held Rachel, conquered her, made her +his.... He was weak through the fine things in him as surely as through +the base—His ideals forced his purpose to tremble as often as his +regrets....</p> + +<p>Standing there, he faced himself and saw that, whether for good or evil, +Life for him had always been evasive, fluid, a thing grasped at but +never caught.</p> + +<p>Rachel was not for such as he—</p> + +<p>Lizzie had watched him and her face had grown very tender—"I know I'm a +nuisance just now," she said—"it hasn't, naturally, been a very +pleasant thing for me to have to do—but I thought that I could tell you +a little about her—I've seen her through all of this."</p> + +<p>He strode along fiercely, his eyes staring in front of him; he looked, +she thought, like a boy who had been forbidden some longed-for pleasure; +she found it difficult to keep pace with him.</p> + +<p>"She's so very, very young," Lizzie went on, "I expect you forget +that—she's filled, above everything else, with a determination to +express her own individuality, a protest, you know, against its having +been squashed by her family.</p> + +<p>"Anything that helps her to express it she seizes on. You helped +her—she seized on you. Now all her heart is stirred by this disaster to +her husband, the most active person she's ever known absolutely +helpless, so now that has seized her. She can't have two things in her +mind at once—that's where her troubles come from—she cares for you. +You'll always be something to her that no one else can ever be, and oh! +it's so much better, so much, much better, than if you'd gone off, made +a mess of it all, spoilt all your beautiful ideas of one another."</p> + +<p>The thrill in her voice made him, even though he was intensely concerned +with his own wrongs and losses, consider her. What Lizzie Rand was this? +It flung him back, almost against his will, as though he hated to throw +over all the ideas he had formed of her, to that first meeting when they +had stood at the window and looked out on the grey square and he had +called it the Pool. Then he had suspected her of emotion and sentiment; +it was afterwards, when he had made her his wise Counsellor and +common-sense Adviser, that he had thought of her as unemotional.</p> + +<p>He felt now that he had been treating her rather badly. He stopped +abruptly and looked down at her; there was something in her earnest gaze +at him, something rather nervous and hesitating that did not belong at +all to the efficient Miss Rand.</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> good of you, Miss Rand, to have come and given me this note. +I'm finding it all rather difficult at the moment, as I'm sure you'll +understand. I'd better go off somewhere by myself a bit, I think, but it +was good of you." He broke off and stared desolately about him. He was +not very far from tears, she thought.</p> + +<p>She too remembered their first meeting. She had found him melodramatic +then, a little insincere—Now she knew that she had been wrong. He was +sincere as a child is sincere; the world was utterly black, was +transcendently bright as it was for a child.</p> + +<p>She understood him so well—so much better than Rachel. She knew that +neither he nor Rachel would ever have had the wisdom to endure that +romantic impatience that was in both of them—"They would have been +fighting in a week—But I—should know how to deal with him——"</p> + +<p>The green park and the brooding sky seemed to join in her +tenderness—She had never loved him so surely, so unselfishly as she +loved him now.</p> + +<p>"Tell me," he said gruffly. "I wrote to her ... did she tell you +anything about that?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Lizzie answered—"I don't know what might have happened if he +hadn't had the accident.... But as it is, I know she's glad you +wrote—She likes to look back on it, but it's on something that +died—gone altogether. And it's much, much better so."</p> + +<p>"To you," he said, "it may be so."</p> + +<p>"Only because through these weeks I've got to know her so well. She's +strange—unlike any other woman I've known. Her great charm is that +she's so unattainable. Men will always love her for that and sometimes +she may think she loves them in return, but no man will ever call the +<i>real</i> woman out of her. If she were to have a child, perhaps that +would ... but we—all of us—you, I, Dr. Christopher, her husband—all of +us who love her will always love her without quite knowing why and +without, in the end, her belonging to any one of us.</p> + +<p>"I've grown to love her during these last weeks and I've thought it was +because I was sorry for her and admired her pluck—but it isn't that +really—It's simply because—well, because—there's something wonderful +in her that isn't for any of us."</p> + +<p>"Well, you've been very kind, Miss Rand, I shan't forget it. You've said +just the thing to put it all straight and clear. I wouldn't do anything +now to disturb her or hurt her husband, poor devil ... it must be hell +for him ... and it don't anyway matter much what happens to me—it never +has done.</p> + +<p>"You've been a brick. If you really care to bother about a rotten waster +like myself I'll be proud.... Good-bye and thank you——"</p> + +<p>He took her hand and shook it and then was gone, striding off, +furiously, towards the trees.</p> + +<p>She walked slowly back to Saxton Square.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IIB" id="CHAPTER_IIB"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>THE DUCHESS MOVES</h3> + +<blockquote><p>"Fear of the loss of power has more to do with disasters in the +history of nations than any other motive."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">James Anthony Froude</span>.</p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Trouble invaded the strongholds of 104 Portland Place that winter: The +Duchess was not so well ... no evasions, whether above or below stairs, +could conceal the harsh truth. The Duchess was not so well....</p> + +<p>To the bewildered mind of Lady Adela the horrid succession of disasters +that the winter had provided no other years could equal. It had all +begun, she often fancied, from the day of Rachel's coming out, from the +ball, or even, although for this she could not find a real excuse, from +that visit to the Bond Street Picture Gallery. It was on that afternoon, +Lady Adela well remembered, that there had first come to her those +strange, treacherous thoughts about her mother that had, afterwards, as +they had grown stronger and more formidable, changed life for her. Yes, +it had seemed that, with Rachel's appearance before the world, disaster +to the Beamister house had appeared also. Her mother's illness, the War, +perpetual rumours of Rachel's unsatisfactory marriage, the uncomfortable +presence of Frank Breton, the horrible disaster to poor Roddy—how they +trooped before Lady Adela's eyes! Finally, more terrible than all of +them, was the complete destruction of the old fiction, the old terror, +the old submission. Lady Adela did not now dare to look into her mind +because of the horrible things that she found there.</p> + +<p>Roddy's accident had had the most terrible effect upon the Duchess. Only +Christopher could really tell how Her Grace had taken it, but throughout +the house, it was understood that the effect of it had been serious. +"Wouldn't give her long now," said Mr. Norris. "What with this War and +what not she was goin' as it was, and now Sir Roderick, as was always, +as you might say, her pet, having this awful disaster—no, <i>I</i> don't +give her long."</p> + +<p>Adela of course saw nothing of her mother's feelings; she never had been +allowed to see anything of them and she was not allowed now.</p> + +<p>The old lady was outwardly as she had ever been, although she spoke less +and, if you watched her, you could see sometimes that her hands were +shaking. She used paint for her cheeks and she rouged her lips. Her love +of fantastic things had grown very much, and, on the little table behind +her chair, there was a row of strange china animals and some Indian +dolls with wooden limbs that jangled when you touched them.</p> + +<p>But Adela was no longer afraid of her mother. Stimulate it as she would, +force upon herself her sensations of the days when she had been afraid, +as she did, still the terror would not now confront her. There had been +a dreadful scene when the Duchess had been told that her daughter was +acting on the same committee as Mrs. Bronson, the dazzling +American ... a terrible scene ... but Adela had come through it without +a tremor—it had not affected her at all. "It isn't that I've changed +much either. I'm just as nervous of other things—I'm just the same +coward...."</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was, a little, that the war had altered one's values—So many +Beaminster necessities were not quite so necessary—</p> + +<p>Certainly John felt the same, and the one consolation to Adela, through +all this horrible time, was that she had grown nearer to John than she +had ever been to anyone—John and she had been attacked by the Real +World, both of them at the same moment, and they did find comfort, at +this terrifying crisis, in being together.</p> + +<p>But all Adela's energy was directed towards concealing from her mother +that there was any change at all—"She must think that things are just +the same, exactly the same. She mustn't ever know that ... well, +that ..."</p> + +<p>She could not put it into words. Her Grace's illness was never alluded +to by any member of the household.</p> + +<p>There came word, at the beginning of March, that Roddy had been moved up +to London, that Rachel had taken a little house in York Terrace +overlooking Regent's Park, that Roddy was wonderfully cheerful, suffered +pain at times, but was, on the whole marvellous—</p> + +<p>Two or three days after this news when Christopher arrived at 104 on his +usual morning visit Lord John met him in the hall.</p> + +<p>"I say, come in here a minute," he said, leading the way into his own +little smoking-room—Lord John was fatter, scarcely now as rubicund, as +shining as he had been—as neat and clean as ever, but there were lines +on his forehead, and in his eye, that glance of surprise that had always +been there had advanced into one of alarm—</p> + +<p>"What the devil is life going to do, what horrible trick is it up to +next?" he seemed to say—</p> + +<p>"Look here, Christopher," he brought out, when the door was closed. +"There's the devil and all to pay. My mother declares this morning that +she's going to pay a visit to Roddy!"</p> + +<p>"Well?" Christopher seemed amused.</p> + +<p>"But ... Good heavens!" John was aghast—"She hasn't stirred out of her +room for thirty years! She ... she ... it'll kill her!"</p> + +<p>"Oh! no, it won't—" Christopher answered, "not if she really means to +do it. Of course she can't walk much—she won't have to—We can get her +downstairs, and Roddy's room in York Terrace is on the ground +floor—We'll have to see she doesn't catch cold—She'll have to choose a +warm day."</p> + +<p>"She says she's going this afternoon!" said Lord John, still overwhelmed +by this amazing development.</p> + +<p>"Well, to-day won't do any harm——"</p> + +<p>"Are you sure?"</p> + +<p>"Quite sure. The danger with your mother has always been to stop her +inclinations. Indulge 'em all the time if you can, let her say what she +wishes, do what she wishes. If you were to carry her out of doors +against her will, why it would do a great deal of harm indeed—but if +she wants to go she'll see that she's up to it. It may be the best thing +for her. She could have gone out heaps of times in the last thirty years +if she'd wished to!"</p> + +<p>Lord John rubbed his forehead—</p> + +<p>"It's a great relief to hear you say that, Christopher. I didn't know +how we were going to get out of it. She was so determined this +morning——"</p> + +<p>He broke off—"You're <i>sure</i> it won't do any harm?" he said again.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure," said Christopher.</p> + +<p>"There's something," Lord John went on again, "dreadfully on my mother's +mind—She seems to feel that, in some way or other, she was responsible +for his accident. I can't get at the bottom of it all and of course she +won't tell me—she never tells me things. Perhaps you can get at it. I +saw Rachel yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"She's very fair about it all. Must be having a very hard time. She was +glad to see me, I think, but—" he added a little wistfully—"I've never +been anything to her since her marriage.</p> + +<p>"She just seemed not to want me after that, and I'd been a good deal to +her before. When one's getting old, Christopher, we old bachelors, we +begin to notice that nobody wants us very much."</p> + +<p>Christopher looked at him—Yes, John Beaminster had changed in the last +year. Had he himself, he wondered, also changed?</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, smiling. "But I've been an old bachelor, Beaminster, +for years and years and I see no likelihood of your ever being one. You +get younger with every year, I believe."</p> + +<p>"This accident to Roddy," John said slowly, as though he were thinking +it all out, "has upset us all. It seems so terrible, happening to +him ... much worse for him ... and then Rachel—But look here, I know +you've got to go up to my mother, I won't keep you a minute—But there's +a thing I've got to talk to you about—It's been on my conscience now for +ages.... I've not known what to do ... at last I've made up my mind."</p> + +<p>John Beaminster had made up his mind to do something that he hated! To +Christopher perhaps more than to anyone else in the world this was a +revelation of the most vital, the most moving interest—He had known +John for so long, seen him struggling behind screens and curtains, +hugging to himself the happy knowledge that to the very end he would be +able to keep life from getting at him, and now behold! Life <i>had</i> got at +him, wag clutching him by the throat.</p> + +<p>"It's about Frank"—at last he desperately brought out "I've made up my +mind. I must go and see him—now, perhaps whilst mother is—is still +suffering from the effects of Roddy's accident it wouldn't be wise +perhaps to have him here actually in the house—But something must be +done.... Adela agrees."</p> + +<p>Adela agrees! Well, if the old woman upstairs.... Christopher was moved, +as he had lately been often moved, by a swift stirring of pathos.</p> + +<p>"You see, this War has upset us all so, has made one feel +differently—And then he really does seem to have changed, been as quiet +as anything all this time, and I hear that he's working at something +sensible down in the City. I must go and see him——"</p> + +<p>Then they hadn't heard, Christopher knew, of any rumours about Rachel +and Francis.</p> + +<p>Perhaps there <i>were</i> no rumours, perhaps only in the mind of the old +lady.... But then let John say a word to her about this visit to Breton +and out she would come with it all.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Beaminster," Christopher said. "Of course I'm delighted. It's just +what I hoped would happen, but perhaps, as your mother has been rather +upset lately it would be just as well to say nothing to her...."</p> + +<p>"Quite so...." John looked away, out of the window—Poor John!</p> + +<p>Christopher held out his hand, and John took it and for a moment they +stood there, then Christopher went upstairs.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Dorchester no longer asserted that her mistress was "better than she had +ever been"—Since that terrible morning when Dr. Christopher had broken +the news of Sir Roderick's accident Dorchester had made no pretence +about anything. This was the time that must, she had always known, one +day arrive, but what she had not known was that it would be quite like +this.</p> + +<p>She was a woman of some imagination; moreover, were there one person in +the world who touched her heart, then was it her mistress; she had +penetrated, she thought, some of the strange secrets and fantasies of +that old woman's soul, and it seemed that now, in these later days, she +was at last in touch with every motive and grim artifice that her +mistress adopted—</p> + +<p>But no—since that terrible day at the beginning of the year Dorchester +had lost touch, was left, bewildered, at a loss, as though she were +suddenly in the service of some stranger.</p> + +<p>She had known that nothing more terrible could happen to her mistress +than this—When she heard it she said to herself, "This will kill +her—bound to—" She had known too that her mistress would not flinch, +outwardly, and that to the ordinary observer there would be no sign, but +the thing for which she had not been prepared was this silence, a +silence so profound and yet so eloquent that one could obtain from it no +clue, could discern no visible wound, but daily, almost hourly, as she +sat there, change was at work ... she was dying before their eyes—</p> + +<p>What Dorchester did not know was that the Duchess had been aware, for a +long time, that this was to occur, if not exactly this, why, then, +something like it.</p> + +<p>All through that autumn she had sat there waiting—the War, the +rebellion of her children—it only needed that disaster should overtake +Roddy and the circle was complete.</p> + +<p>She did not doubt that it was because he had married Rachel that this +had happened to him, and she might have prevented his marriage to Rachel +had she wished.</p> + +<p>The girl had now for her sitting there in her room the fatal +inevitability of some hostile spirit. She saw all her past years as a +duel with this girl, the one soul in rebellion against hers. Rachel +had taken everything from her; she had first stirred Adela and John +into rebellion, she had encouraged Francis Breton, she had destroyed +Roddy ... she rose, before the old woman's eyes, black, titanic, +sweeping, with great dark wings, across the horizon.</p> + +<p>The Duchess did not in so many words state that Rachel had flung her +husband from his horse and then watched whilst his body was dragged +along the stones, but, in some way, the girl had plotted it.</p> + +<p>The old woman had indeed during these last months suffered from visions. +There were days when her brain was as clear as it had ever been and on +these days she thought more of Roddy than of Rachel, ached to be with +him, longed to comfort him and make life bearable for him, cursed +whatever fate it was that had ordained that upon him of all people such +a burden should have fallen. Then there were other days when the old +china dragons seemed more real than Dorchester, when shapes and sizes +altered in an instant, when the cushion at her feet was swollen like a +mountain, when she seemed floating through space, looking down upon +houses, cities, mountains, when only like a jangling chain upon which +everything hung, ran her hatred of her granddaughter.</p> + +<p>On such a day if Rachel had come to her and she had been alone with her, +she would have wished the dragons to devour her, would have urged the +silver Indian snake on the little black table to have strangled her. On +such a day she would sit hour after hour and wonder what she could do to +her granddaughter....</p> + +<p>It was upon one of her clear days that it flashed upon her that she +would go and see Roddy. Beyond the actual excitement of visiting Roddy +there was the determination to show the world what she still could do. +Doubtless they were saying out there that she was bedridden now, ill, +helpless, dying even ... well, she would show them.</p> + +<p>For thirty years she had not been outside her door—now, because she +wished it, she would go.</p> + +<p>She said nothing to Adela about this—she saw Adela now as seldom as +possible. She told John on the morning of the day itself—on that same +morning she told Christopher.</p> + +<p>She told him sitting in her chair, with her cheeks painted and her white +fingers covered with rings—</p> + +<p>"I'm going to pay a visit—this afternoon, Christopher." She had +expected opposition—she was a little disappointed when he said—</p> + +<p>"Yes, so I've already heard this morning. I think it's an excellent +thing—the day's warm. You'll have to be carried downstairs, you +know——"</p> + +<p>"You and Norris can do that. I won't have anyone else."</p> + +<p>"Very well, I shall have to come with you——"</p> + +<p>"Yes—You can talk to my granddaughter."</p> + +<p>"It's thirty years...."</p> + +<p>"Yes—The last time was Old Judy Bonnings's reception. They're all +dead—all of 'em—D'you remember, Dorchester?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—Your Grace—Very well."</p> + +<p>Dorchester expressed no surprise—Anything was better than that silence +of the last months. Moreover she had trusted Christopher. She had often +been amazed at the knowledge that he showed of her mistress's +temperament, would allow her temper, her imperious self-will indulgence +one day and on another would control them absolutely. He knew what he +was doing....</p> + +<p>The picture that she presented, however, when helped downstairs by the +pontifical Norris and Christopher! the house, with the decorous +watchfulness of some large, solemn, and immensely authoritative +policeman, surveying her descent, her own little bird-like face, showing +nothing but a fine assumption of her splendid appearance before the +public, after thirty years, she thus, once again, was saluted by +Portland Place! Black furs of Lady Adela's surrounded, enfolded her, and +from out of them her eyes haughtily but triumphantly surveyed a +crossing-sweeper, two small children with their nurse, a messenger boy, +and Roller the coachman. To Roller this must have been <i>the</i> dramatic +moment of a somewhat undramatic career, but stout and imperial upon his +box his body was held, rigid, motionless, and his large stupid eyes +gazed in front of him at the trees and the light cloud-flecked March +sky, and moved neither to the right nor to the left.</p> + +<p>She was placed in the carriage—Christopher got in beside her and they +moved off. He was interested to see the effect that this breaking into +the world would have upon her. He felt himself a little in the position +of showman and was glad that he had a spring afternoon of gleaming +sunshine and a suggestion of budding trees and shrubs in the Portland +Crescent garden to provide for her. They were held up by traffic as they +crossed the Marylebone Road; drays, hansoms, bicycles passed—there was +a stir of voices and wheels, somewhere in the park a band was playing.</p> + +<p>He looked at her and saw that she paid no heed, but sat back in the dim +shadow, her eyes, he thought, closed. She was, at that instant, more +remote from him and all that he represented than she had ever +been—Curiously he was moved, just then, by a consciousness of her +personality that exceeded anything that he had ever felt in her before.</p> + +<p>"Yes, she must have been tremendous," he thought. And then he wondered +of what she was thinking, so quiet, and yet, from her very silence, +sinister, and then—how could he have not considered this before? What +was she going to say to Roddy?</p> + +<p>At this, the dark carriage was suddenly, for him, as flashing with life +and circumstance as though it had been the florid circle of some popular +music-hall—<i>What</i> would she say to Roddy?</p> + +<p>He knew her for the most selfish of all possible old women: unselfish +only perhaps if Roddy were concerned, but there also, if some question +of her power moved her, ruthless. He had traced the windings of her +queer intertwisted brain with some accuracy—He knew also that the +coloured unreal state that her closed, fantastic life (resembling, you +might say, life inside a Chinese puzzle) had brought upon her led her +now to see Rachel as arch-antagonist in every step and movement of her +day.</p> + +<p>She would not wish to make Roddy unhappy, she might persuade herself +that to hint to him of Rachel's infidelity would be to put him on his +guard—she might say that it was not fair that Rachel should not be +pulled up....</p> + +<p>Christopher himself could not tell how far this affair with Breton had +gone....</p> + +<p>During that short time it seemed to him that a crisis, that had been +building up around him, here, there, for months, for years perhaps, had +leapt upon him and that in some way he must deal with it.</p> + +<p>Even whilst he struggled with the thoughts that were sweeping upon him +now from every side, they were at the house—As he stepped out of the +carriage he felt that he was before a locked door, that the safety of +many persons depended upon his opening it, that he could not find the +key.</p> + +<p>"Lady Seddon was out. Sir Roderick was alone——" The Duchess was half +assisted, half carried into the house.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>The Duchess's feelings were indeed confused as she was helped into +Roddy's room, placed in a large easy chair opposite to him and at last +left alone with him.</p> + +<p>Enough of itself to disturb her was the fact that now for the first time +for thirty years she was able to examine some room different from her +own—A large, high white-walled room with wide windows that displayed +the park, sporting prints on the walls, antlers over the fireplace, a +piano in one corner, a large bowl of primroses on the piano, some +boxing-gloves and two old swords over the door, a wooden case with thin +rosewood drawers and "Birds' Eggs" in gold letters upon it, a round +table near the sofa upon which Roddy was lying and on the table a +photograph of Rachel—</p> + +<p>All these things her sharp old eyes noticed before she allowed them to +settle upon Roddy—</p> + +<p>His quiet, almost humorous "Well, Duchess," set, quite concisely, the +note for this conversation. Not for either of them was it to betray any +consciousness that this meeting of theirs was in any way out of the +ordinary. Formerly it had been the ebullient, vigorous Roddy who had +brought his vigour to renew her fierce old age; now that old age must be +brought to him—</p> + +<p>The Beaminsters did not show surprise at anything at all; had she come +from her grave to visit him he would have greeted her with his quiet +"Well, Duchess"—his life was broken in pieces, but she was not to offer +any comment on that either.</p> + +<p>She was exhausted even by that little drive, and that little passage +from door to door, so she just lay back in her chair for a little while +and looked at him.</p> + +<p>His body was covered with a rug; his hands, still brown and large and +clumsy, were folded on his lap; he was wonderfully tidy, brushed and +cleaned, it seemed to her, as though he were always expecting a doctor +or a visitor or were performed upon by some valet or other, simply, poor +dear, that the time might be filled. His cheeks were paler of course and +his face thinner, but it was in his eyes—his large, simple, singularly +ungrown-up eyes she had always considered them—that the great change +lay—</p> + +<p>They smiled across at her with the same genial good temper that they had +always presented to her. But indeed she could never call them +"ungrown-up" again. Roddy Seddon had grown up indeed since she had seen +him last; she knew now, as she faced the experience and, above all, the +strength that those eyes now presented for her, that she had a new +spirit to encounter.</p> + +<p>Yes—he "had had a horrible time," but she was wise enough, at that +instant, to realise that the "horrible time" had drawn character out of +him that she, at least, had never, for an instant, suspected.</p> + +<p>The old woman was moved so that she would have liked to have tottered to +his sofa, to have caught his hands in her old dry ones, to have kissed +him, to have smoothed his hair—but she sat quietly in her chair, +recovered her breath and, grimly, almost saturninely, smiled at him.</p> + +<p>"Well, Roddy," she said, "how are you?"</p> + +<p>"I'm quite splendid. Play patience like a professor, can knit five +mufflers in a week and am learning two foreign languages—But indeed +how rippin' to see you here. I've spent a lot o' time on this old sofa +wonderin' how you and I were goin' to see one another."</p> + +<p>"Have you?" She was pleased at that—"Well, you see, I <i>have</i> managed it +and quite easily too, not so bad after thirty years. My <i>good</i> Roddy, +you of all people to tumble off a horse! What <i>were</i> you about?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! it was simple enough." Roddy's eyes worked swiftly to the park and +then back again. "I was worried, you see—my thoughts were wandering, +and the old mare just tripped into a hole, pitched and flung me—I fell +on a heap o' stones, <i>they</i> knocked the sense out of me, the horse was +frightened and went dashin' along with me tangled up in her. All came of +my thoughts wanderin'—But you know, Duchess, I've had heaps of +accidents, heaps and heaps, every kind of thing has happened to me, but +it's never been serious—always the most wonderful luck. Well, for once +it left me."</p> + +<p>"Poor old Roddy."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it <i>was</i> 'poor old Roddy,' I can tell you, for the first six +weeks—thought I simply <i>couldn't</i> stand it, had serious thoughts of +kickin' out altogether, seemed to me everythin' had gone ... it's +wonderful, though, the way you pick up. And then everyone's been so +tremendous, and as for Rachel!"</p> + +<p>He heaved a great sigh—Her eyes half closed, then she looked very +carefully at the photograph on the little round table. "That's a good +photograph of her you've got."</p> + +<p>"Yes—it's my favourite. But you, Duchess, tell me about yourself. You +must be in magnificent form to have planned this great adventure."</p> + +<p>She told him about herself—only a little, all very carefully +chosen—She was fancying, as she sat there, that she was again playing +the great diplomatist before the world.</p> + +<p>This expedition had greatly excited her, it had fired her blood, and +just now she felt that she was equal to taking up her old life of thirty +years ago, playing once more a tremendous part, beating Mrs. Bronson and +others of her kind straight off the field.</p> + +<p>She had a great plan now of coming often to see Roddy and of gaining a +very great influence over him; she did not say to herself in so many +words that she could not bear to think of him lying there helpless and +therefore completely in Rachel's power, but that is what in reality +stirred her.</p> + +<p>Roddy's helplessness—the sight and sound of it—drove higher that flame +that had burnt now for so long before the altar at which Rachel was, one +day, to be sacrificed. "She may come and go as she pleases. He lies +here—He can do nothing. He can know nothing of her movements—He's in +her hands—after what I know...."</p> + +<p>What did she know? The acquaintanceship of Breton's man-servant and +Dorchester had produced the fact of Rachel's visit, of letters—but +wasn't that all? Amongst the strange mingled visions that now crossed +and recrossed her brain it were hard to say what were real and what +phantasmal. But granted that the two of them had come together at all, +why then it was plain enough to anyone who knew them that only one +result was possible—Poor Roddy ... <i>her</i> poor Roddy!</p> + +<p>But she did not know even now that she intended to tell him anything; +her sense of the pain that that revelation would give to him held her, +but as the minutes passed her delight at being back once more in this +gay, bustling world (yes, she liked its new invigorating noises) the +sense of power that she had, and youth, and strength, spun her brain to +finest cobwebs of entanglements.</p> + +<p>She was glad to be with her Roddy again, it was only fair that, helpless +as he was, there should still be someone to guard and protect him ... to +protect him, yes!</p> + +<p>Her eyes flashed at the photograph.</p> + +<p>But for a long time they talked in precisely their old fashion. The War, +friends and enemies, victories and defeats, marriages and deaths; Roddy +seemed, for a time, the old Roddy.</p> + +<p>And then gradually through it all there pushed towards her the +consciousness that he was doing it now to please her; more than that, +again and again she was aware that some bitter jest, some sharp +distraction, some fierce criticism had been turned by him deftly +aside—simply rejected with a deftness and a strength that the old Roddy +could never have summoned.</p> + +<p>Here again then—and it stabbed her there in the midst of her new pride +and confidence—was a reminder that her power, her sovereignty had +vanished! Was Roddy also to be beyond her influence, Roddy whom she had +had at her feet since he was a boy of sixteen?</p> + +<p>The photograph smiled across at her—She bent forward, her hand raised a +little as though to lend emphasis to her words—"And then you know, +Roddy, I'm still troubled with my abominable relation——"</p> + +<p>"What! Breton? Why, how's he been behaving?" Roddy's voice was scornful.</p> + +<p>"Oh! he's not <i>done</i> anything that I know of—But he's always there—so +tiresome to have him so close, and John and Adela have grown so peculiar +lately that there's no knowing—They may ask him in to tea one day——"</p> + +<p>"Oh no, they won't," said Roddy. "He must be the most awful outsider."</p> + +<p>"I wanted to speak about him to you because I thought you might give a +word of warning to Rachel——"</p> + +<p>"To Rachel?" Roddy's voice was amazed.</p> + +<p>"Yes—She's become such a friend of his! Surely you know? That's what +makes it so difficult for me—When one's own granddaughter——"</p> + +<p>"Rachel! A friend of Breton's! But I didn't know she'd ever spoken to +him—Look here, Duchess, you must explain——"</p> + +<p>"I thought you must have known. I've often wished to speak to you about +it, only Rachel is so difficult and I didn't want to worry you, and it +seems especially hard just now——"</p> + +<p>"But it doesn't worry me—not a bit. Only tell me—How do you mean that +she's a friend of his?"</p> + +<p>"Only that she goes to see him, writes to him——"</p> + +<p>"Goes to <i>see</i> him——"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes—is in complete sympathy——"</p> + +<p>"Are you sure?"</p> + +<p>"Absolutely. You must ask her."</p> + +<p>"I will of course——"</p> + +<p>He lay back on his sofa. For a little time there was silence between +them. She was filled now with wild regrets. She wished that she had said +nothing. His face was hard and old—She wished ... she scarcely knew +what she wished; she only knew that suddenly she was tired and would +like to go home.</p> + +<p>A bell was rung and Christopher was sent for. She would like to have +kissed Roddy, but only wagged her bony finger at him—</p> + +<p>"Now be a good patient boy and I'll soon come again."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>Meanwhile, five minutes before this, Rachel had come in. She was told of +the visits, and going swiftly to the little drawing-room upstairs had +found Christopher.</p> + +<p>She flung her arms around him and kissed him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear Dr. Chris!"</p> + +<p>But he stopped her.</p> + +<p>"Quick, Rachel. I may only have a minute.... I've got to speak to you."</p> + +<p>Instantly she drew back, her grave eyes watching him and her hands, as +of old, nervously moving against her dress.</p> + +<p>"What is it?"</p> + +<p>"It's just this. The Duchess may ring at any moment—she's been with him +a long while. Look here, Rachel, she knows about Breton—that you've +been to see him, that you've written to him——"</p> + +<p>"She told you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—long ago—But never mind that now, although I'd have spoken to you +of it before if you'd let me—But the only thing that matters is that I +believe—I can't of course be sure—but I believe that she's come now to +tell Roddy."</p> + +<p>Rachel drew a long breath. "Oh!" she said and, stiffly standing there, +showed in her eyes the pitch of feeling to which now her grandmother had +brought her.</p> + +<p>Christopher went on urgently—"I've been praying for you to come in. I +hoped you'd have come half an hour ago. There's no time now, but—it's +simply this, Rachel dear—tell Roddy everything——"</p> + +<p>She broke in passionately. "You know it's all right, Dr. Chris—you've +trusted me?"</p> + +<p>"Absolutely," he said gravely. "But it simply is that Roddy mustn't be +there imagining things, waiting, wondering.... Perhaps he won't ask +you—Perhaps he will—But, anyway, tell him—tell him at once +everything...."</p> + +<p>The bell rang, he went across to her, kissed her, and then went +downstairs.</p> + +<p>She stood there waiting, without moving except to strip off, very +slowly, her black gloves. Her eyes were fixed upon the door.</p> + +<p>She heard the door downstairs open, the stumbling steps; once she caught +the Duchess's voice and at that she drew in her breath. Then the hall +door closed, but, for a long time afterwards, she stood there without +moving.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IIIB" id="CHAPTER_IIIB"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>RODDY MOVES</h3> + +<blockquote><p>"... But the Red Dwarf, although as malevolent as possible, +found that his ill-temper had no effect against true love, +which always won in the end, even with quite stupid people."</p> + +<p><i>Grimm's Fairy Tales.</i></p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>It would have been quite impossible for Roddy to have given any clear +description of his experiences since the event of his accident. There, +surely, like a gleaming sword, that cut his life into two pieces, the +fact itself was visible enough, and there floated before him, again and +again, the casual canter, the especial view that was before him just +then, a view of undulating Downs, somewhere to his left white chalk +hollows in grey hills and to his right a blue strip of sea, the wonder +that was in his mind about Rachel, his thoughts chasing back over all +the incidents of their life together, then suddenly the jerk, his +consciousness of falling with the ground rising in a high wall to oppose +him, and then darkness.</p> + +<p>After that there was nightmare in which pain and Rachel, Rachel and +pain, mingled and parted, were confused and then separate, and with them +danced shapes and figures, sometimes in a turmoil that was horrible, +sometimes in silence that was the most terrible of all. Clear after that +first period of misty confusion was the day when he was told his fate.</p> + +<p>He had come out from the heart of the more terrible pain—No longer had +he to lie, knowing that soon, after another minute's peace, agony would +rise before him like a creature with a wet pale malignant face, and then +after looking upon him for a moment, would bend down and, with its +horrible damp fingers, would twist and turn his bones one against +another until the supreme moment came when nothing mattered and no +agony, however bad, could touch his indifferent soul.</p> + +<p>He was now simply weak, weak, weak—nothing mattered. In his dream he +fancied that someone had said that he would never rise from his back +again. For days after that it lingered far away from his actual +consciousness. Really it had not mattered; something, this dream, that +concerned him, but what could concern him except that people should keep +quiet and not fuss?</p> + +<p>For instance he loved to have Rachel with him, he was miserable were she +not there, but at the same time he was conscious that she <i>did</i> fuss, +was not quite like Miss Rand.</p> + +<p>But of this thing that he had heard he thought nothing. "There's +<i>something</i> that I ought to think about. I don't know <i>what</i> it is—One +day when I'm stronger I'll look into it."</p> + +<p>There came a day when he <i>was</i> stronger, a day, late in January, of a +pale wintry sun and watery gleams. They had placed his bed so that he +could see his beloved Downs and the little road that ran from their foot +out into the village.</p> + +<p>On this morning he was wonderfully better—he had slept well, breezes +and pleasant scents came through the open window, geese were cackling, a +donkey's braying made him laugh "Silly old donkey," he said aloud to no +one in particular. Then he was aware of Jacob, sitting bunched into a +heap in the middle of the floor, his brown eyes peering anxiously +through his hair. At every sound his ears would rise for a moment, but +his eyes were fixed upon Roddy.</p> + +<p>The dog had been in Roddy's room a good deal during these last weeks, +had been wrenched away from it. Roddy found that he was touched by this +devotion; Jacob apparently cared more for him than did the other +dogs—"Not a bad old thing—Often these mongrels are more human—But, +Lord! he <i>is</i> a sight!"</p> + +<p>The nurse was sitting sewing by the window. Roddy lay, happily, thinking +that now at last that jolly bad pain really <i>did</i> seem to have been left +behind. He was immensely, wonderfully better; it would not be long, +surely, before he was quite fit again, before he....</p> + +<p>Then down it swung, swung like an iron door shutting all the world away +from him, inexorable—"Always on your back ... never get up again!"</p> + +<p>His hand gripped the bed-clothes.</p> + +<p>"Nurse."</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"Tell me—am I dreaming or did someone say something the other day +about—about my never being able, well, to toddle again, you know?"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid——"</p> + +<p>"Thanks."</p> + +<p>He closed his eyes and then summoned all the grit and determination that +there was in him to face this fact. He could not face it. It was as +though he were struggling up the side of a high slippery rock—up he +would struggle, up and up, now he was at the top, down he would slip +again—it could not, oh! it could not be true!</p> + +<p>It <i>was</i> true. As the days passed grimly in silence, he accepted it. It +had always been his creed that in this world there was no place for the +maimed and the halt. He was sorry for them, of course, but it was better +that they should go; they only occupied room that was intended for +lustier creatures.</p> + +<p>Well, now he was himself of the halt and maimed—that was ironical, +wasn't it? Indeed he would much rather that he had pegged out +altogether—better for everybody—but, as things were, he would square +things out and see what he could make of it all. Then he saw as, every +day, he grew stronger, that he had no resources; everything in his other +life, as he now had come to think of it, had depended upon his physical +strength, every pleasure, every desire, every ambition had had to do +with his body—everything except Rachel.</p> + +<p>In his other life half his happiness arose simply from the sense of his +physical movement, his consciousness that, as the rivers flowed and the +winds blew and the sun blazed, so did he also live and have his +being—And with all this, most intimately was his house mingled. That +grey building and he grew and moved and developed together; life could +never be very terrible for him so long as he had his place to come back +to, his place to care for, his fields and his gardens, his horses and +his dogs to look after. Now he could do nothing more for it—perhaps one +day he would be wheeled about its courts and paths, but oh! with what +pitying eyes would it look down upon him, how sorrowfully his gryphons +would greet him, with what memories they would confront him!</p> + +<p>He could not bear now to look out upon the Downs on the little village +path—His bed was moved. A day arrived when he felt that it was all, +really, more than he could endure. He was in wild, furious rebellion, +surly, sometimes in raging tempers, sometimes sulking from day to day. +He cursed all the world. Even Christopher could do nothing with him—</p> + +<p>Then upon this there followed a period of silence. He lay there and +beyond "Yes" and "No" would answer no one. His eyes stared at the wall. +Christopher feared at this time for his sanity.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the silence was broken. He must go to London because he could +not endure the memories that this place thronged upon him—At the +beginning of March he was moved to the house in York Terrace.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>The little house by the park helped him to construct his new life. The +normality that there was in Roddy, the same balance of common sense, +fostered his recovery. He was not going to die—Life would be an +infernal trouble were he always to be in rebellion against it—he must +simply make the best of the conditions. And then, after all, he had +Rachel. Rachel had been a heroine during this time, and to his love for +her he now clung, passionately, tenaciously, the one thing left to him +out of his great catastrophe.</p> + +<p>She seemed, during these months, to have thought for nothing else in all +the world. She was not so useful in a sick room as Miss Rand—Miss Rand +was wonderful—but there were certain moments when she would bend down +and kiss him or would look at him or would take his hand, when he +wondered whether love for him had not crept into her heart after all.</p> + +<p>Funny when he had gone out for his ride on that eventful morning +expecting that he had offended her for ever! Well, if his accident had +won Rachel for him, it had been worth while!</p> + +<p>But there were other days when he knew for a certainty that it was not +so, knew that it was pity that moved her; affection too perhaps, but +nothing more than affection....</p> + +<p>Nevertheless he hoped that this might be the beginning of something +else; he would lie for hours looking out at the park and creating +visions.</p> + +<p>He made now something tolerable of his life. People showed a wonderful +kindness and there was always someone to entertain him, some new present +that someone had sent him; people could not be kind enough. He was +grateful for all of this, but he spent many, many hours in thinking. He +found that he had never thought before; he found that he would have gone +to his grave without thinking had not the great catastrophe occurred. He +thought of a great many things, but especially of what other people's +lives were like. There were, he supposed, a great number of people who +had had misfortunes as overwhelming at his—How had they behaved? And +what, after all, were all the other people, in all their different +circumstances, doing? Before this it had only occurred to him to be +interested in the people who were leading lives like his, now he +wondered about everybody.</p> + +<p>Little things became of the greatest importance. Every day he read the +paper with absorbed care from the first line to the last. The +arrangement of the room interested him and he would give its details, +minutely, his consideration.</p> + +<p>He was greatly interested in gossip and he would chatter, happily, all +the afternoon did someone come and visit him. To everyone it was an +amazing thing that he should take it all so easily. No one had ever +given Roddy credit for the strength of character that was in him and +they did not perhaps recognize that his earlier impatient condemnation +of other people—"Why the devil don't the feller stand up to it like a +man?"—made him now conscious that he was himself at last faced with a +similar test to which he himself must stand up.</p> + +<p>But, beyond question, he could not have held the position as he did had +it not been for Rachel; he seemed to see that here was a chance of +seizing her and making her really his own, a chance that would never be +his again. He was making an appeal to her—she was closer to him, he +thought, with every day.</p> + +<p>So his natural humour and spirits returned—At present life was +tolerable; he suffered very little pain and he was aware that a number +of people to whom he had never meant anything whatever now cared for him +very much indeed.</p> + +<p>He was ashamed when he heard of the men who were dying and suffering for +their country—"He would have had to have gone to Africa," he told +himself, "if he'd not had his accident. Then enteric or a bullet and +good-bye to Rachel altogether!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>He had often, during those long hours, thought of the Duchess. He had, +always, in his heart, considered her affection for him strange; he knew +that it was difficult for her to be patient with fools and he knew that +his own intellectual gifts were on no very high level. He based her +friendship for him on the naive transparency with which he displayed his +frankly pagan indulgences. His love for Rachel and this accident had +changed all that. He was still pagan enough at heart, but there were +other things in his world. Principally it occurred to him now that one +couldn't judge about the way things looked to other people, and the +Duchess, of course, always <i>did</i> judge; if they didn't look her way, why +then wipe them out!</p> + +<p>He had, in fact, much less now to say to the Duchess; he was afraid that +he would no longer agree with her about things—"Of course she knows the +world and is a damn clever woman, but she's jolly well too hard on +people who aren't quite her style—She'd put my back up, I believe, if +she talked." He had, indeed, always been uncomfortable at the old lady's +approaches to sentiment. She was never sentimental with other people—He +<i>hated</i> sentiment in anyone except, of course, Rachel and she never +<i>was</i> sentimental.</p> + +<p>He looked out now upon the road that ran through the park beyond his +window, watched the nursemaids and the children, the old gentlemen, the +girls, the smart women and the pale young men with books and the smart +young men with shiny hats, and he wondered about them all.</p> + +<p>Sometimes when the grass, was very green, when high white clouds piled +one upon another hung above the pond whose corner he could just see, +thoughts of his little grey house, his gardens, the Downs, his horses +and dogs would come to him—</p> + +<p>"Come out! Come out!" a sparrow would dance on his window ledge—</p> + +<p>"Damn you, I can't!" he would cry and then his eyes would fly to +Rachel's photograph—"If I get her it will be worth it, won't it, Jacob, +my son?"</p> + +<p>He talked continually to Jacob and found great comfort in the stolid +assurance with which the dog would wag his stump of a tail—"He's more +than human, that dog," he would tell Rachel; "funny how I never used to +see anything in him."</p> + +<p>Of course there were many days when life was utterly impossible; then he +would snap at everyone, lie scowling at the park, curse his impotence, +his miserable degraded infirmities. "Curse it, to die in a ditch like +this—to be broken up, to be smashed...."</p> + +<p>His majestic butler—now the tenderest and most devoted of +attendants—stood these evil days with great equanimity.</p> + +<p>"Bless you, of course he's bound to be wild now and again—wonder is it +don't happen more often—It does him good to curse a bit."</p> + +<p>So things were with him until the day of the Duchess's visit. His +surprise at seeing her was confused with an assurance that "she had come +for something." After her departure what she had come for was plain +enough to see.</p> + +<p>He had not taken her words about Breton at first with any credulity. His +principal emotion at the time had been anger with the old woman, a great +desire that she should go before he should forget himself and be +disgraced by showing temper to anyone so old and feeble—But when she +had gone, he found that peace had left him now once and for all.</p> + +<p>He knew that the Duchess hated Rachel and he was ready to allow for the +bias and exaggeration that spite would lend, but, when that was taken +away, much remained.</p> + +<p>Rachel knew Breton, that was certain; she had never told him. Breton's +name had occurred sometimes in conversation and she had always spoken of +him as though he were a complete stranger. Rachel knew Breton and she +had never told him....</p> + +<p>He might tell himself that she had not told him because she knew that he +would instantly stop the acquaintance—It was, of course, simply a +friendship that had sprung up because Rachel was sorry for his +ostracism. Roddy thought that that was just like Rachel, part of her +warm-hearted interest in anyone who seemed to be unfairly +treated—yet—she had never told him.</p> + +<p>Then, lying there all alone with no one in whom he could confide, there +sprang before him suspicions. If she had known this scoundrel of a +cousin of hers, if she had been so careful to keep from her husband all +cognizance of her friendship, did not that very silence and deceit imply +more than friendship? Was Breton the kind of man to abstain from +snatching every advantage that was open to him? Did not this explain +Rachel's avoidance of Roddy during the last year, her moods of +restraint, repentance, her sudden silences?</p> + +<p>Then upon this came the thought, how much of all this did the world +know? Perhaps it was true once again that the husband was the last to be +informed, perhaps during the last year all London Society had mocked at +Roddy's blindness.</p> + +<p>The Duchess, he might be sure, had not spared her tongue—The +Duchess ... he cursed her as he lay there and then wondered whether he +should not rather thank her for opening his eyes, then cursed himself for +daring to allow such suspicions of Rachel to gain their hold upon him.</p> + +<p>In Roddy there was, strong beyond almost any other principle, a sturdy +hereditary pride. He was proud of his stock, proud of his ancestors and +all their doings, worthy and unworthy, proud of his own pluck and +standing—"Different from all these half-baked fellers with only their +own grandmothers to go back to." It had been this arrogance, with other +things somewhat closely allied, that had endeared him to the Duchess. +Now it was that same pride that suffered most terribly. Here was some +disaster hanging over his head that threatened most nearly the honour of +his family—Let Breton touch that....</p> + +<p>He was alone on that evening after the Duchess's visit; Rachel had gone +out to a party; she went, he had noticed, reluctantly, protested again +and again that she wished she could stay with him, seemed to hang about +him as though she would speak to him, looked, oh! too adorably, too +adorably beautiful!</p> + +<p>Whilst she was with him he saw behind her the dark shadow of Breton, +that fellow kicked out of the country for cheating at cards or +something as bad, disowned by his family, and she, she, Rachel so +proudly apart, could have gone to him—He was glad when, at last, she +had left him.</p> + +<p>Then, lying there, he endured three of the most awful hours of agony +that he was ever, in, all his life, to know. Nothing that had come to +him through his accident was so bad as this. At one moment it was +fury—wild, raging, unreasoning fury—that wished that Rachel and Breton +and the Duchess, all of them together might suffer the torments of +hell—And then swiftly following it came his love of Rachel, nearer now +to burning heights, so that he swore that, whatever she had done, he did +not care, he would forgive her everything, but all that mattered was +that she should be spared, that her honour should be vindicated. Then, +more quietly, he reflected that he was uncertain of everything as yet, +he had only that malicious old woman's word, and until he had something +more solid than that he must trust Rachel.</p> + +<p>Oh! if only she would, of her own accord, speak! If she would only sit +there by his sofa and, with her hand in his, tell him, quite simply, in +what exactly her friendship with Breton consisted—Ah! then how he would +forgive her! How together they would be revenged upon the Duchess!</p> + +<p>If she did not speak he did not know what he would do. That old woman's +mouth must be stopped; he must find out exactly how far the danger had +spread—he must deal with Breton—Now indeed he cursed so that he should +be tied to this sofa; there had swept down upon him the hardest trial of +his life.</p> + +<p>Rachel returned from her party—she sat by his sofa and he lay there +looking at her.</p> + +<p>Had it been a nice party? Not very—One of those war parties that +everyone had now. That silly Lady Meikleham recited "The Absent-minded +Beggar," and they had that French tenor from Covent Garden to sing +patriotic songs, and of course they got money out of everybody.</p> + +<p>There'd been nothing for supper—She'd seen nobody amusing—</p> + +<p>She broke out: "Roddy dear, what have you been doing with yourself? You +look as white and tired as anything—Has that pain in your back——?"</p> + +<p>"No, dear,—thank you."</p> + +<p>"I <i>wish</i> I hadn't gone, and the dinner at Lady Massiter's was so +stupid—Monty Carfax whom I loathe and Lord Massiter so dull and +stupid—says he's coming to see you to-morrow afternoon."</p> + +<p>"Well, he can, I'm at anybody's mercy!"</p> + +<p>She got up, stood over him for a moment looking so tall and slender, so +dark with diamonds in her black hair, so lovely to-night!</p> + +<p>She looked down upon him, then suddenly bent and kissed him.</p> + +<p>"Roddy——"</p> + +<p>"What is it, dear?" He caught her hand so fiercely that she cried:</p> + +<p>"Roddy dear, I——"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing, only you look so tired, I wish <i>I</i> could take some of the +pain——"</p> + +<p>"There isn't any, dear, I'm wonderfully lucky."</p> + +<p>Peters came in to take him to bed.</p> + +<p>She kissed him again and left him.</p> + +<p>"Looking done up to-night, sir," said Peters.</p> + +<p>"I am," said Roddy.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IVB" id="CHAPTER_IVB"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>MARCH 13th: BRETON'S TIGER</h3> + +<blockquote><p>"If I'd had the power not to be born, I would certainly not +have accepted existence upon conditions that are such a +mockery. But I still have the power to die, though the days I +give back are numbered. It's no great power, it's no great +mutiny."—<span class="smcap">Dostoevsky</span>.</p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Christopher's knowledge of Rachel, long and intimate though it had been, +had never made him sure of her. In his relations with his fellow-men he +proceeded on the broad lines that best suited, he felt, any +investigation of his own character. Broad lines, however, did not catch +that subtle spirit that was Rachel; he had been baffled again and again +by some fierceness or sudden wildness in her, and had often been held +from approaching her lest by something too impetuous or ill-considered +he should drive her from him altogether. He had been aware that, since +her marriage, she had been gradually slipping from him, and this had +made him, during the last year, the more careful how he approached her. +He loved her the more in that something that was part of her was strange +and mysterious to him; the idealist and the poet concealed in him behind +his frank worldliness cherished her aloofness. She was precious to him +because nothing else in this life had quite her unexpected beauty.</p> + +<p>Since that afternoon when the Duchess had paid her visit to Roddy he +wished many times that he were a cleverer man. He felt that something +must instantly be done, but he felt, too, that one false step on his +part would plunge them all into the most tragical catastrophe.</p> + +<p>He was baffled by his own ignorance as to the real truth; neither Breton +nor Rachel had taken him into their confidence. He could not say how any +of them could be expected to act, and yet he knew that something must +be done at once. He saw Rachel through it all, like a strange dark +flower, mysterious, shining, with her colour, beyond his grasp, but so +beautiful, so poignant! She had never appealed to him as now, in the +heart of some danger that he could not define she eluded him and yet +demanded his help.</p> + +<p>After much puzzled thinking he decided that it must be Breton whom he +had best approach, and so he wrote and asked him to come and dine +quietly with him in Harley Street on the evening of March 13th. Breton +accepted if he might be released at nine-thirty, as he had then another +appointment.</p> + +<p>"Can't stand a whole evening," thought Christopher, "thinks I want to +bully him. Well, perhaps I do!"</p> + +<p>He was detained to a late hour on that afternoon by a patient in Halkin +Street and it was after seven when he started home, driving through +Piccadilly and Bond Street.</p> + +<p>It had been an afternoon of intense closeness, and now as evening came +down upon the town the thick curtain of grey that had been hanging all +day overhead seemed, with a clanking and jolting, one might imagine, so +heavy and brazen was its aspect, to fall lower above the dim grey +streets. The lights were out, swinging pale and distended down the +length of Piccadilly, and already the carriages were pressing in a long +row towards the restaurants; boys were crying the latest editions with +the war news and upon all those ears their cries now fell drearily, +monotonously, for so long had the town been filled with details of +escape, folly, death, ignominy, that it was tired and weary of any voice +or cry that concerned itself with War....</p> + +<p>Christopher, waiting impatiently for his carriage to move on, thought of +Brun; this oppressive, stifling evening seemed to call, in some manner +too subtle for Christopher's powers of expression, the houses, the +streets, the lamps, the very railings into some life of their own. Under +the iron sky that surely with every minute dropped lower upon the +oppressed town the clubs opposite the Green Park raised their hooded +eyes and stirred ever so little above the people, and the twisted +chimneys watched and whispered, as the trail of carriages wound, +drearily, into the misty distance. Christopher was not an imaginative +man, but he thought that he had never known London so evilly perceptive.</p> + +<p>It grew hotter and hotter, but with a heat that made the body perspire +and yet left it cold. A dim yellow colour, that seemed to herald a fog +that had not made up its mind whether it would appear or no, hung at +street corners. Figures seemed furtive in the half-light and, +instinctively, voices were lowered as though some sudden sound would +explode the air like a match in a gas-filled room. A bell began to ring +and startled everyone....</p> + +<p>"There'll be an awful thunderstorm soon," thought Christopher. "I've +never known things so heavy. Everyone's nerves will be on the stretch +to-night. Why, one might fancy anything." His own brain would not work. +He had just left a case that had needed all his sharpest attention, but +he had found that it was only with the utmost difficulty that he could +keep his mind alert, and now when he wanted to think about Breton he was +continually arrested by some sense of apprehension, so that he had to +stop himself from crying out to his driver, "Look out! Take care! +There's someone there."</p> + +<p>When he got to his house he found that his forehead was covered with +perspiration and that he could scarcely breathe. Meanwhile he had +decided nothing as to the course he would pursue with Breton. When he +had dressed and come down he found that Breton was waiting for him.</p> + +<p>"How ill he looks!" was Christopher's first thought. Perhaps Breton also +was oppressed by the weather and indeed in the house, although the +windows were open, it was stifling enough.</p> + +<p>"No, the man's in pieces." Christopher's look was sharp. He had never +seen Breton, who was naturally neat and a little vain about his +appearance, so dishevelled. His beard was untrimmed, his eyes bloodshot, +his hair unbrushed, his face white and drawn and his mouth seemed, in +that light, to be trembling.</p> + +<p>"Good heavens, man," said Christopher, "what <i>have</i> you been doing to +yourself?"</p> + +<p>Breton smiled feebly—"Oh, nothing. Don't badger me—I can't stand it."</p> + +<p>"Badger you? Who's going to badger you? only——" Christopher broke off, +looked at him a moment, then put his hand on the other's shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Look here, old man, why have you left me alone all these weeks?"</p> + +<p>"Haven't felt like seeing anybody."</p> + +<p>"Well, you might have felt like seeing me. I've missed you. I haven't +got so many friends that I can spare, so easily, my best one."</p> + +<p>"Oh, rot, Chris," Breton said almost angrily. "You know it's only the +kind of interest you've got in all lame dogs that ties you to me at +all."</p> + +<p>"You're an ungrateful sort of fellow, Frank. But no matter—I'm fond of +you in spite of your ingratitude. Come in to dinner and see whether you +can eat anything on this stifling night." It <i>was</i> stifling, but +oppressive with something more than the mere physical discomfort of it. +It was a night that worked havoc with the nerves, so that Christopher, +who had naturally a vast deal of common sense, found himself glancing +round his shoulder, irritated at the least noise that his servant made, +expecting always to hear a knock on the door.</p> + +<p>Breton contributed very little to the conversation during dinner. He ate +almost nothing, drank only water, looked about him restlessly, muttered +something about its being strangely close for March, crumbled up his +bread into little heaps.</p> + +<p>When they were back in Christopher's smoking-room Breton collapsed into +a deep chair, lay there, staring desperately about him, then, with a +jerk, pulled himself up and began to stride the room, swinging his arm, +then pulling at his beard, crying out at last, "My God! it's stifling. +Christopher—I must go out. I can't stand this. It's beyond my bearing."</p> + +<p>Christopher made him sit down again and then, feeling that he could not +more surely hold the man than by plunging at once into what was, in all +probability, the heart of his trouble, said:</p> + +<p>"Look here, Frank, I said I wouldn't badger you and I won't, but there's +something about which I must speak to you. You must tell me the truth. +There's more involved than just ourselves."</p> + +<p>Breton seemed instantly aware of Christopher's meaning. He sat up. "I +knew," he said, "that I was in for a lecture. Well, it can't make any +difference."</p> + +<p>"No," Christopher answered brusquely. "Whether it makes any difference +to you or no you've <i>got</i> to listen, Frank. It's simply this. I happened +to hear, a good time ago, that you had met Rachel. I knew that she had +been to your rooms. I knew that you had corresponded. I should dismiss +that man-servant of yours, Frank."</p> + +<p>Breton muttered something.</p> + +<p>"You might have told me yourself, Frank. You might, both of you, have +told me. But never mind—it's all too late for that now. The point is +that it was your grandmother that told me."</p> + +<p>"My God!" Breton cried. "She knows? She knew.... But there was nothing +<i>to</i> know. There was nothing anyone mightn't have known. If anyone dares +to breathe a syllable against one of the purest, noblest ..."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes. I know all that," Christopher answered. "But the thing is +simply this. I don't know—she doesn't know exactly what the truth is +between you and Rachel. All that she does know is that Rachel went to +see you and wrote to you. Now Roddy Seddon isn't—or wasn't aware that +his wife had ever met you. He holds the more or less traditional family +point of view about you. I believe that, two or three days ago, the +Duchess told him about Rachel's visits. I am not sure of this. I hope +that by now Rachel herself has told her husband. But of that also I'm +not sure. All I know is that it's our duty—your duty and my duty to +save Rachel all the unhappiness we can, and still more to save Roddy. +Remember the position he's in."</p> + +<p>Breton sprang to his feet. "Look here, Chris, I should have told you of +all this long ago. I didn't know that you had heard. I wish to God I had +spoken to you. But as Heaven is my witness, Rachel is a saint. I'm a +miserable cur—a misery to myself and a misery to everyone else. But +she——"</p> + +<p>"You've been fools, the couple of you," he answered sternly. "It's no +use cursing now. I won't go and urge Rachel to tell Roddy—she must do +that of her own free will—All our hands are tied. It depends upon the +steps that Roddy takes, and after all the old lady may never have told +him. But I've warned you, Frank. It's up to you to do the right thing."</p> + +<p>"What do you want me to do?" asked Breton.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you can do. You must see for yourself—only, Frank," +here Christopher's voice became softer, "by all our old friendship and +by any affection that you may have left for me, I do conjure you to play +fair by Rachel and her husband. Rachel is very, very young. Roddy is +helpless——"</p> + +<p>"That's enough," Breton cried. "My God, Christopher, of you could +realize the weeks I've been having you wouldn't think, perhaps, so badly +of me. It's been more, I swear, than any mortal flesh can endure. I'm +driven, driven—I'm at the end.... But she's safe from me, safe now and +safe forever. And that now that old woman should step in—now."</p> + +<p>Christopher came and again put his arm on Breton's shoulder and held +him up, it might seem, with more than physical strength.</p> + +<p>His affection for Breton was an affection sprung from his very knowledge +of the man's weaknesses. He had in him that British quality of ruthless +condemnation for the sinner whom he did not know and sentimental +weakness for the sinner whom he did. He had seen Francis Breton through +a thousand scrapes, he would see him, doubtless, through a thousand +more.</p> + +<p>"We'll say no more now, old boy—You look done up—I won't worry you, +but if you want me here I am and I promise not to lecture. Only you owe +me some confidence, you do indeed."</p> + +<p>Breton got up and stood there, with his hand pressed to +his forehead. "What you've told me," he said. "I must do +something ... something ... it's all been my fault. If they should +touch her——"</p> + +<p>Then, turning to Christopher, he said: "You <i>are</i> the only friend I've +got, and I know it. I do value it—only lately I've been going to bits +again. If it weren't for you and little Miss Rand I swear I'd have gone +altogether. You <i>are</i> a brick, Christopher. Another day I'll come to you +and tell you everything. To-night I'm simply past talking."</p> + +<p>A servant came in and gave Christopher a note. It was from Lord John +saying that he was anxious about his mother and asking the doctor +whether he could possibly come round and see her.</p> + +<p>Breton then said that he must go. He went, promising that he would soon +come again. When he had left the house Christopher stood, perplexed, +wondering whether he should have left him alone. Then he put on his hat +and coat and set off for 104 Portland Place.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Breton had, indeed, no destination. He had been frightened of a whole +evening with Christopher.</p> + +<p>He was frightened of everything, of everybody—above all, of himself. He +found himself, with a sense of surprise, as though he were the helpless +actor in some bad dream, standing in Oxford Circus. Surely it <i>was</i> a +dream.</p> + +<p>The sky, grey and lowering, was yet tinged with a smoky red. He had an +overpowering sense of the minuteness of humanity, so that the crowds +crossing and recrossing the Circus seemed like tiny animals crawling +over the surface of a pond from which the water had been drained.</p> + +<p>His old fancy of the waterways came back to him and now he thought that +Oxford Circus, often a maelstrom of tossing, whirling humanity, had run +dry and lay stagnant, filled with dying life, beneath the red-tinged +sky.</p> + +<p>Ever lower and lower that sky seemed to fall. Theatres, restaurants on +that evening were almost deserted. People stood about in groups, saying +that soon the thunder would be upon them, wondering at this weather in +March, watching, with curious eyes, the sky.</p> + +<p>Breton was near madness that evening. He was near madness to this +extent, that he was not certain of reality. Were those lamp-posts real? +What was the meaning of those strange high buildings in whose heart +there burnt so sinister a light? He watched them expecting that at any +moment these would burst into flame and with a screaming rattling flare +go tossing to the sky.</p> + +<p>Near him a girl said, "All right—of course it ain't of no moment what I +might happen to pre-fere—Oh, no!"</p> + +<p>A mild young man answered her: "Well, if yer want ter go to the Oxford +why not say so? <i>That's</i> what I say. Why not say so 'stead of 'angin' +about——"</p> + +<p>"Oh! 'angin' about! Say that again and off I go. 'Angin' about! I'd like +to know——"</p> + +<p>"I didn't say anythink about your 'angin' about. Yer catch a feller up +so quickly, Bertha. What I mean to say——"</p> + +<p>"Oh! yer and yer meanin's. Don't know what yer <i>do</i> mean, if the truth +were known. 'Ere's a pleasant way of spendin' an evenin'——"</p> + +<p>Breton regarded them with curiosity. Were they real? Did they feel the +strange oppression of this lowering sky as strongly as he did? Were they +uncertain as to whether these buildings were alive or no? Perhaps they +could tell him whether those omnibuses that came lumbering so heavily up +Regent Street were safe and secure.</p> + +<p>Oddly enough, although he tried, he could not remember exactly what it +was that Christopher had told him. Something, of course, to do with his +grandmother. Everything was to do with her.... She was the one who was +driving him to destruction. Always she was stepping forward, sending him +down when he was climbing up, at last, to safety, always it was she who +stood behind him, on the watch lest some happiness or success should +come his way.</p> + +<p>He felt as though he would like to go and force his way into 104 +Portland Place and face the woman and tell her what she had done to him. +Yes, that would be a fine thing—to see all those Beaminster relations +gathering round, protesting, frightened.</p> + +<p>And then it occurred to him that he really did not know the way to +Portland Place. Things were so strange to-night. He knew that it was +close at hand, but he was afraid that he would never find it. He was +really afraid that he would never find it.</p> + +<p>Some man jostled into him, apologized and moved away. The contact +cleared his brain, asserted the reality of the buildings, the crowds, +the cabs and carriages. He pulled himself together and began slowly to +walk down Oxford Street in the direction of Tottenham Court Road.</p> + +<p>He remembered very clearly and distinctly what it was that Christopher +had told him. Rachel was in danger because her husband had heard of her +friendship with him, Breton....</p> + +<p>It would not have been Francis Breton if he had not taken this piece of +news and looked at it in its most sensational colours. He had, through +all these last weeks, been striving to accustom himself to the agony of +enduring life without her. He dimly perceived that it was the emptiness +of life rather than any actual loss of any particular person that was so +terrible to him. He had still, very fine and beautiful, his memory of +the day when she had come to him in his rooms, and had that day been +followed by a secret relationship between them and many hours spent +together, then his passion would have been very genuine and moving.</p> + +<p>But, after all, she had flashed into his life, and then flashed +out of it again, and, so swiftly with him did moods follow one upon +another, and ideals and ambitions and despairs and glories jostle +together in his brain, that she might have remained, very happily raised +to a fine altar in his temple, very distantly recognized as a beautiful +episode now closed and contemplated only from a worshipping distance, +had any other figure or incident definitely occupied his attention.</p> + +<p>But no figure, no incident had arrived. He had had, during all these +weeks, no drama into which he might fling his fine feelings, his great +ambitions, his glorious sacrifices. Of genuine sincerity were these +moods of his—he had never stood sufficiently beyond himself to arrive +at any definite insincerity about any of his movements or impulses—but +of all things in the world he could not endure that his life should be +empty, and empty now it had been for, as it seemed to his swift +impatience, a long, long time.</p> + +<p>Christopher's news did touch him very deeply. He would instantly have +sacrificed his life, his honour, anything at all, for Rachel, and the +fact that he would enjoy the drama of that sacrifice did not rob it of +any atom of its sincerity.</p> + +<p>But the pity of it was that he really did not see what he could do. Had +he been able, here and now, to rush into the Portland Place house and +seize his grandmother by the throat and shake her, or had it been +possible to appear before Roddy Seddon, to declare himself the only +culprit, to proclaim that he was ready for any condemnation, any +punishment, then, in spite of all his unhappiness, he would be now a +happy man, but, alas, the only possible action was to pause, to see what +happened, to wait—and waiting it was that sent him mad.</p> + +<p>One action indeed <i>was</i> possible and that was that he should put a close +to his wretched existence. On this close and sterile night such an +action did not appear at all absurd. It had fine elements about it, it +would deal a sure blow at his grandmother and all that family who had +treated him so basely. What a headline for the papers! "Suicide of +member of one of England's noblest families!" Rachel should be, no +longer, annoyed with his unfortunate presence: he would make it, of +course, quite obvious that she had had nothing to do with his sad end.</p> + +<p>He looked about him, with an air of fine melancholy, at the passers-by. +Little they knew of the terrible tragedy that was even now preparing in +their midst!</p> + +<p>He felt almost happy again as he turned this solution over and over +again. Some people would be sorry—Christopher, Lizzie Rand, and Rachel: +above all, it must be heavy upon the consciences of the Duchess and her +wretched children. They had driven him to his death and must bear the +blame to the grave and beyond.</p> + +<p>Very faintly the rolling of thunder could be heard as the storm +approached the town.</p> + +<p>He was standing outside the Oxford Music Hall, and he thought that he +would go inside for a little time that he might avoid the rain ... and +then upon that followed the reflection that it did not matter whether he +was wet or no—he would soon be dead.</p> + +<p>Faintly behind these gloomy resolves some voice seemed to tell him that +if he could only pass safely through this night fortune would again be +kind to him. "Wait," something told him. "Be patient for once in your +life".... But no, to wait any more was impossible. Some fine action, +some splendid defiance or heroic defence, here and now ... otherwise he +would show the world that he had courage, at least, to die. Most of his +impetuous follies had their origin in his conviction that the eyes of +the world were always upon him.</p> + +<p>He paid his money and walked into the circle promenade. Behind him was a +bar at which several stout gentlemen and ladies were happily +conversational. In front of him a crowd of men and women leaned forward +over the back of the circle and listened to the entertainment.</p> + +<p>On the stage, in a circle of brilliant light, a thin man with a +melancholy face, a top hat and pepper-and-salt trousers was singing—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Straike me pink and straike me blue,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Straike me purple and crimson too<br /></span> +<span class="i4">I'll be there,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Lottie dear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Down by the old Canteen."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Now," said the gentleman, "once more. Let's 'ave it—all together."</p> + +<p>There was a moment's pause, then the orchestra began very softly and, in +a kind of ecstasy the crowd sang—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Straike me pink and straike me blue,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Straike me purple and crimson too," etc.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Breton sat down on a little velvet seat near the bar and gloomily looked +about him. Did they only realize, these people, the tragedy that was so +close to them, then would they very swiftly cease their silly singing. +The place was hot, infernally hot. It glowed with light, it crackled +with noise, it was possessed with a glaring unreality. It occurred to +him that to make a leap upon the railing at the back of the circle, to +stand for one instant balanced there before the frightened people, then +to plunge, down, down, into the stalls—that would be a striking finish! +How they would all scream, and run and scatter! ... yes ...</p> + +<p>Against the clinking and chatter of the bar he would hear the voice of +the funny man: "And so I says to 'er, 'Maria, if you're tryin' to prove +to me that it's two in the mornin', then I says what I want to know is +oo's been 'elpin' yer to stay awake all this time? That's what....'"</p> + +<p>It was then that, in spite of himself, he was drawn from his moody +thoughts by the eyes of the girl standing near the bar against the wall. +She was a small, timid, rather pale girl in a huge black hat. She wore a +long trailing purple dress and soiled white gloves, and was looking, +just now, unhappy and frightened.</p> + +<p>He had noticed her because of the contrast that her white face and small +body made with her grand untidy clothes, but, looking at her more +closely, he saw something about her that stirred all his sympathy and +protection.</p> + +<p>Like most Englishmen he was at heart an eager sentimentalist and he was, +just now, in a mood that responded instantly to anyone in distress.</p> + +<p>He forgot for the moment his desperate plans of self-destruction. A fat +red-faced man came from the bar towards her, with two drinks; he was +himself very unsteady and uncertain in his movements and his smile was +both vacuous and full of purpose. He lurched towards her, put his hand +upon her shoulder to steady himself, then, as one of the glasses +spilled, cursed.</p> + +<p>She refused the drink, but he continued to press it upon her. His fat +hand wandered about her neck, stroked her chin, and he was leaning now +so that his face almost touched hers.</p> + +<p>Breton heard him say—</p> + +<p>"Well, if you won't drink—damme—come along, my dear—let's be goin'." +She shook her head, her eyes growing larger and larger.</p> + +<p>"Nonshensh," he said. "Darn nonshensh." She glanced about her +desperately, but no one, save Breton, was watching them. She caught his +eyes, pitifully, eagerly.</p> + +<p>The man put his arm about her and tried to draw her from the wall.</p> + +<p>"Come," he said. "We'll go home."</p> + +<p>She drew away. He pulled at her hand. "Damn the O——Place. Wash the +matter? You got to come."</p> + +<p>Then he seized her by the arm, and, still lurching from side to side, +began to move away.</p> + +<p>"No, no," she whispered, obviously terrified of a scene, but using all +her strength to resist. Her eyes again met Breton's.</p> + +<p>"That lady," he said, advancing to the stout gentleman, "is a friend of +mine."</p> + +<p>The man looked at him with an expression astonished, simply and rather +puzzled.</p> + +<p>"Wash—wash...?" he said.</p> + +<p>"You'll be so good as to leave that lady alone."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm b——well damned. Oh! gosh." The stout gentleman +contemplated him with furious amazement.</p> + +<p>"'Oo the b——'ell I'd like to know? Get out or I'll kick yer out."</p> + +<p>The quarrel had by now gathered its crowd.</p> + +<p>The stout gentleman, lurching forward, aimed a blow at Breton which +missed him.</p> + +<p>"Let her alone, do you hear?" cried Breton.</p> + +<p>The stout gentleman, amazed, apparently, at a world that defied all the +probabilities, turned, caught the girl by the body and, dragging her +with him, pushed past his opponent.</p> + +<p>Breton seized him by the waist, turned him round so that, with a little +puzzled gasp, he half fell, half sat upon the cushioned seat against the +wall.</p> + +<p>Then Breton offered the girl his arm and walked away with her, conscious +that an attendant had arrived rather late upon the scene and was now +abusing the stout gentleman, whilst a sympathetic little crowd listened +and advised.</p> + +<p>He walked down the stairs with the girl. "That <i>was</i> decent of you," she +said. "Most awfully——"</p> + +<p>Beyond the doors the world was a hissing, spurting deluge of rain.</p> + +<p>A cab was called and she climbed into it.</p> + +<p>"What about coming back?" she said. He shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Not to-night. You have a good rest. That's what you want."</p> + +<p>"Well, I <i>am</i> done. Meet 'nother night p'raps——"</p> + +<p>"I hope so," he said politely. He raised his hat and the cab splashed +away.</p> + +<p>"Another cab, sir?" said the commissionaire.</p> + +<p>"No, thanks," said Breton, and plunged out into the rain. The air was +fresh and cool. Streams of water danced and spurted on the gleaming +pavements.</p> + +<p>Breton walked along. The little adventure had swept completely from his +mind his earlier desperate decisions.</p> + +<p>There were still things for him to do! Poor little girl ... he was glad +that he had been there! What a fool he had been all these weeks, sitting +there, letting himself go to pieces because the world had gone badly! +What sort of a creature was he? Well, he was some good yet. Just one +twist of the hand and that man had gone down ... Yes, she was +grateful.... Her eyes had shone.</p> + +<p>And what of the candles, his business? Why had he allowed that to drop +when he had made, already, so good a start? He would be in the City +early to-morrow. Business was humming just now.</p> + +<p>And Rachel? Rachel!</p> + +<p>Let him be content to have her as his ideal, his fine beacon to light +him on, to hold him to his work and do the best that was in him!</p> + +<p>After all, things were for the best. They would always have their fine +memories, one of the other. Nothing to spoil that idyll.</p> + +<p>He arrived, soaked to the very skin, at his door. "Funny," he thought, +"how that thunder depresses one. I've been moody for weeks. Air's ever +so much clearer now. God, didn't that old beast tumble?—Poor little +girl—she <i>was</i> grateful though!"</p> + +<p>Then as he opened the door, he remembered what Christopher had, that +evening, told him.</p> + +<p>"To-morrow," he said to himself, in a fine glow of hope and confidence, +"to-morrow I'll get to work and soon stop that wicked old woman's mouth. +Rachel—God bless her—I'll show her what I'm like...."</p> + +<p>He climbed the dark stairs as though he were storming a town.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VB" id="CHAPTER_VB"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>MARCH 13th: RACHEL'S HEART</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"When God smote His hands together, and struck out the soul at a spark,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Into the organized glory of things, from drops of the dark,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Say, didst thou shine, didst thou burn, didst thou honour the power in the form,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the star does at night, or the fire-fly, or even the little ground-worm?<br /></span> +<span class="i5">'I have sinned,' she said."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Elizabeth Barrett Browning</span>.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Meanwhile Rachel had not spoken to Roddy. Bad though the months had been +since that terrible afternoon at Seddon these days that followed the +Duchess's visit were the worst that she had ever known.</p> + +<p>During the weeks that immediately followed Roddy's accident she was +allowed no line for thought. She discovered—and she never forgot the +sharpness of the discovery—that she was the poorest of nurses. +Everything that she did was clumsily and slowly done; she watched Lizzie +Rand with admiration and wonder. Dimly through the absorption that held +her, thoughts of Francis Breton pierced, but always to be instantly +dismissed.</p> + +<p>Before her was simply the amazing, incredible fact that Roddy, the most +active, the most vigorous of human beings, would never stand upon his +feet again. She could see nothing but Roddy, and no service, no +sacrifice, was too stern or too difficult. Meanwhile subtly, almost +unconsciously, she was influenced by Lizzie Rand. It was not strange to +her that Lizzie should have changed so swiftly from hatred to friendship +and affection. Rachel was passionate enough herself to understand that a +woman will go, instantly, to the person who needs her most, even though +she has hated that same person five minutes before. No, the thing that +was wonderful to her was that Lizzie Rand should combine such feeling +with such discipline.</p> + +<p>To watch her as she moved about Roddy's rooms was to deny to her the +possibility of emotion, of anything that could disturb that efficiency. +And yet Rachel knew ... she had seen depths of feeling in Lizzie that +made her own desires and regrets small and puny things.</p> + +<p>But it did not need Lizzie's power to abase Rachel before Roddy. It +would have been enough for her to have remembered what her thoughts and +intentions had been on that day to have brought her on her knees to beg +his pardon, but when she saw the fashion in which he bore his sentence, +his endurance, his stubborn will beating down any temptation to despair, +she recognized that it was very little of Roddy that she had known +before this crisis.</p> + +<p>Then as the weeks passed and the world settled into this new shape and +form, thoughts of Francis Breton returned to her. She had written to him +soon after the accident, but that was for herself, that she might clear +her mind of anything except her husband, rather than for Breton. She had +considered him whilst she wrote that letter, had seen him as someone in +her old, old life, someone who had stirred her then but possessed now no +power to move her. She wanted him to be happy, but wished never to see +him again; once, long ago, there had been a scene in a room and she had +been carried up to strange and dangerous heights and the world had +tossed and stormed about her—but oh! how long ago that was! How younger +she had been then!</p> + +<p>But, as the weeks passed, that scene drew closer to her and life crept +back into its heart. Sometimes, when Roddy was sleeping and she was +sitting there beside him, and, about her, the house slumbered and the +very birds were still, her heart would beat, beat thickly, her cheeks +would flush, and she would remember that, had it not been for a horse +that stumbled, she might be now far away, leading a life that might be +tragedy, but that was, at any rate, Life!</p> + +<p>She would beat the thought down—she would tell herself what, now, from +this distance, she knew to be true, that she would not have been happy +had she gone with Breton. She remembered that even at that supreme +moment in Breton's rooms when he had kissed her for the first time her +swift thought had been "Poor Roddy!" She knew, with an older wisdom than +she had possessed two months ago, that Breton on his side would not have +held her any more than Roddy, in his so different fashion, could hold +her now. Was she to be always thus, wanting something that was not hers?</p> + +<p>During the weeks that had immediately followed the accident she had +thought that, at last, love for Roddy had really come to her. Then, as +the days threaded their way, she knew that it was not so. He was more to +her, much more to her, helpless and courageous, than he could ever have +been under the old conditions.</p> + +<p>But it was not passion—it was care, affection, even love; she loved +him, yes, but she was not in love with him. He held all of her save that +one part that Breton alone, of all human beings, had called out of her.</p> + +<p>But she had learnt discipline during these weeks—down, down she drove +rebellion, memory. She was Roddy's—she had dedicated her life to his +happiness.</p> + +<p>Then they came to London, Lizzie returned to her mother and to Lady +Adela, and Rachel was alone. Life was again very difficult for her. +Roddy was wonderfully cheerful, but Rachel found that she could not do +very much for him. He liked to have her there, but she knew that many of +his friends who could tell him the town gossip, the latest from clubs, +the hunting and racing chatter entertained him more than she did. She +had not, since her marriage, made many friends and she knew that almost +everyone who came to their little house came for Roddy's sake rather +than for hers. She did not mind that—she was glad that he was +happy ... but she wished that he needed her a little more. Roddy urged +her to drive, to see people, to dine and go to the theatre. She went +because she saw that it disturbed him if he felt that she stayed indoors +for his sake, but she did not enjoy her gaiety. When she was out she +wished to hurry back to him and then, when she was with him again, she +often wondered whether her presence made him any happier. Through all +his intercourse with her she discerned a wistful restraint as though he +would like to ask her for something that he had not got and yet was +afraid. When she felt this in him she redoubled her affection towards +him, but she thought that he noticed this and knew her effort.</p> + +<p>Her thoughts went often now to Francis Breton, not as to anyone whom she +would ever see again—but she hoped that he was happy, wondered whether +there was anyone to look after him, wished that he had some friend so +that she might know that he was safe. Her pride did not allow her to +speak to Lizzie Rand about him; they had had one talk when Lizzie had +taken her letter, but that was all.</p> + +<p>Then, as February drew to a close, she was unwell; that was so unusual +for her that she might have been disturbed had it been anything more +material than headaches, strange fits of indifference to everything and +a general failure of energy. She thought that she was indoors too much +and was now in the air as often as her duties to Roddy allowed her.</p> + +<p>But the indifference persisted. Her feelings for Roddy were an odd +confusion; there were times, when she was away from him, and the thought +of him made her heart beat—"This is love—at last." There were times +again when, as she sat beside him, she could have beaten her hands +against the walls for very boredom and for his impenetrable taciturnity +as he read <i>The Times</i> from the Births and Marriages on the front page +to the advertisements on the last and flung her details—"London +Scottish won their game at Richmond—That Fettes man got over three +times," or "I wouldn't give a button for that horse of old Tranty +Stummits they're all so gone on. You mark my words...." "I'd like to see +that new piece of Edwardes'"—"They've got a girl in it who dances on +her nose—jolly pretty she is, too, so Massiter says. He's been five +times and there's a song about moonlight or some old rot that they say +is spiffin'——" How to adjust this horrible stupidity with the courage, +the humour, the affection, even the poetry that she found in him at +other times?</p> + +<p>There were days when she cared for him with a new thrilling emotion, +something that had in it a quality of curiosity as though he were coming +before her as someone unknown and unexpected. There were other days when +she wondered how he could have remained, through all the crisis, so +precisely the same Roddy.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile between all these uncertainties she lost touch with herself. +It was as though her soul flew, like some bird in a strange country, +from point to point, restless, unsatisfied....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Then those few hurried words with Christopher on the afternoon of the +Duchess's visit flung, at an instant, her whole life into crisis. Even +as the words left him she knew that it was up to this that all her days +had been leading, that at last she was, in very truth, face to face with +her grandmother, that the battle between the two of them had commenced.</p> + +<p>She knew, in those few minutes whilst she stood there, motionless, in +that room, other things. She knew—and this was the first sharp +conviction that struck her heart—that, at all costs, whatever else +might come to her, she must not now lose Roddy's love. Strangely, as she +stood there facing her danger, some warm glow heightened her colour as +she felt from this what Roddy really meant to her. She thought then of +Francis Breton, of his danger if her family understood how implicated he +was with her. It was true that she had, not very long ago, contemplated +running away with him, and surely nothing could have implicated him +more than that, but now that he should suffer and yet not have her, +secured, as his reward for his suffering—that, at all pain to herself, +she must prevent.</p> + +<p>Her first impulse after Christopher had left her was to go down +instantly to Roddy and confess everything. Then she paused.</p> + +<p>Perhaps, after all, her grandmother had not spoken? In that case how +cruel to make Roddy miserable with something that was dead and already +remote. In her heart too was terror lest she should precipitate Breton +into some peril. On every side it seemed to her better that she should +wait and discover, perhaps through Christopher, perhaps by her own +intelligence, what exactly had occurred.</p> + +<p>Four days afterwards, on the afternoon of that day that brought Breton +to dine with Christopher, she had not yet spoken. She had taken no steps +at all; despising herself, afraid for Breton, feeling at one instant +that Roddy knew everything, at another that he knew nothing, ill with +this same lassitude that had hung about her now for so many weeks, +determining at one moment that she would confront her grandmother, at +another that she would go instantly and confess to Roddy.</p> + +<p>Yet Rachel hesitated and did nothing.</p> + +<p>On this close and heavy afternoon Rachel sat up in her little +drawing-room, wondering whether she would wait there for possible +callers, or go down to Roddy, who was being entertained at the moment by +Lord Massiter, or, complete confession of surrender to nerves and +general catastrophe, go up to her bedroom, pull down the blinds and lie +there, hunting sleep.</p> + +<p>The day was intolerably heavy. The windows of the little room had all +been flung open and, through the park, figures wearily dragged +themselves and the waters of the lake lay as though they had fallen, +because of this leaden heaviness, from the grey sky.</p> + +<p>She sat there, listening for every sound, starting at every opening or +closing of a door, thinking that were Lord Massiter not there she would +go down now and tell everything to Roddy, yet knowing in her heart that +if Peters were to come now and tell her that his master was alone she +would not move.</p> + +<p>Peters <i>did</i> come, but it was to tell her that Lord John would like to +see her. Uncle John! She scarcely knew whether she hailed him as a +relief or no.</p> + +<p>"Oh! ask him to come up, Peters, at once. Bring tea here. Lord Massiter +will have his downstairs, I expect."</p> + +<p>Had her grandmother told Uncle John anything? Was his visit in +connection with anything that he had heard? Of all the changes that her +marriage had brought her, that she should have slipped away from Uncle +John was one of the saddest. She loved him as dearly as ever, but +restraint had been there between them, struggle against it though they +might. He was, like Roddy, so ineloquent that anything like a situation +was real agony to him; he could never explain his feelings about +anything and he would eagerly agree with you that it was a great pity +that he had any. What had made this trouble between them? Rachel only +knew that now there were so many things in her life which Uncle John +could not understand. At her heart her love for him was as clear and +simple as it had ever been.</p> + +<p>But oh! Uncle John was glad to see her! His picture of her, as she sat +there, her cheeks flushed, in a rose-coloured dress, with the room as +soft and delicate as a shell around her, filled him with delight: +changes had come to him even since their last meeting. The lines in his +forehead seemed to her a little deeper, his eyes were anxious and his +smile less sure and genial. He wore a beautiful white waistcoat and sat +there, with his chest out, his white hair rising into a crest, looking +exactly like a pouter pigeon.</p> + +<p>"Dear Uncle John! I'm <i>so</i> glad!"</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear, I was just passing. Been to some woman who's got a +party in Harley House. War party, of course, there were characters of +the names of different generals and if you won you paid a guinea to the +War Fund—quite a reversal of the ordinary proceedings. I'm sure, my +dear, I don't know why I went. Well, it was so close that I felt I +couldn't walk back, even to 104, without a cup of tea from you. How's +Roddy?"</p> + +<p>"All right. Lord Massiter's been down there chatting to him ever since +three o'clock. Would you like us to go down and have our tea with +<i>them</i>, or shall we stay cosily up here by ourselves?"</p> + +<p>"Why, stay up here of course! You're not looking very well, my dear. +You've not been the thing lately, have you? This business with +Roddy?..." (he took her hand and held it)—"Don't you think it would be +a good thing if you went away for a week or two and had a change?"</p> + +<p>"No, Uncle John dear, thank you. I <i>am</i> tired and I <i>will</i> go away later +on, but just now it would only make me anxious and I should worry about +Roddy."</p> + +<p>Tea was brought. She looked at Uncle John and thought that he had heard +nothing. His guileless eyes smiled back at her; all that she could +discern in him was apprehension lest he should say something to +displease her, to make her angry. Bless his heart, he need not be afraid +of that now!</p> + +<p>As she gave him his sugar she felt that some of the old intimate +relationship between them was creeping back.</p> + +<p>"Of course you heard of grandmother's wonderful visit to us the other +day," Rachel said. "Wasn't it amazing? and Christopher says that she was +none the worse—rather the better."</p> + +<p>"Amazing," said Uncle John very solemnly. "Perfectly astonishing. Your +grandmother, Rachel, is an astounding woman. Just when we were all of us +thinking that she was really not quite so well, quite so fit as she used +to be, she comes along and does something that she hasn't done for +thirty years. I confess I was nervous when I first heard of it, but +Christopher reassured me—said it would do her no harm, and it hasn't."</p> + +<p>"It shows what her affection for Roddy is," Rachel said slowly.</p> + +<p>"And for you, dear," Uncle John said timidly. "I know that you +haven't—well, haven't—that is, weren't always very friendly, but I +hope that now you've come to understand her a little more. She's a +difficult woman. She wouldn't be so splendid if she weren't so +difficult."</p> + +<p>He saw those hard lines that he knew of old strike into Rachel's face. +He shrank back himself, afraid that he had, by one ruthless sentence, +lost all the happy intimacy that had returned to them.</p> + +<p>She had risen and walked to the window. "Dear Uncle John," she said, "I +know you'd like us to be friends, bless you. But you may as well give +that idea up, once and for ever. Grandmother and I—the old and the new +generation, you know. There's never been anything but war and never will +be. Besides, she's never forgiven me for marrying Roddy, although she +arranged it all."</p> + +<p>"Oh! my dear!" said Uncle John.</p> + +<p>"No, it is so. I shouldn't be astonished," she continued bitterly, "if I +were to hear that she thinks that I flung Roddy from his horse and +trampled on him. It would be quite likely."</p> + +<p>Then, suddenly, she came back from the window to the sofa where Uncle +John, looking greatly distressed, was sitting. She leaned down, put her +arms round his neck and her cheek next to his.</p> + +<p>"Uncle John dear. Don't you worry about grandmother and me. That's an +old, old story and it can't alter. The case of us two, you and me, is +much more important. I've been a beast, for a long time, Uncle John. +We've got away from one another somehow and it's all been my fault. I've +been a prig and all sorts of horrid things, and I've let things come +between us. Nothing shall ever come between us again—never."</p> + +<p>He kissed her and his fat body thrilled with happiness. Amongst all the +distressing things that this last year had brought him, nothing had been +more distressing than his separation from Rachel; now the old Rachel had +come back to him again.</p> + +<p>They sat on the sofa there and he talked of a number of things in his +old happy, disconnected way. Some of her apprehension lifted from +Rachel, she forgot the closeness of the day and sat there, happier than +she had been for many weeks. Six o'clock struck and he got up to go.</p> + +<p>"Taking your aunt out to dinner. You going anywhere to-night, my dear?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. It's such a nuisance, but Roddy insists on my going. I'd so much +rather stay with him. It's only a silly little dinner at Lady Carloes'. +She's asked a harpist in afterwards! Fancy, harpist!"</p> + +<p>But Uncle John liked Lady Carloes. She was an old friend of his. "Don't +laugh at Lady Carloes, dear. She's a kind creature, and been a friend of +the family's for ever so long—a devoted friend."</p> + +<p>He stopped suddenly. "By the way, something I meant to have told you." +He dropped his voice. "You needn't say anything about it and I don't +want to worry your grandmother. I'm afraid she wouldn't like it. But the +black sheep is to be restored to the fold."</p> + +<p>"The black sheep?" said Rachel, wondering.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Uncle John. "Your Cousin Frank Breton, my dear. Your Uncle +Vincent and your aunt and I thought that he'd behaved so well, been so +quiet and steady all this time, that really something ought to be done +about him. It's been on my conscience, I can assure you, for a long time +past. Well, I've written to him. I'm going to see him. Of course it's +better to be quiet about it whilst your grandmother feels as she +does—but in time——"</p> + +<p>Rachel's voice was sharp and rather harsh as she said, "Dear Uncle John, +that <i>is</i> kind of you. I'm so glad. Poor Cousin Frank! I always felt it +unfair."</p> + +<p>John looked at her with one of his supplicating, +"Please-don't-be-hard-on-me" glances.</p> + +<p>Rachel really <i>was</i> strange. She seemed to dislike the idea of Breton's +redemption. He had thought that she would have been delighted.</p> + +<p>She kissed him. "Nothing's ever to come between us again," she +whispered. He pressed her hand.</p> + +<p>"I must just look in upon Roddy," he said, and they went down together.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>The thought that instantly occurred to her was that she must not allow +Uncle John to talk to Roddy about Breton. She saw some innocent word +falling, like a match into a haystack, and starting immediately the most +horrible blaze.</p> + +<p>There were other thoughts behind that—thought of her grandmother's +actions when she heard of this, thoughts of Roddy's probable decision +about it, thoughts that she, Rachel, might prove to be the one person in +the world who had helped to drive Breton out, thoughts intolerable were +they, for a moment, indulged—but now, as she walked, laughing, +downstairs, with Uncle John, her one urgent resolve was to prevent an +immediate scene.</p> + +<p>She need not have feared. Massiter, stout, red-faced, hearty and stupid, +held the stage. He had been holding it since three o'clock and Roddy's +white face showed fatigue, his eyes were half closed and, although he +smiled, his mind, distressed and exhausted, was far away.</p> + +<p>Rachel's glance at him told her that his visitor had been too much for +him. When she saw Roddy like this she longed to have him alone, away +from all the world, to love him and care for him; although, in hard +fact, when he was worn out, Peters was of more value than she. She +looked at him now, loved him and was also afraid; she hated Lord +Massiter, at this moment, and hoped that he would go.</p> + +<p>He talked in his cheerful voice, as though he were addressing an +assembly in the open air. He spoke of the hunting (pretty rotten), of +the musical comedies (absolutely rotten), of our tactics in South Africa +(rotten of course beyond all words), and of farming on his land in the +country (unspeakably rotten), and was cheerful about all these things. +He knew that he had been self-sacrificing and had spent a whole +afternoon in cheering up "that poor devil, Seddon. Got to lie on his +back all his life, poor chap. Active beggar he was too."</p> + +<p>He overwhelmed Lord John, whom he liked but scorned. "Never takes any +decent exercise, John Beaminster. Always about with a parcel of women." +Finally he departed, carrying with him a faint scent of soap and +tobacco, swearing that it was the closest night he'd ever known and +wiping his red forehead with the air of one who rules this country and +is going very shortly to enjoy an excellent meal.</p> + +<p>Soon Uncle John also departed.</p> + +<p>Roddy, alone with Rachel, faintly smiled and then closed his eyes again.</p> + +<p>"Better go and dress, dear. It's gone half-past six."</p> + +<p>"What on earth did he stay all that time for, roaring like a bull?" she +cried indignantly. "Tired you out. Roddy, dear, I don't think I'll go +out to dinner. I'll send a wire to Lady Carloes."</p> + +<p>"No, you must," he said firmly. "It's too late to disappoint her."</p> + +<p>"It's such an appalling night. I'm not feeling awfully well. I don't +think I could stand one of her dinners. There'll be old Lord Crewner, +old Mrs. Brunning and young somebody or other for me, and I believe +Uncle Richard. I simply couldn't stand it."</p> + +<p>"Aren't you well?" He looked up at her sharply.</p> + +<p>"Not very." Their eyes met; she turned hers away. She was desperately +near to tears, near to flinging herself down at his side and hiding her +head and telling him all. "Wait—wait—perhaps he knows nothing ..."</p> + +<p>Still looking away from him she said, "Oh yes! I must go, of course. +It's only this thunder that one feels."</p> + +<p>She bent down, hurriedly, and kissed him. They said good night to one +another and she left the room.</p> + +<p>Later, in the carriage, she saw his white face and was miserable. She +thought of Breton and that made her miserable too. To everyone she +seemed to bring unhappiness. The stifling evening held a hand at her +throat; the carriage moved languidly along—on every side of her she saw +people listlessly moving as though controlled by an enchantment. She +really was ill. "If I don't look out," she thought, "I shall be +hysterical to-night. I shall just have to hold on and keep quiet. I've +never felt like this before. Fancy being hysterical before Uncle +Richard. <i>How</i> surprised he'd be and how he'd disapprove!"</p> + +<p>In Lady Carloes' small and stuffy drawing-room bony Mrs. Brunning and +Lord Crewner were being polite to one another. One would suppose that it +had been Lady Carloes' intention to gather together into a confined +space as many of her grandmother's possessions as possible. Her +grandmother had known Sir Walter Scott and had Lord Wellington to tea +and spent several days in the country with Joanna Baillie. The little +room had an old faded wall-paper covered thickly with prints, miniatures +and fading water-colours. On the many little tables were scattered old +keepsakes, "bijouterie" of every kind, dragon china, coloured stones and +even an ebony box with sea-shells. There were cabinets and glass cases, +several chattering clocks, nodding mandarins and shepherdesses on the +mantelpiece, a faded illustrated edition of Sir Walter's poems and, +finally, three cats with large blue bows and tinkling bells. All these +things added, immensely, to Rachel's distress; on such an evening this +jumble of small objects rose, like the sound of the sea, and threatened +to throttle her. A fire was burning and only the upper part of one +window was open. Rachel felt that she was in real peril of fainting; +that she had never done, but to-night she had the sensation that at any +moment the floor with its old faded carpet would rise slanting before +her and pitch her into the street. Lady Carloes, more hunched together +than usual, her voice thick and husky and her dress of blue satin, +hurried in. Uncle Richard, untouched by the closeness of the evening, +clean and starched and dignified, made his majestic entry; a young man +from the Embassy, so beautifully dressed that he appeared to have spent +his days in the effort to make his personality of less importance than +his studs and his waistcoat buttons, apologized from behind his shining +collar for being the last of the party. They all went down to dinner.</p> + +<p>Rachel felt, as the young man led her downstairs, that at last she knew +what Panic was. Panic was the state of standing, surrounded by ordinary +everyday things and people, waiting for the bolt to fall, the enemy to +advance, danger to spring, but seeing, in actual vision, nothing to +justify terror. She had reached to-night the climax of months of alarm, +and, during these past days, unbroken suspense. She was at the end of +endurance....</p> + +<p>How was she ever to compass this horrible meal? The young man was +finding her difficult. She was aware that Uncle Richard watched her and +was expecting her to sustain the family ease and dignity. They were at a +little round table, so that he was able to hear all the conversation.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said desperately. "I quite agree with you. The lack of +enterprise at Covent Garden is shameful. We want more competition...."</p> + +<p>"So I said to her, 'My good woman, if you really imagine that I'm taken +in by your pretending that that's Dresden'..."</p> + +<p>"Herr Becknet is coming in afterwards," old Lady Carloes said. "You'll +like him, my dear. He plays the harp too wonderfully. I've asked a few +friends to come in. Of course the drawing-room isn't very large, but I +hope——"</p> + +<p>The room was swimming before Rachel. A stuffed bird in a glass case +sailed across the table towards her and the fireplace tottered and +staggered. She was just able to gasp: "Lady Carloes—please—it's this +heat or something——"</p> + +<p>There were cries of agitation. The young man gave her his arm into the +passage, she was surrounded by anxious servants; someone fanned her, she +drank water and was conscious of Lady Carloes' blue satin and Uncle +Richard's shirt-front.</p> + +<p>She knew now what she wanted; she pulled herself together and absolutely +refused Uncle Richard's escort.</p> + +<p>"No, I shall be <i>quite</i> all right—really. No, Uncle Richard, I won't +hear of it. It was silly of me to come out really. I've been feeling +this thundery weather all day. No, Lady Carloes, thank you, I'll just go +straight back and go to bed. I won't hear of anyone coming with me, +thanks. No, <i>really</i> I <i>am</i> so sorry, Lady Carloes. I shall be all right +in the morning. Yes, if you'd call a cab, please. No, Uncle Richard, I'd +rather not."</p> + +<p>She was better. She knew what she wanted. At last the cab was there, but +it was not "York Terrace" that she had commanded, but "24 Saxton +Square."</p> + +<p>It was Lizzie whom she needed.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>It was a long drive to Saxton Square. She was better now, but still +strangely unwell, and to open both the windows was of no use: not a +breath stirred, the trees, dark and sombre, were of iron, the lamps gave +no radiance and the sky was black.</p> + +<p>She was terribly frightened, frightened because here in the dark of her +carriage, thoughts of Breton attacked her as they had never done before. +She hid her face in her burning hands; her body was shivering. Breton +was before her as he had been in his room. She felt his hands about +her, his breath on her cheek, his mouth was pressed against hers, her +fingers knew again the stuff of his coat and the back of her hand had +touched his neck....</p> + +<p>And yet, it was at this moment, with those very memories crowding about +her, that she knew definitely and with absolute assurance, that it was +Roddy, and Roddy only in all the world, whom she now loved.</p> + +<p>Her passion for Breton had been a passion of rebellion, of discontent—a +moment perhaps in her education that carried her from one stage to +another.</p> + +<p>She loved Roddy. She could not trace the steps by which her love had +grown, but affection had first been changed into something stronger on +that day when he had been carried back into his house from whose gates +he had passed, that morning, so strong and sure. Pity had been the +beginning of it, admiration of his courage had continued it, this moment +of this stormy night had struck it into flame—</p> + +<p>And now, perhaps, in another day or so, she would learn that he had done +with her for ever.</p> + +<p>She sat there, huddled, trembling, her eyes burning, her throat dry.</p> + +<p>Oh! why wouldn't the carriage go faster! If only this storm would come +and that terrible sky would break! She knew that Mrs. Rand and Daisy +were away in the country and Lizzie went out very seldom. She would find +her. She <i>must</i> find her. She shuddered to think what she might do were +Lizzie not at home.</p> + +<p>They were there. Yes, Miss Rand was at home: Rachel went in.</p> + +<p>Lizzie was sitting quietly by the open window, reading. She looked up +and saw Rachel in a dress of black and gold, her face very pale, as she +stood there in the doorway.</p> + +<p>"Lizzie dear—Lizzie." Rachel flung off her cloak, stood for a moment +motionless, then without another word, huddled up on to the sofa and, +her face buried in her arm, began to cry. Lizzie came across to her, +took her hand, and sat there without speaking.</p> + +<p>After a long time she said, "Rachel dear. What is it?"</p> + +<p>Rachel clung to her, holding her fiercely. At last, looking up but away +from Lizzie, she said, "Oh! if you hadn't been here. I don't know—I +simply don't know what—I think it's this night. This awful night. It's +so close and the storm is so long coming."</p> + +<p>"Has anything particular happened?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. The Duchess has told Roddy about—about Francis—or I think she +has. Roddy's said nothing to me, but I ought to speak to him, to tell +him.... I've put it off."</p> + +<p>Lizzie said softly. "You must tell him, Rachel. You know that you must. +It's the only thing. I thought it would come to that sooner or later."</p> + +<p>"But it's more than that. I'm not well. I don't know what it is, but +I've never felt like it before, and it makes me more frightened than +I've ever been. To-night I've been more frightened."</p> + +<p>But Lizzie was thinking.</p> + +<p>"Has your grandmother told many people?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I know nothing; that's what makes it so hard. It's all +had a climax to-night. There was an awful dinner at old Lady Carloes' +and it was so hot and stuffy that I nearly fainted. I had to leave. And +then, coming here ..."</p> + +<p>Rachel began to tremble again and, creeping close to Lizzie, she held +her tighter.</p> + +<p>"Lizzie ... in the cab coming here ... Francis ... I had such thoughts. +I couldn't have believed...."</p> + +<p>Lizzie's eyes gazed out into the square, far away—not like a Pool +to-night, Mr. Breton. All hard and cruel and even the Nymph has no +softness.</p> + +<p>She kissed Rachel. "It's the night, dear. When the weather's like this +it affects one. London's awful to-night. There'll be such a storm +soon."</p> + +<p>"But it's worse, Lizzie. I seem to-night to have seen myself as I +am—more clearly than before. My priggishness—talking so much about +Truth and then—the things I do. Roddy, Francis, all the same. I've +treated them all badly. I've been true to no one. I'm no good...."</p> + +<p>"Promise me, dear, that you'll tell him—your +husband—everything—to-morrow. Promise me."</p> + +<p>"But Lizzie, perhaps——"</p> + +<p>"No—no—no. Everything. To-morrow."</p> + +<p>"He'll hate me. He'll——"</p> + +<p>"No matter. You must. To-morrow."</p> + +<p>Rachel was silent. Then she looked into Lizzie's face. "Yes," she said, +"I will."</p> + +<p>Then, with a little sigh, she fainted.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>When she rose to a realization of life again she was lying upon Lizzie's +bed and the storm had broken over the house. Lizzie was holding her +hand; the thunder roared. Coming with stealthy steps closer and closer, +sometimes to creep stealthily away again, sometimes to break, with +crashing splendour, upon their very heads.</p> + +<p>The lightning flung Lizzie's bedroom into pale brilliance and was gone; +Life leapt into vision, then surrendered to the candle flare, then leapt +again.</p> + +<p>Rachel smiled faintly. She felt around her and about her a great peace. +She knew that all her terror had departed; her one thought now was to +return to Roddy and tell him everything.</p> + +<p>She sat up. "How silly of me to faint. It's a thing I've never done in +my life. How <i>did</i> you get me here?"</p> + +<p>"The maid and I carried you in. It's better for you in here."</p> + +<p>"I think I'll go now, Lizzie dear."</p> + +<p>"Wait a little while."</p> + +<p>They stayed in silence. Then they heard the rain that lashed the +windows.</p> + +<p>"Isn't the rain terrific?... Oh! Lizzie, it's all gone, all the terror, +all that awful fright." She added solemnly, "I don't believe I'll ever +feel like that again. It'll never come back—I'm sure of it."</p> + +<p>Rachel sat silently for a moment, then turned and buried her head in +Lizzie's dress.</p> + +<p>"Lizzie dear, I've been so frightened—of something else."</p> + +<p>"Of what?"</p> + +<p>"I'm going to have a child. I've known it for some time. At first I +wasn't sure. Then I knew. I was frightened and miserable. Then, as with +every day I seemed to grow fonder and fonder of Roddy I became glad +about it. Then very happy——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Rachel dear, I'm <i>so</i> glad!"</p> + +<p>"Yes. But now, with this, about Roddy it's all dreadful again. If he +should turn on me now just when I've begun to care."</p> + +<p>She sat up in bed, her eyes staring, her hands clutching the clothes.</p> + +<p>"Lizzie, if it <i>should</i> come right!—if it <i>should</i>! Just think what a +child would mean for him; he's so brave, lying there all day, making +himself amused and interested. I watch him often and wonder where all +that courage comes from. <i>I</i> couldn't have done it.... But now, if the +child's a boy, he'll be able to put all his old strength and keenness +into <i>him</i>—and the Place! Think what it will mean to him to have that!"</p> + +<p>"And for you?" asked Lizzie.</p> + +<p>"I believe it's what I've wanted. Oh! if only things are all right with +Roddy, then I can start again and have some decent pride about it all. +I've made <i>such</i> a mess of things so far."</p> + +<p>They talked for a little. Then Rachel got up and dressed.</p> + +<p>"I'm all right now. Everything seems to have cleared. I'll tell Roddy +everything to-morrow, Lizzie dear."</p> + +<p>"Come and see me as soon as ever you can, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"I will."</p> + +<p>Rachel said good night. She held Lizzie's shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Lizzie, you're wonderful. Don't think I don't know how wonderful you +are. I'll never forget what you've been to-night. And if it's all right +to-morrow. Oh! I <i>am</i> going to be happy."</p> + +<p>"That's all right," said Lizzie. "Don't go and get frightened again."</p> + +<p>"I'll never be so frightened as I was to-night—never."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid you've got dreadfully wet," she said to the cabman.</p> + +<p>"It don't matter, mum—but it <i>does</i> come down."</p> + +<p>Lizzie stood in the doorway and waved her hand.</p> + +<p>The rain slashed the panes and whipped the shining deserted streets. +Very far away the faint whisper of thunder bade the town farewell.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIB" id="CHAPTER_VIB"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>MARCH 13th: RODDY TALKS TO THE DEVIL AND THE DUCHESS DENIES GOD</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Que désirez-vous savoir plus précisément?'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mais le porte-drapeau répondit:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Non, pas maintenant ... apres ...'"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>A l'Extrême Limite.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Artzybachev.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>That afternoon had been a difficult one for Roddy. He felt, lying so +eternally on his back, the vagaries of the English weather. There were +days when the wind was in the park, when sunshine flashed and flung +shadows, when the water of the pond glittered and every duck and baby +thrilled with life. Then it was very hard to lie still, and memories of +days—riding days and swimming days and hunting days—would persecute +him. But there were dark wet hours when his room seemed warm and +cosy—then he was happy.</p> + +<p>On a day of thunder, like this afternoon, his one desire was to get out; +never had he felt the bars of his cage so sharply, with so intense an +irritation as on to-day.</p> + +<p>Massiter broke the chain of his thoughts and he was glad. Four days now +and Rachel had said nothing; many times he had thought that she was +going to speak, but the moments had passed. He had not slept for two +nights—over and over he turned the question as to what he was to do.</p> + +<p>Had he been up and about, some solution would have naturally come, he +thought, but, lying here, thinking so interminably with one's body tied +to one like a stone, nothing seemed clear or easy.</p> + +<p>This was the worst day in the world to make thinking simple. The leaden +sky pressed one down and held one's brain.</p> + +<p>"I'm goin' to have a jolly bad evenin'," said Roddy, "I know I am."</p> + +<p>Massiter was a relief; there was no need to talk whilst Massiter was +there and his fat cheerful body restored one's balance. The same, +sensible world that had once been Roddy's own and had, of late, slipped +away from him, was restored when Massiter was there. Nevertheless one +hour of Massiter was enough. Roddy could detect in Massiter's attitude +that pity moved him to additional cheerfulness, and this was irritating; +then Massiter's clumsy efforts to avoid topics that might be especially +tactless—that also was tiresome.</p> + +<p>Roddy was glad when Rachel and John Beaminster came down and relieved +him, and then the moment arrived when he thought again that Rachel was +going to speak, and perhaps if he had made a movement of affection he +would have caught her, but always when some expression of feeling was +especially demanded of him did he feel the least able to produce it.</p> + +<p>The whole relationship between them depended on such slender incidents; +one word from anybody and there would be no more confusion or doubt; the +situation had the maddening tip-toe indecision of a dream.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to have a bad time to-night," he thought. "It's no use giving +in to the thing." He faced it deliberately; if only he could think +clearly, but the damned weather.... Well, he and Jacob must face the +night as best they could.</p> + +<p>The dog lay flat near the window, moving restlessly under the close air, +but pricking his ears at every movement that Roddy made, ready to come +to him at any instant.</p> + +<p>"That old dog cares for me more than anyone else does—and I only +appreciated him after I was laid up—Rummy thing!" Roddy was conscious +that high above him, somewhere near the ceiling, hovered a Creature, +born of this damnable evening, and that did he allow himself to relax +for a moment, down that hovering Creature would come. Very faintly, as +it were from a great distance, he could catch its whisper in his ear. +"What's the good of this?... What's the good of this? What did you +always say? What would you have said about anyone placed as you are now? +Better for him to get out."</p> + +<p>"Damn you, shut up...."</p> + +<p>He was in great physical pain, the pain that always came to him when he +was tired out, but that was nothing to the mental torture. Twisted +figures—Rachel, Breton, himself, the Duchess—passed before him, +mingling, separating, sometimes coming to him as though they were there +with him in the room. He had not, even on the day that had told him that +he would never get up again, felt so near to utter defeat as he was now. +He had been proud of himself, proud of his resistance to what, with +another man, might have appeared utter catastrophe, proud of his dogged +determination. "To have the devil beat...." To-night this same devil was +going to be too much for him, did he not fight his very hardest, and the +cruelty of it was that this weather took all one's vitality out of one, +drained one dry, left one a rag.</p> + +<p>"Curse you, get out," he muttered, clenching his teeth, then whistled +and brought Jacob instantly to his side. The dog jumped on to the long +sofa, taking care not to touch his master's legs. Then he moved up into +the hollow of Roddy's arm and lay there warm against Roddy's side.</p> + +<p>"What's the use?" The Creature was close to him, his breath warm and +damp like the night air. "She doesn't care for you. You can see that she +doesn't. She's been in love with her cousin for ever so long, only you +didn't know. Wouldn't she have told you that she was a friend of his if +there had been nothing more than that in it? What a fool you are—lying +here all broken up, simply in the way of her happiness, no good to +yourself or anyone else."</p> + +<p>"I wish the thunder would come and smash you up...." Then, more +desperately, "What if that's right? if I were to clear out...."</p> + +<p>"After all," said the Creature, "you've never before seen yourself as +you really are. You thought that you were all right because you could +use your legs and arms. Now you know what you are—You're nothing—only +something that many people must trouble to keep alive—useless—useless! +Why not?"</p> + +<p>Yes, Roddy did see himself to-night, sternly; as in the old days he +might have looked upon someone and judged him unfit, so now he would +confront himself. "It's quite true. You've got nothing—nothing to show, +you've no intellect, you're selfish, you despise all kinds of people for +all kinds of reasons. You've stood a little pain—so can any man. You'd +better get out—no one will know."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the Creature, very close to him now. "You can do it so +easily. That morphia that you've had once or twice—an overdose. No one +would suppose.... She would never know, and you'd be rid for ever of all +this wrong and you'd free so many people from so much trouble."</p> + +<p>"Jacob, my son," he whispered, "do you hear what they're saying?"</p> + +<p>He went right down, down to the depths of a pit that closed about his +head, filled his eyes with darkness, was suffocating.</p> + +<p>"Yes, he's beaten," he heard them say. "We've succeeded at last. We've +succeeded...."</p> + +<p>But they had not.</p> + +<p>With an effort of will that was beyond any power that he had believed +himself to possess, he pulled himself up.</p> + +<p>"There's one thing you've forgotten." He gasped as he came struggling +up.</p> + +<p>He took the Creature in his hands, wrung its neck and flung it out of +the window.</p> + +<p>"There's one thing you've forgotten. There's my love for her. That's +strong enough for anything. That's reason enough for living even though +she doesn't want it. I'll beat you all with that ... go back to hell, +the lot of you."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>"I must never let it happen like that again. What a state this weather +can get one into...."</p> + +<p>But he had come back to his senses. His brain was clear; he could think +now. The great point was that it was of no use to think of himself in +this affair. "Rachel, Rachel's the only thing that matters."</p> + +<p>Then upon that came the decision. "That old woman's got to pay for it. +She's been wantin' to give Rachel a bad time. She's tried to. Her +mouth's got to be stopped <i>however</i> old and ill she is!"</p> + +<p>He was fiercely, furiously indignant with her—vanished, it appeared, +all his affection, the sentiment of years. "I've got to defend Rachel +from her, no knowin' <i>whom</i> she's been tellin'." Roddy still found it +impossible to admit more than one idea at a time, and the idea now was +that "he must stop the old lady dead."</p> + +<p>His brain came round now to Breton, and halted there. What kind of +fellow, after all, was he? What, after all, did Roddy know about him +that he could so easily condemn him?</p> + +<p>To-night, fresh from the battle with the Creature, Roddy's view of the +world was painted with new colours. The man had been condemned for +things that his father had done, and one recognized, here in London, how +difficult it was for a fellow to climb up once he had been pushed down.</p> + +<p>Was the man in love with Rachel? Well, Roddy did not know that he could +blame him for that? ... difficult enough, surely, for anyone not to be. +But <i>was</i> he? What, after all, was he like?</p> + +<p>Then swiftly the answer came to him. See the man.... Talk to him ... +know him. He stared at the idea, felt already new energy in his bones +and a surging victory over the lethargy of this awful evening at the +suggestion of some definite action.</p> + +<p>But see him, yes, and see him here and see him soon. His impatience +leapt now hotly upon him; he pulled Jacob's ears. "That's the ticket, +old boy, ain't it? See what kind of a ruffian this is! My word, but +wouldn't the old lady hate it if she knew?"</p> + +<p>But, and at this the room flared with the thrill of it, why not have her +here to meet him? Confront her with him.</p> + +<p>He was cool now. Here was matter that needed careful handling. Still as +vigorous now as in his most active days was his impatience. Was +something in the way, cobwebs, barriers, obstacles of any sort? Brush +them aside, beat them down!</p> + +<p>Here was a plan. Here, too, most happily at hand, was the Duchess's +punishment.</p> + +<p>All these years had the old lady been refusing to set eyes upon her +grandson, therefore, how dramatic would it be were she confronted with +him unexpectedly. Out of the heart of that meeting would come most +assuredly the truth about Rachel.</p> + +<p>There, in a flash, solid, substantial, beautifully compact, +magnificently splendid his plan lay before him. He would have them +there. Rachel, the Duchess, this Breton, all of them there before him. +They should come ignorant, unprepared, Breton first, then Rachel, then +the Duchess.</p> + +<p>Having them there he would quite simply say that someone had been +pouring into his ears a story of friendship to which he might take +objection.</p> + +<p>He would then, very quietly.... But here he paused. Oh! he knew what he +would do. He smiled at the thought of the success of his plan.</p> + +<p>When he had made his little speech to them all there would never again +be any danger of scandal. The old lady would never again have any single +word to say.</p> + +<p>The thought that Rachel might be angry at his deceptive plot did not +disturb him. When she had heard his little speech she would not say +that—and here, suddenly, he knew how deeply, in his heart, he trusted +her.</p> + +<p>But what if, after all, it should be a lie on the old lady's part? Was +he not doing wrong to take things so far without a question to anyone +else, Christopher or Lizzie Rand?</p> + +<p>But this was Roddy. Here both his pride and his impatience were +concerned. He did not wish that the business should pass beyond its +present bounds. He could not go from person to person asking them +whether they trusted his wife. And then he could not wait. Here was a +plan that killed the danger at one blow, something direct, open, with +sharply defined issues. Oh! Rachel should see how he loved her!</p> + +<p>"All these days," he said to Jacob, "I've been worryin' about her, but I +knew—yes, I knew—that she was comin' to me all right." He thought of a +day long before and of Miss Nita Raseley and of a meeting in the garden. +"I'll show her that I can forgive, too, if it's necessary. Not because I +care so little, but, by God, because I care so much. No," he thought, +shaking his head over it, "she doesn't love me, not yet. But she's +beginnin' to belong to me. She's coming."</p> + +<p>There was also the thought that the Duchess was an old, sick woman and +that the scene might be too much for her strength. "Not she," he grimly +decided, "that's the kind of thing she lives on. Anyway, I owe her one. +Didn't do her any harm comin' to me the other day, won't do her any harm +now. <i>I</i> know her."</p> + +<p>His scheme must be carried out at once. He felt that he could not wait a +moment. He would have liked to have had them all there, before him, +to-night.</p> + +<p>"Why, by this time to-morrow, old boy, it will all be straight. Thank +God, my brain cleared, in spite of this damn weather."</p> + +<p>He rang the bell and Peters, large, solemn, but bending a loving eye +upon his master, appeared.</p> + +<p>"Writing things, Peters."</p> + +<p>He wrote swiftly two notes.</p> + +<p>"Very close to-night, sir."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Peters, very."</p> + +<p>"You're looking better, sir ... less tired. Your dinner will be up in a +quarter of an hour. Nice omelette, nice little bird, nice fruit salad, +sardines on toast."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Peters, I'm hungry as—as anything."</p> + +<p>"Very glad to hear it, sir."</p> + +<p>"I want these two notes sent by hand instantly, do you see?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Sir Rod'rick."</p> + +<p>"At once."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Sir Rod'rick."</p> + +<p>Roddy lay back and surveyed the black sky.</p> + +<p>"Nasty storm comin' up—look here, Peters, give me that bird book over +there. That big one. Thanks."</p> + +<p>Peters retired.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Meanwhile Her Grace had found this close evening very trying. That visit +to Roddy had not harmed her physically, but had made her restless. The +very fact that it had not hurt her, urged her to have more of such +evenings. Having shown them once what she could do she would like to +show them all again, and yet with this new energy was also lethargy so +that she sat, thinking about her adventures, but felt that it would be +difficult to move.</p> + +<p>Then this thundery afternoon really did drag the strength from her. She +allowed her fire to fall into a few golden coals, she allowed Dorchester +to move her from her high-back chair on to a sofa that was near the wide +window, now flung open. She could see roofs, chimneys, towers of +churches, all dingy grey beneath the leaden sky.</p> + +<p>She lay there, a book on her lap, but not reading; she was thinking of +Roddy. For perhaps the very first time in all her life she regretted +something that she had done. Nobody but Roddy could have called this +regret out of her and now, she would confess it to no living soul, but +she lay there, thinking about it, remembering every movement and gesture +of his, seeing always that, at the end, he had wanted her to go, had, as +her sharp old eyes had seen, hurried her away.</p> + +<p>There had been so splendid a chance, she had shown her love for him so +magnificently that he could not but have been touched and moved had she +only left Rachel alone. Ah! that girl! again, again.... The Duchess +looked at the plain roofs that lay dry and sterile beneath the torrid +sky and wished, not by any means for the first time, that she had left +that marriage with Roddy alone.</p> + +<p>Roddy would have married some other girl, Nita Raseley or such, and he +would have been mine ... mine!</p> + +<p>Hard and utterly selfish in all her ordinary dealings with a world that +she professed to despise but really adored, her love for Roddy was a +little golden link to a thousand softnesses and, as she termed them, +weak indulgences. Why had she loved him so? She was like the grim pirate +of some conventional fiction. See him on his dark vessel surveying with +cold and cruel eye the beautiful captives provided by the stricken ship, +on every side of him! See him select, for the very flavour that the +contrast gave him, some ordinary slave from the crowd to whom he shows +weak indulgence! So much blacker, he feels, does this kindness make his +infamies.</p> + +<p>But the Duchess's career as the dark pirate of her period was swiftly +vanishing; the black hulk of her vessel remained, but upon its boards +only the little slave was to be seen, and even he, with furtive eye, +sought his way of escape.</p> + +<p>Yes, on this torrid evening every soul in that vast city, surely, felt +that he was alone, abandoned, in a desert of a world. But the fear that +she was losing even Roddy brought the Duchess very close to panic. She +had not grasped before how resolutely she had been using him to bolster +up life for her, how important his friendly existence was for her.</p> + +<p>Since his marriage that friendliness had grown, with every hour, +weaker. Something she must do now to repair her error of the other day; +she was even ready to pretend affection for her granddaughter if that +would bring Roddy back to her.</p> + +<p>She watched the sky and longed for the threatened storm to break; her +bones were indeed old and feeble to-day, to move at all was an effort +and, with it all, there was a sense of apprehension as though she were +some terrified bird conscious of the hawk's approach, she who had, until +now, been herself the hawk. She remembered the day when she had realized +more poignantly than ever before, that the hour must come—and indeed +was not far away—when she would inevitably meet death. She had loathed +that realization, attempted to defy it, been defeated by it. Now on this +evening, she suspected again the invasion of that same power. But +to-night there was no resistance in her, she lay there, whitely +submitting to the tyranny of any enemy. She could scarcely breathe; +London, like a scaly dragon, flung its hot breath upon her and withered +her defiance. She would have moved away from the window had not those +grey roofs held her, by their ugly indifference, with a terrible +fascination. "I'm going—I'm going—and they don't care. Just like +that—just like that—long after I'm gone."</p> + +<p>The evening slipped away and Dorchester, coming to her, thought that she +was sleeping; she did not disturb her, but ordered her evening meal to +be kept until she should wake.</p> + +<p>The Duchess did sleep. She awoke to find, in the sky above the now +vanishing roofs, a golden glow and in the room behind her the shaded +lamps, the fire burning, and her table spread.</p> + +<p>But she had had a horrible dream; she struggled to recall it and, even +as she struggled, trembling seized her body as the vague horror that it +had left behind it still thrilled and troubled her.</p> + +<p>She could recollect nothing of her dream except this, that she had died, +and that being dead, she was immediately aware that God awaited her. +She could remember her frantic effort to reassert all those earthly +convictions that had been based on the definite creed that the Duchess +existed but <i>not</i> God. She had still with her the sensation of hurry and +dismay, the dismal knowledge that she had only a moment with which to +break down the discoveries of a lifetime and place new ones in her +stead.</p> + +<p>She had, above all, the horrible knowledge that her punishment was +settled, that at last she was in the hands of a power stronger than +herself and that nothing, nothing, nothing could help her.</p> + +<p>She was frightened, but she knew not by what or by whom. She tried to +tell herself that she had been dreaming, that this breathless evening +was responsible, that she would be all right very soon. But she was +seized by that terrible vague uncertainty that had been with her so much +lately, uncertainty as to what was real and what was not. She looked at +the French novel lying upon her lap; that was real, she supposed, and +yet as she touched its pages her fingers seemed to seize upon nothing, +only air between them.</p> + +<p>The fits of trembling shook her from head to foot and yet she could +scarcely breathe, so close and heavy was the night.</p> + +<p>"That was only a dream—only a dream. Suppose it should be true though. +What if I <i>were</i> to die—to-night?"</p> + +<p>Dorchester came to her and was alarmed.</p> + +<p>"Dinner is ready, Your Grace."</p> + +<p>Her mistress did not answer, but lay there, looking through the open +window and shivering.</p> + +<p>"Your Grace will catch cold by that open window. I had better close it."</p> + +<p>"It's stifling—stifling."</p> + +<p>"Will you have dinner now?"</p> + +<p>"No—no. Why do you worry me? I can eat nothing."</p> + +<p>Dorchester was seriously alarmed; an evening like this might very +easily.... She determined to send word round to Dr. Christopher.</p> + +<p>She went away, gave directions about the dinner, saw that her mistress's +bedroom was warm and comfortable.</p> + +<p>She came back. The Duchess was sitting up, colour in her cheeks and her +eyes sparkling. On her lap lay a note.</p> + +<p>"I've had a dream, Dorchester—a horrid dream. I was disturbed for a +moment. I think I will eat something after all."</p> + +<p>"The way she goes up and down!" thought Dorchester. "Must say I don't +like the look of her—not knowing her own mind, so unlike her—Who's the +letter from, I wonder?"</p> + +<p>It was the letter, plainly, that had done it. Sitting up and enjoying +her soup, forgetting that black sky and the Dragon's scaly menace, the +Duchess knew that that dream—that dream about God—had been as silly, +as futile as dreams always are.</p> + +<p>The note, brought to her by Norris and lying now beside her plate, had +told her so. The note of course had been from Roddy. It said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Duchess</span>,</p> + +<p>I don't want to ask anything impossible of you, but, encouraged +by your coming to me the other day and hearing that you took no +harm from your expedition, I am wondering whether to-morrow +afternoon about five you could come again and have tea with me. +There is something about which you can help me—only you in all +the world. If I don't hear from you I will conclude that you +can come—five o'clock.</p> + +<p>Your affectionate friend,</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Roddy</span>."</p></blockquote> + +<p>That letter showed the perfection of his tactful understanding....</p> + +<p>No absurd talk about her age, her feebleness, the weather, but simply it +was taken for granted that of course she would be there. Well, of +course, she <i>would</i> be there—nothing should stop her. She was aware +that Christopher, hearing that to-night she had not been so well, would +certainly forbid her to move. He should, therefore, know nothing about +it, nothing at all. His visit would be paid in the morning—she would +have the afternoon to herself—Norris and Dorchester should help her to +the carriage.</p> + +<p>Christopher expected, on his arrival, to find her in a very bad way, +exhausted by the closeness of the evening: it was possible that he might +have to remain all night. He found her in bed, a lace cap on her head, a +crimson dressing-gown about her shoulders, and all her rings glittering +upon her fingers. An old-fashioned massive silver candlestick with six +branches illuminated the lacquer bed, the black Indian chairs, the +fantastic wall-paper. The windows were closed and the dry heat of the +room was appalling.</p> + +<p>She was in her mildest, most amiable mood, had enjoyed an excellent +dinner, laughed her cracked, discordant laugh, was delighted to see him.</p> + +<p>"Sit down, there, close to me. Have some coffee."</p> + +<p>"No, thank you."</p> + +<p>"Dorchester can bring it in a minute."</p> + +<p>"No, really, thank you."</p> + +<p>"Who sent for you?"</p> + +<p>"Lord John."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I thought so. Pretty state of things with them all hanging round +like this waiting for me to die—never felt better in my life."</p> + +<p>"So I see—delighted. I'll go."</p> + +<p>"Not a bit of it. Stay and talk. I feel like telling someone what I +think of things, although you've heard it all often enough before. But +the truth is, Christopher, I <i>did</i> have a nasty dream—a very nasty +dream—and the nastiest part of it was that I couldn't remember it when +I woke up.</p> + +<p>"But it's the weather—I was frightened for a minute although I wouldn't +have anyone else know."</p> + +<p>"But you had a good dinner."</p> + +<p>"Splendid dinner, thank you."</p> + +<p>She lay back in bed and looked at him; delightful to think that she +would play a little game with him to-morrow; he would in all probability +be angry when he knew—that would be very amusing; delightful, too, to +think that, just when she was afraid that she had seriously alienated +Roddy away from her, he should write and say that he needed her. She +would go to-morrow and would be exceedingly pleasant to him and would +reassure him about Rachel....</p> + +<p>Yes, she had seldom felt so genial. She told Christopher stories of men +and women whom she had known, wicked stories, gay stories, cruel +stories, and her eyes twinkled and her fingers sparkled and her old +withered face poked out above the dressing-gown, with the white hair, +fine and proud beneath the lace cap.</p> + +<p>Once she said to him: "You think all this queer, don't you?" waving her +hand at the bed, the chairs, the paper. "This colour and the odds and +ends and the rest."</p> + +<p>"It's part of you," he said; "I shouldn't know you without them."</p> + +<p>"I love them," she breathed. "I <i>love</i> them. Oh! if I'd had my way I'd +have been born when one could have <i>piled</i> up and splashed it about and +had it everywhere—jewels, clothes, processions—Ah! that's why I hate +this generation that's coming; the generation that you believe in so +devoutly, it's so ugly. It wears ugly things, it likes ugly people, it +believes in talking about ugly morals and making ugly laws...." Then she +laughed—"It's funny, isn't it? I had to use the age I was born into, I +cut my cloth to it, but what a figure I'd have made in any century +before the nineteenth. All the old times were best. You could command +and see that you were obeyed.... None of your Individualism then, +Christopher."</p> + +<p>She was silent for a time and he said nothing. He was thinking about +Breton, wondering where he was, feeling that he should not have let him +go. She said suddenly:</p> + +<p>"Christopher, do you think there's a God?"</p> + +<p>"I know there is."</p> + +<p>"Well, I know there isn't—so there we are. One of us will find that +we've made a mistake in a few years' time."</p> + +<p>He said nothing. At last she began again:</p> + +<p>"You're sure of it?"</p> + +<p>"Quite sure."</p> + +<p>"So like you—and you get a deal of comfort from it, no doubt. But what +kind of a God, Christopher?"</p> + +<p>"A just God—a loving God."</p> + +<p>"How any doctor can say that truthfully! The pain, the crime you must +have seen——"</p> + +<p>"Exactly. I've known, I suppose, of as much misery, as much agony, much +wickedness as most men in a lifetime. I've never had a case under my +notice that hasn't shown the necessity for pain, the necessity for +struggle, for defeat, for disaster. If this life were all, still I +should have had proof enough that a loving God was moving in the world."</p> + +<p>She lay back, smiling at him.</p> + +<p>"You're a sentimentalist of course. I've heard you talk before. You're +wrong, Christopher, badly wrong. I shall prove it before you will."</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, smiling back at her, "we'll see."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, you're a sentimentalist of the very worst—I don't know that I +like you the less for it. I'm an old pagan and it's served me all my +life. Ah! there's the thunder!"</p> + +<p>She sat up in bed, her cap pushed back, her skinny arms stretched out in +a kind of ecstasy. "There! That's it! That's the kind of thing I like! +There's your God for you, Christopher."</p> + +<p>A flash of lightning flung the room into unreality.</p> + +<p>"I'd hoped for one more good storm before I went. I've been waiting all +day for this."</p> + +<p>He never forgot the strange figure that she made; she displayed the +excitement of a child presented with a sudden unexpected gift.</p> + +<p>He himself had known many storms, but, perhaps because she now made so +strange a central figure of this one, this always remained with him as +the worst of his life. He had never heard such thunder and, as each +crash fell upon them, he felt that she rose to it and exulted in it as +though she were a swimmer meeting great ocean rollers.</p> + +<p>There was at last a peal that broke upon them as though it had tumbled +the whole house about their ears. Deafened by it he looked about him as +though he had expected to find everything in the room shattered.</p> + +<p>"<i>That</i> was the best," she cried to him.</p> + +<p>At last she lay back tired, and he bade her good night.</p> + +<p>She held his hand for a moment. "I regret nothing," she said, "nothing +at all. I've had a good time."</p> + +<p>But, after he had left her, the sound of the rain had some personal fury +about it that made her uneasy.</p> + +<p>She called to Dorchester. "I think I'd like you to sleep here to-night, +Dorchester. I may need you."</p> + +<p>"Very well, Your Grace."</p> + +<p>"After all," she thought as, the candles blown out, she lay and listened +to the rain, "that dream may come back...."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIIB" id="CHAPTER_VIIB"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>CHAMBER MUSIC—A TRIO</h3> + +<blockquote><p>"A place may abound in its own sense, as the phrase is, without +bristling in the least."—<i>The American Scene.</i></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Henry James.</span></p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>The storm savagely retreating left blue skies, spring, and the greenest +grass the parks had ever displayed, behind it. Roddy, lying before his +window, watched the pond, gleaming like blue grass but crisped by the +breeze into a thousand ripples. Two babies ran, tumbled, screamed and +shouted, and all the many-coloured ducks, the ducks with red bills, the +ducks with draggled feathers, the ducks in grey and brown, chattered +beneath the sun.</p> + +<p>By midday a note had arrived from Breton saying that he would be with +Roddy at half-past four; there was no word from the Duchess. He knew +therefore that his plan had prospered. But, with those morning +reflections that freeze so remorselessly the hot decisions of the night +before, he was afraid of what he had done; he was afraid of Rachel.</p> + +<p>He was afraid of Rachel because he recognized, now that he was on the +brink of this plunge, how much deeper and more dangerous it might be for +him than he had thought. During these last months he had been slowly +capturing Rachel; that capture was the one ambition and desire of his +life.</p> + +<p>But in the very intensity and ardour of his desire he had learnt more +surely than ever the strange contradictions that made her character. His +accident had increased his own age and so emphasized her youth; she was +ever so young, ever so impulsive; her seriousness was the seriousness of +some very youthful spirit, who, guessing at the terrific difficulty of +life, feels that the only way to surmount it is to close eyes blindly +and leap over the whole of it at once. This was what he knew in his +heart—although he would never have put it into words—as her adorable +priggishness.</p> + +<p>She had found her solution and everything must fit into it, but, since +she had finally resolved it, nothing would fit into it at all—and there +was the whole of Rachel's young history!</p> + +<p>To Roddy one thing manifest was that a very tiny blunder might shatter +the bond that was forming between them, and it was eloquent of a great +deal that, whereas before in the Nita Raseley episode, it had been +Rachel who feared the one false step, it was now Roddy. What it came to +was that, in spite of everything, he was still unable to prophesy about +her. She was still unrealized, almost untouched by him, that was partly +why he loved her so.</p> + +<p>Roddy's brain had been alive last night and ready to grapple with +anything; to-day he felt stupid and confused. "We're in for a jolly good +row," he thought, "far as I can see. There's no avoidin' it. Anyway, +some clearin' up will come out of all of it."</p> + +<p>So intent was he upon Rachel that he scarcely considered the Duchess. He +had not very much imagination about people and made the English mistake +of believing that everyone else saw life as he did. He had, for that +very reason, never believed very seriously in the Duchess's passion for +himself; he liked her indeed for her hardness and resented any +appearance of the gentler motions—"She'll like tellin' us all what she +thinks of it"—placed <i>her</i> in the afternoon's battle. He might have +taken it all, had he chosen, as the most curious circumstance, that he +should be "arranging things"—eloquent of the changed order of his life +and of the new man that he was becoming.</p> + +<p>He lay there all the morning, nervous and restless—Rachel had looked in +for a moment and had told him that she was going to see Christopher, +that she might not return to luncheon. He had fancied that, in those +few moments, he had divined in her some especial thrill—"We're all +going to be tuned up this afternoon."</p> + +<p>If he found—and this was the question that he asked himself most +urgently—that Rachel really had, in the competent interpretation of the +term, "deserted" him for Breton, what would be his sensations? Being an +Englishman he would, of course, horsewhip the fellow, divorce Rachel and +lead a misanthropic but sensual existence for the rest of his days. But +here the wild strain in Roddy counted. That is exactly what Roddy would +not do. What was law for the man must be law also for the woman.</p> + +<p>He had, on an earlier day, told her that were he to present her with a +thousand infidelities, yet he would love her best and most truly, and +therefore she must forgive him. Well, that should be true too for +her.... Any episode with Breton seemed only an incident in the pursuit +of her that Roddy had commenced on that day that he had married her.</p> + +<p>And yet was not this readiness on his part to forgive her sprung from +his conviction that she would have told him had she had so much to +confess to him? Let her relations with Breton remain uncertain and +shifting, then she might have found justification for her silence; let +them once have found so definite a climax and she must have +spoken—Roddy had indeed advanced in his knowledge both of her and +himself since two years ago.</p> + +<p>By the early afternoon he was in a pitiable state. Should he send notes +to the Duchess and Breton telling them both that he was too unwell, too +cross, too sleepy, too "anything" to see them? Should he retire to bed +and leave Peters to make his excuses? Should he disappear and tell +Rachel to deal with them? <i>What</i> a scene there'd be between the three of +them!</p> + +<p>His illness had made a difference to his nerve, lying there on one's +back took the grit away, gave one too much time to think, showed one +such momentous issues.</p> + +<p>On the events of this afternoon might hang all his life and all +Rachel's!</p> + +<p>His capture of her was indeed now to be put to the test!...</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Rachel came into his room at four o'clock. She carried a great bunch of +violets and a paper parcel.</p> + +<p>She smiled across the room at him; a cap of white fur on her head, and +the hand with the violets held also a large white muff.</p> + +<p>"Roddy—I'm coming to have tea with you—alone. You'll be out to +everyone, won't you? But first, see what I've brought you."</p> + +<p>She was dreadfully excited, he thought, as though she knew already the +kind of thing that awaited her. Her smile was nervous, and that +trembling of her upper lip, as though she would, perhaps, cry and +perhaps would laugh but really was not sure, always told him when she +was afraid.</p> + +<p>"See what I've brought you!" She put the violets down upon the table +beside him—"Now! Look!" She undid the paper and held up to his gaze a +deep, gleaming silver lustre bowl, a beautiful bowl because of its +instant friendliness and richness and completeness—"I found it!" she +said, "staring at me out of a shop window, demanding to be bought. I +thought you'd like it."</p> + +<p>She put it on his table, found water and filled it, then arranged the +violets in it.</p> + +<p>"Oh! my dear! it's beautiful!" he said, and then, with his eyes fixed +upon her face, watched her arrange the flowers. But he brought out at +last, "I'm afraid I can't promise to be alone for tea."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she stepped back from the flowers and looked at him. They faced +one another, the silver bowl between them. She stood, as she always did, +when she had something difficult to face, her long hands straight at her +side, her hands slowly closing and unclosing, her eyes fixed upon some +far distance.</p> + +<p>"Roddy, please!" she said, "I do want to be alone with you this +afternoon. I have a special, very special reason. I want to talk."</p> + +<p>"You see——" he said.</p> + +<p>"No," she cried impatiently. "We <i>must</i> have this afternoon to +ourselves. Tell Peters that you're too ill, too tired, anything. I'm +sure, after all that storm last night, it would be perfectly natural if +you were. Now, please, Roddy."</p> + +<p>"I'm awfully sorry, Rachel dear. If I'd only known. If you'd only told +me last night."</p> + +<p>"I didn't know myself last night. How could I? But now—it's most +awfully important, Roddy. I've—I've something to tell you."</p> + +<p>His heart beat thickly, his eyes shone.</p> + +<p>"Well, they won't stay long, I dare say."</p> + +<p>"Who are they?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! nobody—special. Friends——"</p> + +<p>"Then if they <i>aren't special</i> put them off. Roddy dear, I beg you——"</p> + +<p>"No, Rachel, I can't——"</p> + +<p>"Well—you might——" For a moment it seemed that she would be angry. +Then suddenly she smiled, shrugged her shoulders—at last, moved across +and touched the violets; then, with a little gesture, bent down and +kissed him.</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear, of course you will have your way. But am I to be allowed +to come or are these mysterious friends of yours too private—too +secret?"</p> + +<p>"Not a bit of it. I want you to come."</p> + +<p>"I'll go and take my things off. I hope they'll come soon; I'm dying for +tea, I've had such a tiring day, and last night——"</p> + +<p>"How was last night? You haven't had time to tell me."</p> + +<p>She was by the door, but she turned and faced him. "Oh! I was so silly. +The weather upset me and I went and fainted at Lady Carloes'."</p> + +<p>"Fainted!" His voice was instantly sharp with anxiety.</p> + +<p>"Yes—in the middle of dinner. <i>Such</i> a scene and Uncle Richard thought +I let down the family dreadfully."</p> + +<p>"I hope you went straight to bed—Ah! that was why you saw Christopher +this morning!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, that was why! No, I didn't come straight back last night—I went +round to Lizzie's—I was frightened and felt that I couldn't come back +all alone."</p> + +<p>They were both of them instantly aware that someone else lived at 24 +Saxton Square beside Miss Rand. There was a sharp little pause, during +which they both of them heard their hearts say: "Oh! I hope you aren't +going to let <i>that</i> little thing matter!"</p> + +<p>Then Roddy said—"Well, dear. I'm jolly glad you <i>did</i> go to Lizzie. I +hate your fainting like that. What did Christopher say this morning?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! nothing—I'll tell you later."</p> + +<p>She was gone.</p> + +<p>When she returned Peters was bringing in the tea and they could exchange +no word. The spring was beginning, already the evenings were longer and +a pale glow, orange-coloured, lingered in the sky and lit the green of +the park with dim radiance. Within the room the fire crackled, the +silver shone, the lustre bowl was glowing—</p> + +<p>Rachel went across to the table, then staring out at the evening light +said, "Roddy, who <i>are</i> your visitors?"</p> + +<p>Peters answered her question by opening the door and announcing—</p> + +<p>"Mr. Breton, my lady."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>She took it with a composure that was simply panic frozen into +stillness. She saw him come, straight from the square immobility of +Peters, out to meet her, noticed that he looked "most horribly ill" and +that his eyes cowered, as it were, behind their lashes, as though they +feared a blow—she saw him catch the picture of her, hold her for an +instant whilst his cheeks flooded with colour, then all expression left +him; he walked towards her as though the real Francis Breton, after that +first glance had turned and left the room, and only the lifeless husk of +him remained.</p> + +<p>For herself, after the word from Peters, her mind had flown to Roddy. He +knew everything—there could no longer be doubt of that—but oh! how she +turned furiously now upon the indecision that had allowed to surrender +her courage and her self-respect! With that she wondered what it was +that her grandmother had told him. Perhaps he believed worse than the +truth. Perhaps he thought that nothing too bad....</p> + +<p>And what, after all, did he intend to do? This meeting had sprung from +some arranged plan and he had, doubtless, now, some end in view. Had he +meditated some vengeance upon Breton? At all costs, he must be +protected.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Breton had, apparently, taken it for granted that she had +known about his coming.</p> + +<p>"How do you do, Lady Seddon?" he said, shaking her hand.</p> + +<p>"You don't know my husband," she said quietly. "Roddy, this is Mr. +Breton."</p> + +<p>Breton went over to the sofa and the two men shook hands.</p> + +<p>"How do you do?" Roddy said, smiling. "My word, the feller <i>does</i> look +ill!" was Roddy's thought. He did not know what type of man he had +expected to see, but it was not, most certainly, this nervous rather +pathetic figure with the pointed beard, the white cheeks, the blue eyes, +the armless sleeve, that uncertain movement that invited your +consideration and seemed to say, "I've had a bad time—not altogether my +fault. I'm trying now to do my best. Do help me."</p> + +<p>"Just the sort of feller women would be sorry for," Roddy thought. But +he was rather happily conscious that, although he was lying there +helpless on his back, he was on the whole in better trim than his +visitor.</p> + +<p>Breton, before he sat down, turning to Roddy, said, "I was very nearly +wiring to you my excuses, Sir Roderick. I've been most awfully unwell +lately and all that thunder yesterday laid me up. I got sunstroke once +in Africa and I've always had to be careful since."</p> + +<p>"Jolly good of you to come," said Roddy. "Sorry it was such short +notice. But I can never tell, you know, quite how I'll be from day to +day."</p> + +<p>Breton sat down and the two men looked at one another. To Breton, whose +imagination led him to live in an alternation of consternation and +anticipation, the whole affair was utterly bewildering. He had reached +his rooms, on the night before, soaked to the skin, and had found +Roddy's note waiting for him. It had seemed to him then as though it +were, in all probability, some trick of the devil's, but he had of +course accepted it as he accepted all challenges.</p> + +<p>He had supposed that he would be confronted by a raging, tempestuous +husband. He would welcome anything that would bring him again into +contact with Rachel and he always enjoyed a scene. But he had never, +for an instant, imagined that Rachel would be present. The sight of +her took all calmer deliberation away from him because he wished so +eagerly to speak to her and to hear her voice.</p> + +<p>They were sitting with the table between them and they were both of them +conscious first of Roddy, lying so still and watching them from his +sofa, and then of the last time that they had met and of that last kiss +they had taken. But Rachel, with strange relief and also with yet +stranger disappointment, was realizing that Breton's presence gave her +no spark, no tiniest flame of passion. She was sorry for him, she wished +most urgently that no harm should come to him, she would, here at this +moment, protect him with her life, with her honour, with anything that +he might demand of her, but her emotion, every vital burning part of it, +was given to her retention of Roddy.</p> + +<p>She might have felt anger because she had, as it were, been entrapped, +she might have felt terror of the possible results to herself ... she +felt nothing except that she must not lose Roddy.</p> + +<p>"I know now," she said, perhaps to herself, "I know at last what it is +that I have wanted. And, knowing this, if, just grasping it, I should +lose it!"</p> + +<p>"Tea, Mr. Breton—sugar? Milk? Would you take my husband's cup to him? +Thank you so much. Yes, he has sugar——"</p> + +<p>"I was so sorry," Breton said, "to hear of your accident. You must have +had a bad time."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Roddy, laughing. "It was rotten! But what one loses one way +one gains in another, I find. People are much pleasanter than they used +to be."</p> + +<p>Roddy, as he looked at them both, had something of the feeling that a +schoolboy might be expected to have did he suddenly find that some trick +that he had planned was having a really great success.</p> + +<p>He was strangely relieved at Breton's appearance, he was more sure than +ever of his retention of Rachel, he had, most delightfully up his +sleeve, the imminent appearance of the Duchess. As he looked at his wife +he could see that she was appealing to him not to make it too hard for +both of them. He could, now that he had seen Breton, flatter himself +with something of the same superiority that Rachel had once shown on +beholding Nita Raseley.</p> + +<p>Breton, as the moments passed, felt firmer ground beneath his feet. +Rachel, wondering how she could contrive their meeting, had chosen this, +the boldest way, had begged her husband to invite him, planned to make +him a friend of the house. And yet with all this new confidence, he felt +too that there was something that he missed in Rachel, some response to +his thrill, he could see that she was ill at ease and was relying on him +perhaps, "to carry it off."</p> + +<p>So he carried it off, talked and laughed about his experiences, the +countries that he had seen, things that he had done, and, as always when +he was striving to make the best impression, made the worst, letting +that note of exaggeration, of something theatrical that was dangerously +near to a pose, creep into his voice and his attitude.</p> + +<p>Rachel and Roddy said very little. He stopped, felt that he had been +speaking too much, and, sensitive always to an atmosphere that was not +kindly to him, cursed himself for a fool and wished that he had never +spoken at all.</p> + +<p>There was a little pause, then Roddy said, "That's very interesting. +I've never been to South America, but I hear it's going to be <i>the</i> +place soon. Everyone's as rich as Cr[oe]sus out there, I believe. +Another cup, Rachel dear, please—Oh! thank you, Mr. Breton."</p> + +<p>Breton brought the cup to Rachel and then stood there, with his back to +Roddy, his eyes upon Rachel's face, trying to tell her what he was +feeling. Quietly Roddy's voice came to them both.</p> + +<p>"There <i>is</i> one little thing—one reason why I wanted you to come this +afternoon, Mr. Breton."</p> + +<p>Rachel got up, her eyes fixed intently upon Roddy's face. "No, Rachel, +don't go. It concerns us all three." Roddy laughed. "I don't want any of +us to take it very seriously. It is entirely between ourselves. I do +hope," he went on more gravely, "that I haven't been takin' any liberty +in arrangin' things like this, but it seemed to me the only way—just to +stop, you know, the thing once and for all."</p> + +<p>Breton had left the table and was standing in the middle of the room. A +thousand wild thoughts had come to him. This was a trap—a trap that +Rachel....</p> + +<p>The room whirled about him—he put his hand on to the back of a chair to +steady himself, then turned to Rachel, seeking her with his eyes.</p> + +<p>He saw instantly in her white face and eyes, that never left, for an +instant, her husband, that there was nothing here of which she had had +any foreknowledge.</p> + +<p>"It's only," said Roddy, "that somebody came to me, a few days ago, and +told me that you, Mr. Breton, and my wife were on friendlier terms than +I—well, than I would, if I had known, have cared for——"</p> + +<p>Breton started forward. "I——" he began.</p> + +<p>"No, please," said Roddy. "It isn't anythin' that I myself have taken, +don't you know, for a second, seriously. I have only arranged that we +three should come like this because—for all our sakes—if people are +sayin' those things it ought to be stopped. It's hard for me, you see, +bein' like this to know quite <i>how</i> to stop it, so I thought we'd just +meet and talk it over."</p> + +<p>Roddy drew a deep breath. He hated explaining things, he disliked +intensely having to say much about anything. He looked round at Rachel +with a reassuring smile to tell her that she need not really be alarmed.</p> + +<p>She had left the table and stood facing both the men. Full at her heart, +was a deep, glad relief that, at last, at last, the moment had come when +she could tell everything, when she might face Roddy with all +concealment cleared, when she might, above all, meet her grandmother's +definite challenge and withstand it.</p> + +<p>But, indeed, she was to meet it, more immediately and more dramatically +than she had expected. Even as she prepared to speak, she caught, beyond +the door, strange shuffling sounds.</p> + +<p>The door, rather clumsily, as though handled with muffled fingers, +slowly opened.</p> + +<p>Framed in it, leaning partly upon Peters, and partly upon a footman, +staring at the room and its occupants from beneath the sinister covering +of a black high-peaked bonnet, was the Duchess.</p> + +<p>The old lady caught, for a second, the vision of her grandchildren, beat +down from her face the effect that their presence had upon her, then +moved slowly, between her supporters, towards the nearest chair.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIIIB" id="CHAPTER_VIIIB"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>A QUARTETTE</h3> + +<blockquote><p>"Her dignity consisted, I do believe, in her recognition, +always sure and prompt, of the dramatic moment."—<span class="smcap">Henry +Galleon.</span></p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Rachel came forward: Roddy from his sofa said something.</p> + +<p>She was, it seemed, unconscious of them all, fixing her eyes upon a +large black-leather arm-chair, settling slowly down into it, dismissing +Peters and the footman with "Thank you—That is very kind": then, at +last leaning her hands upon her ebony cane, raised her eyes and smiled +grimly, almost triumphantly, at Roddy.</p> + +<p>He had been aware, at that first glimpse of her in the doorway, that he +was ashamed of himself. He should not have done it.</p> + +<p>She was older, feebler, more of a victim than he had ever conceived her +possibly to be, and in some way the situation that awaited her changed +her entirely from the old tyrant who had sat there talking to him only a +week ago into someone who demanded of one's chivalry, of one's courtesy, +protection.</p> + +<p>Roddy had also caught the light of fierce recognition that had leapt up +into Breton's face as he had realized who it was that stood before him. +Breton must have many old scores to pay.... Roddy was suddenly +frightened of the emotions, the fierce resentments, the angry rebellions +that he had brought so lightly into collision.</p> + +<p>But the smile that the Duchess flung to him had in it no fear. It said +to him: "Oh, young man, <i>this</i> is your little plot, is it? Oh, Roddy, my +friend, <i>how</i> young you are and <i>how</i> little you know me if you think +that I am in the least embarrassed by this little gathering. I'm glad +that you've given me a chance of showing what I can do."</p> + +<p>She dominated the room; she was, from the minute of her appearance, +mistress of the situation. They realized her power as they had never +realized it before.</p> + +<p>Sitting there, leaning forward upon her cane, she remarkably resembled +Yale Ross's portrait. She was even wearing the green jade pendant, and +her black dress, her bonnet, her fine white wrists, a gold chain with +its jangling cluster of things—a gold pencil, a card case, a netted +purse—these flung into fine relief the sharp white face lit now with an +amused, an ironic vitality.</p> + +<p>She was old, she was ill, she was being trodden down by generations +hungrier than any that she had ever known, but she was as indomitable as +she had ever been.</p> + +<p>She looked about the room; her glance passed, without any flash of +recognition, without sign or signal that she had realized his presence, +over the fierce figure of her grandson.</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear," she said to Rachel, "I'm sure this is all very pleasant +and most unexpected. Let's have some tea."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid," said Rachel, "that it's been standing some time. Let me +ring for some fresh."</p> + +<p>"No—I like it strong. It used always to be strong when I was younger. +This new generation likes things weak, I believe."</p> + +<p>Rachel, looking at her grandmother, felt nothing of Roddy's compunction. +She did not, even now, grasp entirely Roddy's intention; she had no sure +conviction of the climax that he intended; but she <i>did</i> know that here, +at last, was her chance; she should lift, once and for all, out from all +the lies and confusion that had shrouded them, her attempts at courage +and honesty, attempts that had wretchedly, most forlornly failed.</p> + +<p>Breton should know, Roddy should know, the Duchess should know, and she +herself should never again go back.</p> + +<p>Breton did not move from the corner where he was sitting; he waited +there, his hand pressing hard upon his knee.</p> + +<p>Roddy said, "Most awfully good of you, Duchess, to come out again. I +wouldn't have dared to ask you to come if Christopher hadn't said that +last time did you no harm."</p> + +<p>"Only for you, Roddy," she answered him almost gaily, "and Rachel of +course. To-day's a nice day. All that thunder has cleared the air."</p> + +<p>What her voice must have seemed to Francis Breton, coming back to him +again after so vast a distance, bringing to him a thousand memories, +scenes and faces that had been buried, a whole world of regrets, and +disappointments.</p> + +<p>Rachel gave her her tea; brought a little table to her side.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, my dear. How <i>are</i> you, Rachel? You're not looking very +well. Richard, who came in to see me this morning, told me that you were +ill at dinner last night. He seemed quite anxious."</p> + +<p>"It was nothing, thank you, grandmamma. That thunder always upsets me. I +was sorry to interfere with Lady Carloes' dinner-party."</p> + +<p>"Not much of a party from what Richard told me. And she had in a harpist +afterwards. Why a harpist? Poor Aggie Carloes! Always done the wrong +thing ever since she was a child. Yes, her little drawing-room's so +stuffy, they tell me—must have been intolerable last night."</p> + +<p>It was for all three of them a quite unbearable situation. Roddy had +never, even when he was a boy of sixteen, been afraid of her; now at +last he understood what the power was that had kept her family at her +feet for so many years, indeed, he seemed now to perceive in all of +them—in Breton, in Rachel, as well as in the Duchess—a strain of some +almost hysterical passion, that, held in check though it was, for the +moment, promised to flare into the frankest melodrama at the slightest +pretext.</p> + +<p>Anything better than this pause; he plunged.</p> + +<p>"You won't forgive me, Duchess," he said abruptly. "I believe I've done +a pretty rotten thing. I didn't intend it that way. I only meant just to +clear everything up and make it all straight for everybody, but if I've +been unpardonable just say so and give it me hot."</p> + +<p>He paused and cleared his throat. "I wonder if you'd mind, Rachel," said +the Duchess, "passing me that little stool that I see over there—that +little brown stool. Just put it under my feet, will you? Thank you."</p> + +<p>Roddy desperately proceeded.</p> + +<p>"It's only this. You said the last time you came that you had +heard—that you knew—that you were afraid that Rachel and your +grandson, Mr. Breton, were—had been—seein' too much of one another. +You just put it to me, you know—Well," he went on, trying to make his +voice cheerful and ordinary and failing completely, "lyin' on one's back +one gets thinkin' and broodin', specially a feller who hasn't been used +to it, like me. I got worried—not because I didn't trust Rachel—and +Mr. Breton, of course, all the way, because I do; but simply that, you +know, it's rotten for a feller to be lyin' helpless on his back, +thinkin' that people are talkin' about his wife—you know how malicious +people are, Duchess—and I thought it jolly well must be stopped, don't +you know, and I wanted it stopped quick and straight and clean, and I +didn't see how it was goin' to be stopped unless I'd got us all friendly +together here and just squashed it, all of us. And so—well, to +speak—well, here we are.... And," he concluded, trying to smile upon +everyone present, "I do hope it's all right. It didn't seem then a poor +sort of thing to do, but somehow gettin' you all here as a surprise...." +He broke off, made noises in his throat, and felt that the room was of a +burning heat.</p> + +<p>He remembered, vaguely, that he had designed this meeting as a +punishment to the old lady; he had only succeeded, however, in revealing +his own cowardice; the first glimpse of her had made a poor creature of +him. Oh! how he wished himself now well out of it! And yet, behind that +thought was the knowledge of the little speech that he was soon to make +and the way that, with it, he would win Rachel and hold her for ever! +After all, it came to that, absolutely: Rachel was the only thing in all +the world that mattered.</p> + +<p>The Duchess flung upon him a kindly satiric glance, then, turning from +him, bent her sharp little eyes upon Rachel, leaning forward upon her +cane so that it appeared that it was now only with Rachel that she had +any concern.</p> + +<p>"Had I known that my few careless words!"—She broke off with a little +impatient gesture.</p> + +<p>"Ah! Rachel, my dear, I'm truly sorry. My stupidity...."</p> + +<p>But Rachel, her eyes upon Roddy, had got up, had moved across to Roddy's +sofa, and stood there, above him. Her eyes moved, then, slowly to her +grandmother.</p> + +<p>"There was no need," she said, her voice low and trembling, "for this. +If I'd done, as I should, it couldn't have happened. I'm responsible for +all of it and only I. Roddy <i>has</i> got you here on false pretences, +grandmamma. If you'd rather go now...."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," the Duchess said, "I'd much rather stay. It amuses me to +see you all together here."</p> + +<p>"Then," said Rachel, "I'll say what I ought to have said +before. Roddy," turning passionately round to him, "you shall +have everything—everything—from the very beginning. Mr. +Breton—Francis—will agree that that's what we should have done—long +ago."</p> + +<p>Breton made a movement as though he would rise, then stayed.</p> + +<p>"Aren't we, my dear Rachel," said the Duchess, "making a great deal of a +very small affair?"</p> + +<p>But Rachel, speaking only to Roddy, sinking her voice and bending a +little down to him, began, "Roddy, one thing you've got to know—it's +been from the beginning only myself that was to blame. Francis"—she +paused, for an instant, over the name—"Francis, please," as he moved +again from his corner, "let <i>me</i> tell Roddy...."</p> + +<p>She went on then more firmly, turning a little round to her grandmother +again: "Roddy, I don't want to defend myself—it's the very last thing I +can try to do—I only want to tell you—all three of you—exactly the +truth. You know, Roddy, that when I said I'd marry you it wasn't a +question of love between us at all. We had that out quite straight from +the beginning. I was awfully young: I wanted safety and protection and +so I took you. You rather wanted me, and grandmother wanted you to marry +me, and so there you were too. Then I met my cousin—I'd heard about him +since I'd been a baby and he'd heard about me. We had a lot in common, +tastes and dislikes—all kinds of things. We met and he stirred in me +all those things that you, Roddy, had never touched. I had found +marriage wasn't the freedom I had thought that it would be. I was fond +of you, you were fond of me, but there was something always there +jogging both of us—just putting us out of patience with one another. +Things got worse. You never could explain what you felt. I tried, but +the whole trouble wouldn't go into words somehow.</p> + +<p>"Francis and I wrote to one another a little and then one day—as +grandmamma has so kindly told you—(here her voice was sharp for a +moment)—I went to his rooms." Rachel stopped. She was looking straight +in front of her, her hands clenched. She seemed to dive deep for +courage, to remain for an instant struggling, then to rise with it in +her hands. Her voice was strong and unfaltering. "We found that we loved +one another. We told each other ... it seemed to Francis then that the +only thing was for us to go away together. But I refused. Odd though it +may seem, Roddy, I cared for you then more than I'd ever cared for you +before, and I think it's gone on since then, getting stronger always. I +wouldn't go and I wouldn't see Francis again and we weren't to write +again—unless I found that our living together, Roddy—you and I—was +hopeless. Then I said I'd go to him."</p> + +<p>Her voice sank and faltered—"There did come a day when I thought +that—we couldn't get on any longer. You know what finally ... Lizzie +Rand found out. She knew that I intended to go away with Francis. She +fought to prevent it—she was splendid about it, splendid! We +quarrelled, and in the middle of it, came your accident.... I wrote +afterwards to Francis and told him that it was all over—absolutely—for +ever. Since then—only once...." She broke off, recovered: "Since then +there's been nothing—no letter, no meeting—nothing. My whole life now +is wrapped up in you, Roddy, and Francis knows that. I've told you the +whole truth!" She turned from him, fiercely, round to her grandmother. +"I don't know what <i>you</i> told Roddy, what you made him believe—you've +wanted, always, to harm me with Roddy if you could. At least, now, you +can't tell him more than I've done."</p> + +<p>The Duchess stared first at Rachel, then at Roddy. She had behaved from +the beginning as though Breton did not exist.</p> + +<p>Some of her amiability had left her. Her lips were tightly drawn +together as she listened and her rings tapped one against the other.</p> + +<p>"This is all rather tiresome," she said sharply. "Very like you, Rachel, +to do these things in public. You get that from your mother. But you're +strangely lacking in humour. It all comes from my own very unfortunate +remark the other day. Not like you, Roddy dear, to arrange this kind of +thing. Stupid ... distinctly—I'm sure now, however, that you're +satisfied. Rachel's certainly been very frank—and now perhaps we might +leave it."</p> + +<p>It was then that Francis Breton came forward into the middle of the +room, his face grey with anger, something suddenly unrestrained and +savage in his eyes so that the room was filled with a wind of angry +agitation.</p> + +<p>He stood in front of his grandmother, but turned his head, sharply, now +and again, round to Roddy. So agitated was he that his words came in +little gasps, flung out, in little bundles together, and strangely +accented as though he were speaking in a language that was strange to +him.</p> + +<p>The sarcastic smile came back into the old lady's eyes and she leaned +forward on her stick again, looking up into his eyes.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know—I didn't know—that we were going to meet like this. You +didn't know either or you wouldn't have come, but I've been waiting for +years for this. It's been nice for me, hasn't it, to sit by whilst +you've done everything to make things wretched for me, to ruin me, to +push me back to where...."</p> + +<p>Roddy's voice interrupted.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Breton, I think you forget——"</p> + +<p>Instantly Breton stopped. He forced control upon his voice, he +stammered, "I'm ashamed—I oughtn't to have—But sitting there—not +being allowed to speak—you must excuse me——"</p> + +<p>He turned round to Roddy. "You must think me the most complete +blackguard. It's only a climax to everything that's happened since I +came back. I don't want to defend myself, but it isn't—it isn't all so +simple as just talking about it makes it look. You're the kind of man to +whom everything's just black or white—you do it or you don't—but +I—I've never found that. I've been in things without knowing I've been +in them. I've done things that would have turned out straight for any +other fellow, but they've always been crooked for me. Something always +blinds me just when I need to see straightest. That's no excuse, but +it's an awful handicap.</p> + +<p>"I won't hide or pretend about it. Why should I? I loved Rachel. We've +only met so little—really only that once in my rooms—that you can't +grudge us that. We had things—heaps of things—in common long before +we knew one another. It wasn't like any ordinary two people meeting, and +I knew so well that she could make all the difference to my life that I +took the chance of knowing her even though she wasn't ever going to +belong to me. I don't think I ever really believed that I'd be the man. +I know now that she's yours altogether and you ought to have her—now +that I've seen you I know that. And last night when I faced the fact +that I'd have to go all my life without her I realized what she told me +long ago, that it was much better just to have my idea of her and not to +have had my regret about having spoiled anything for her. I've no +confidence in myself, you see. If I thought I were the kind of man just +to carry her off and make her happy for ever and ever, then I suppose +I'd have been bolder about her long ago, but I know, even if she didn't +belong to you at all, that I should be afraid that I'd spoil her life +just as I've always spoiled my own.</p> + +<p>"I expect this is all very confused. It's all so difficult and you don't +want long explanations, but I'm only trying to say that you needn't ever +have any fear again that I'm going to step in or try to have any part in +her. We've got our things together that nobody can take from us. We've +seen each other so little that most people would say it wasn't much to +give up. But things don't happen only when you're together...." He +stopped suddenly, seemed to stand there confused, turned and flung a +fierce, defiant look at his grandmother—exactly the glance that an +angry small boy flings at someone in authority who has seen fit to +punish him—then went back to his corner and stood there in the shadow, +watching them all.</p> + +<p>Even as he finished speaking he had realized finally that his +relationship with Rachel was over, closed, done for. He had known it on +that afternoon in the park—He had realized it perhaps again in the +heart of the storm last night, but now, when he had seen the soul +pierce, through Rachel's eyes, to her husband, he knew that Roddy, one +way or another, had at last won her.</p> + +<p>Moreover, to anyone as impressionable as Breton, Roddy's helplessness, +his humour, his bravery had, on the score of Roddy alone, settled the +matter. Breton had his fierce moments, his high inspirations, his noble +resolves!... Now, as he looked this last time upon Rachel, his was no +mean spirit.</p> + +<p>Rachel drew a sharp breath and looked at Roddy with wide eyes, flooded +with fear. He had heard now everything that they had to say; although +she had watched him so closely she could not say what he would do. As +she saw the two men there before her she felt that she knew Francis +Breton exactly, that she could tell what he would say, how he would see +things, what would anger him or surprise him.</p> + +<p>But about Roddy she was always uncertain: she was only now, very slowly, +beginning to know him, but she was sure that if Roddy were to beat her +she would care for him the more, but if Francis Breton were to beat her +she would leave him for ever.</p> + +<p>A flush meanwhile was rising over Roddy's neck, up into his face, to the +very roots of his hair.</p> + +<p>"It's rather beastly," he said, speaking very slowly and trying to +choose his words, "all this talkin'. I might have known, if I'd been +able to think about it, what it would be like, but there, I never did. I +had a kind of idea that we'd all get it over sort of in five minutes and +then have tea, don't you know, and all go away comfortably. I don't feel +now that you've rightly got all that everybody thinks about it. It was +very decent of you, Mr. Breton, to say exactly—so plainly, you +know—how you felt. But I don't want to talk a lot—I can't you know, +anyhow.</p> + +<p>"It's only this. I wanted the Duchess to hear me say, amongst ourselves, +that I know <i>all</i> about it, that we <i>all</i> know all about it and that +there isn't anything for anyone to talk about because there isn't +anything in it, and if I hear of anyone sayin' a word they've just got +to reckon with me. Rachel and I know one another and, Mr. Breton, I hope +you'll go on bein' a friend of ours and come and see us often. Of course +you and Rachel have a lot in common and it's only natural you should +have.</p> + +<p>"Now Duchess, you can just tell anyone who's talkin' that Mr. Breton is +welcome here just as often as he pleases and he's a friend of mine and +my wife's—and they can jolly well shut their mouths. Thank God, all +<i>that's</i> over."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>But he was very swiftly to realize that it was <i>not</i> all over. Sharply, +quivering through the air like an arrow from a bow, came the Duchess's +words.</p> + +<p>"Good God, Roddy, are you completely insane?"</p> + +<p>She was twisted, distorted with anger, she seemed to take her rage and +fling it about her so that the chairs, the tables, Roddy's innocent +little sporting sketches and even the case of birds' eggs were saturated +with it.</p> + +<p>The gleaming park, the peaceful evening sky, the sharp curve of an +apricot-tinted moon, these things were blotted out and the noises of the +town deadened by this indignant fury. Rachel had known it in other days, +to Breton it evoked long-distant nursery hours, to Roddy it was +something utterly new and unsuspected. For the first time in his life he +caught a shadow of the terror that had darkened Rachel's young days.</p> + +<p>To the Duchess it was simply that she now clearly discovered that she +was the victim of an elaborate plot. The three of them! Oh! she saw it +all! and Roddy, Roddy—who had been the one living soul to whom her hard +independence had made concession! This came, the definite climax to the +year's accumulations, the final decision flung at her, before she died, +by those two—Rachel and Breton—from whom, of all living souls, she +could endure it least.</p> + +<p>With her rage rose her fighting spirit. She would show them, these young +fools, the kind of woman that an earlier and a finer generation than +theirs could produce!</p> + +<p>They had more there before them than one old woman, sick and ailing, and +they should see it.</p> + +<p>Her voice shook a little, but she gave no other sign, after that first +challenge: her little eyes flamed from the mask of her face like candles +behind holes in a screen.</p> + +<p>"This is your sense of fun, Roddy, I suppose," she said. "You always +<i>were</i> lacking in that. I've told you so before. As you asked me here I +suppose you're ready for my opinion. You shall have it. I'll only ask +you to cast your eye over any friend of ours: see what you would say if +this—this idiotic folly committed by someone else had come to your +ears. I suppose you'd arranged this, the three of you. Well, you shall +know what I think. Your tenderness to Rachel is magnificent—she has +obviously reckoned on it, knew that her frankness would serve her well +enough. You've already been more patient with her than men would have +been in my day. I only hope that your patience may not be too severely +tried....</p> + +<p>"As for my grandson, to whom you have so tenderly entrusted Rachel, your +acquaintance with him is quite recent, is it not? I am sure that if you +were to enquire of any man at one of your clubs he would give you quite +excellent reasons for my grandson's long unhappy absence from his +relations and his country. At any rate you don't know him as well as I +do. I could tell you, if you asked me, that it is a long time now since +any decent man or woman has sought his society. Do you suppose that his +family have not the best of reasons for trying to forget his +existence—an attempt that he makes unpleasantly difficult?</p> + +<p>"Have you heard <i>nothing</i>, Roddy? Do you really want a man who has been +kicked out of society for the most excellent reasons, who has disgraced +his name as no member of his family has ever disgraced it before him, +for your wife's lover? If she must have one...."</p> + +<p>Rachel, trembling, had come forward, Roddy had cried out, but quietly, +stronger than either of them, Breton had faced her. She had not, +throughout the afternoon, looked at him nor spoken one word to him. Now, +her anger carrying her beyond all physical control, she was compelled to +meet his gaze.</p> + +<p>He stood very quietly beside her chair, looking at the three of them. +"My grandmother is wrong," he said, "I am not quite as deserted as she +thinks. Just before I came here this afternoon Uncle John called upon +me. I had half an hour's very pleasant talk with him: he told me that, +although his mother had not altered her opinion of me, Uncle Vincent and +Aunt Adela and himself considered that I had earned"—he smiled a +little—"forgiveness. He hoped that I would understand that—while my +grandmother was alive—I could not be invited to 104 Portland Place, but +that he thought that I would like to know that they had realized +my—well, improvement, and that he hoped that we would be friends. I +said that I should be delighted."</p> + +<p>The Duchess spoke to him then, her voice shaking so that it was +difficult to catch her words.</p> + +<p>"John—came—said that—to <i>you</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. It was a curious coincidence that to-day——"</p> + +<p>Her eyes had dropped. She murmured to herself:</p> + +<p>"John ... John ... Adela ... behind my back ... Adela ... Vincent——"</p> + +<p>They were all silent. She sat there, her head down, leaning on her +hands, brooding. Her anger seemed to have departed, her fire, her fury +had fled: she was a very old woman—and the room was suddenly chilly. +Before her were Rachel and Breton: they faced the ancient enemy. But as +Rachel stood there, realizing that there had flashed between them the +climax of all their lives together, yes, and a climax of forces greater +and more powerful than anything that their own small histories could +contain, she had no sense of drama nor of revenge nor of any triumphant +victory. A little while before she had been almost insane with anger.... +Now something had occurred. Rachel only knew that the three of +them—Roddy, Francis and herself—were young and immensely vigorous, +with all life before them; but that one day they would be old, as this +old woman, and would be deserted and sick and past anyone's need of +them.</p> + +<p>"Oh! I wish we hadn't! I wish we hadn't!" she thought.</p> + +<p>In that moment's silence they all might have heard the sound of the +soft, sharp click—the click that marked the supreme moment of their +relationship to the situation that had, for all of them, been so long +developing—</p> + +<p>Breton surrendered Rachel, Roddy received her, and, beyond them all, the +Duchess definitely abandoned her world.</p> + +<p>For them all, grouped there so closely together, the heart of their +relations the one to the other had been revealed to them.</p> + +<p>Other dramas, other comedies, other tragedies—This had claimed its +moment and had passed....</p> + +<p>After the silence the Duchess said, "My family—I no longer...." She +stopped, collected, with all her will, her words, then in a low voice +said, looking at Breton, "I owe you, I suppose—an apology. I owe that +perhaps to you all. My children are wiser in their own generation. I no +longer understand—the way things go—all too confused for my poor +intelligence." She pulled herself together as an old ship rights itself +after a roller's stinging blow. "This has lasted long enough.... We've +all talked—My family are—wiser—it seems."</p> + +<p>But she could not go on. "Please, Roddy," she said at length, "I think +it's time—if you'd ring."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry——" he said and then stopped.</p> + +<p>Soon Peters and a footman appeared. She leaned heavily upon them and, +staring before her at the door, slowly went out.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IXB" id="CHAPTER_IXB"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>RACHEL AND RODDY</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Tell me, Praise, and tell me, Love,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What you both are thinking of?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O, we think, said Love, said Praise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now of children and their ways."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">William Brighty Rand.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Breton had gone; the room was empty.</p> + +<p>Rachel came and, kneeling on the floor, hid her face in Roddy's coat. He +put his hands about hers.</p> + +<p>His only desire now was that there should be peaceful silence. His +hatred for scenes had always been with him an instinct, natural, alert, +untiring, so that he would undertake many labours, forgo many pleasant +prizes, if only emotional crises might be avoided.</p> + +<p>This afternoon had showered upon him a relentless succession of +reverberating displays, he had perceived one human being after another +reveal quite nakedly their tumultuous feelings. It was, for him, +precisely as though the Duchess, Rachel, Breton had stripped there +before him and expected him to display no astonishment at their so +doing—that he should have been the author of the business made it no +better; he reflected that he had even looked forward with excitement to +the affair. "If I had only known how beastly...."</p> + +<p>He was ashamed—ashamed of his own action in provoking these things, +ashamed of his own lack of understanding, ashamed to have watched the +sharpened tempers of his friends.</p> + +<p>He would never, Heaven help him, take part in any such scene again!</p> + +<p>But out of it all one good thing had come—he had got Rachel! As she +had looked across the room, meeting his eyes, he had known that at last +his long pursuit of her was at an end....</p> + +<p>It never occurred to him that most husbands, after such a declaration as +Rachel had just made, would have stormed, reproached, ridden, for a long +time to come, the high horse of conscious superior virtue.</p> + +<p>It did not seem odd to him that at the very moment of Rachel's +confession he should feel more sure of her than he had ever been before. +At last the Nita Raseley debt was paid off. At last he knew, beyond +question, that Rachel loved him. Best of all, perhaps, he had seen +Breton and felt his own superiority.</p> + +<p>That being so, he wanted no words about the matter. He would like to lie +there on his sofa, with her hands enclosed in his and nothing said +between either of them—very pleasant and quiet there in the dusk. He +hoped that he would never again have to explain anything or speak to +anyone about his feelings—no, not even to Rachel.</p> + +<p>Then he discovered that she was sobbing as she knelt there, and his face +crimsoned with confusion and alarm. Rachel, the proudest woman he had +ever known, kneeling to him, crying!</p> + +<p>He tried to lift her, pressing her hands.</p> + +<p>"Rachel dear ... Rachel."—Her words came between her sobs.</p> + +<p>"I should have told you ... long ago ... I tried to—I did +indeed ... but it was because I was frightened ... because I ... Oh! +Roddy! you'll never trust me again!"</p> + +<p>He was burning hot with the confusion of it: he was almost angry both +with himself and her.</p> + +<p>"Please, Rachel ... please ... don't ... it's all over, dear. There's +nothing the matter."</p> + +<p>"It's fine of you ... to take it like that ... But you'll never forgive +me, really, you can't—It isn't possible. This very afternoon ... I was +going to tell you—if all this ... hadn't happened. You'll be different +now—you must be ... just when I want you so much."</p> + +<p>He glanced in despair about the room. He looked at the sporting prints +and the case of birds' eggs and at last at Rachel's photograph. How +proud and splendid she was there! This dreadful abasement!</p> + +<p>He stroked her hair.</p> + +<p>"See here, old girl—we've had a rotten afternoon, haven't we? Awfully +rotten—never remember to have spent a worse. All my fault, too—poor +old Duchess!... but look here, it's all right now. I understand +everythin' and—and—dash it all—do stop cryin', Rachel, old girl."</p> + +<p>"It's been bad enough," she said, her voice steadier now, "the +way I've been to you all this time, but I thought—at least—I was +honest—I've tried—I've made a miserable failure—But, Roddy, you +need—never—never—be afraid of anything again—I'm yours altogether, +Roddy, to do anything with....</p> + +<p>"All about Francis—I was mad somehow—It was grandmamma—feeling she +had driven me into marrying you. And then Nita ... and then I didn't +know you a bit—all there was in you—but now," and she raised her eyes +and looked at him, "I love you with all my heart and soul and strength."</p> + +<p>He bent down his head and rather clumsily kissed her.</p> + +<p>"You know, Rachel, I was a bit frightened myself this afternoon—thought +you might be angry because I took you by surprise. You bet, if I'd known +what it was going to be like ... Well, thank the Lord, it's done, and +we'll never have another like it—I'll see to that. Scenes are rotten +things, aren't they?—I always loathed 'em even when I was tiny—so did +the governor.... If he had me up for lickin' all he ever said was, 'Down +with your bags!' That was all there was about it."</p> + +<p>She leant her cheek against his.</p> + +<p>"You've forgiven me all, everything—absolutely?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"There isn't any forgiveness in it," he answered. "It's all the other +way, if it's anythin'.... You see, I've been thinkin' a lot while I was +lyin' here. When there was that business over Nita I said you should +always be free just as I told you I ought to be. Well, since—since I +got that old tumble—I haven't any right to hold you at all. I'm just an +old log here, no good, anyway, and only a nuisance. And if I thought I +was keepin' you tied I'd be miserable. You see, I know you're fond of me +now. I've got that.... Don't let's talk any more about it. You've got me +and I've got you—and we aren't afraid of any old woman in the world."</p> + +<p>He held her closely to him, his arms strong about her.</p> + +<p>"There's something else to tell you."</p> + +<p>"Something else?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. We're going to have a child, you and I, Roddy. And now that you've +forgiven me it's all right—but that's partly what's made me afraid all +these last weeks. As it is, you've got me, got me, got me, safe for ever +and ever!"</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm damned!" said Roddy.</p> + +<p>She could feel his hand trembling upon hers.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she whispered, "I was frightened this afternoon—terrified. I +thought you'd never see me again."</p> + +<p>Roddy was turning things over in his mind.</p> + +<p>"A kid ... my word. Just the thing. A boy ... it'll be jolly for the +Place and I can teach him a lot. It'll be somethin' to go back to the +house for. Gosh! There's news!"</p> + +<p>His eyes wandered round the room.</p> + +<p>"Good thing I kept all those eggs—nearly broke 'em up too. They're a +jolly fine collection. I'd have prized 'em like anything if they'd come +to me when I was small." He caught her hand so fiercely that she gave a +little cry.</p> + +<p>"What a day! We'll have to see about the shootin' down at Seddon again, +old girl ... Lord, what an afternoon!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XB" id="CHAPTER_XB"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>LIZZIE BECOMES MISS RAND AGAIN</h3> + +<blockquote><p>"So she put the handkerchief, and the pin, and the lock of hair +back into the box, turned the key, and went resolutely about +her everyday duties again."—<span class="smcap">Mrs. Ewing</span>.</p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Lizzie was waiting for Lady Adela. She had finished her work for the +day, had come from her own room to Lady Adela's and now stood at one of +the high windows looking down upon the April sunshine that coloured the +dignities of Portland Place.</p> + +<p>The room was spacious and lofty, but curiously uncomfortable and +lifeless. High book-cases with glass shutters revealed rows of +"Cornhill" and "Blackwood" volumes, a long rather low table covered with +a green cloth held a silver inkstand, a blotting-pad, pens and a +calendar. There were stiff mahogany chairs ranged against the wall and +old prints of Beaminster House (white-pillared, spacious with sloping +lawns) and Eton College chapel faced the windows.</p> + +<p>This was where Lady Adela spent several hours of every morning and she +had never attempted to "do" anything with it. A large marble clock on +the mantelpiece ticked out its sublime indifference to time and change. +"We're the same, thank God," it said, "as we've always been."</p> + +<p>Lady Adela had told Lizzie that she would come in from a drive at +quarter to four and she would like then to speak to her.</p> + +<p>Lizzie's eyes were fixed upon Portland Place, deserted for the moment +and catching in its shining surface some hint of the blue sky above it. +There was a great deal just then to occupy her thoughts. Ten days ago, +in the middle of a little dinner-party that Lady Adela was giving, +upstairs the Duchess had had a stroke. Lizzie had, of course, not been +there, but, coming next morning she had been told of it. Her Grace was +soon well again, no unhappy effects could be discovered, she had not, +herself, been apparently disturbed by it, but it had rung, like a +warning bell, through the house. "The beginning of the end.... We've +been watching, we've been waiting—soon these walls will be ours again," +said the portraits of those stiff and superior Beaminsters.</p> + +<p>News ran through the Beaminster camp—"The Duchess has had a stroke.... +The Duchess has had a stroke."</p> + +<p>But, for many weeks now, Lizzie had been aware that some crisis had +found its hour. Rachel and her husband, Lady Adela and Lord John, even +the Duke and Lord Richard had been involved. It was not her business to +ask questions, but every morning that saw her sitting down to her day's +work saw her also wondering whether it would be her last in that +house....</p> + +<p>Lady Adela, however sharply she may have changed in herself, had never +permitted her relationship to Lizzie to be drawn any closer. When Lizzie +had returned from that terrible Christmas at Seddon, Lady Adela had +asked her no questions, had shown no sign of human anxiety or +tenderness. She had never, during all the years that Lizzie had been +with her, expressed gratitude or satisfaction. She had, on the other +hand, never bullied nor lost her temper with her. She had separated +herself from all expression or human emotion. And yet Lizzie liked her. +She would miss her when their association ended: yes, she would miss +her, and the house and the whole Beaminster interest when the end came.</p> + +<p>She wondered, as she stood at the window, whether that old woman +upstairs were suffering, what her struggle against extinction was +costing her, how urgently she was protesting against the passing of time +and the death of her generation. Flying galleons of silver clouds caught +the sun and Portland Place passed into shadow; the bell of the Round +Church began to ring. "Poor old thing," thought Lizzie; she would not +have considered her thus, a year ago.</p> + +<p>Lady Adela came in; she reminded Lizzie of Mrs. Noah in her stiff wooden +hat, her stiff wooden clothes, her anxiety to prevent any mobility that +might give her away. She looked, as she always did, carefully about the +room, at the "Cornhills" and "Blackwoods," at the marble clock, at the +prints of Beaminster House and Eton College Chapel, a little as though +she would ascertain that no enemy, no robber, no brigand, no outlaw, was +concealed about the premises, a little as though she would say—"Well, +these things are all right anyway, nothing wrong here."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, Miss Rand," she said. "I hope that I haven't kept you."</p> + +<p>"No, thank you, Lady Adela, I have only just finished."</p> + +<p>Lady Adela sat down; they discussed correspondence, trivial things that +were, Lizzie knew, placed as a barrier against something that frightened +her.</p> + +<p>At length it came.</p> + +<p>"Miss Rand, I wonder whether—the fact is, my mother has just decided +that she wishes to be moved to Beaminster House. I must of course go +with her. I hope that this will not inconvenience you. You can, if you +prefer not to leave your mother, come down every day by train; it only +takes an hour. Just as you please...."</p> + +<p>Lizzie's heart was strangely, poignantly stirred. The moment had come +then; the house was to be deserted. This could only mean the end. She +herself would never return here, her little room, the large solemn +house, that walk from Saxton Square, the Round Church, the Queen's Hall, +Regent's Park....</p> + +<p>But she gave no sign.</p> + +<p>Gravely she replied: "I think I'd better come down with you, Lady Adela, +if you don't mind. My mother has my sister. Perhaps I might come up for +the week-ends."</p> + +<p>"Yes. That would be quite easy. The other places, you know, are let, +but Beaminster has always been kept. The Duke has been there a good +deal. It reminds me ... I was there for some years as a girl."</p> + +<p>Lizzie realized that Lady Adela was very near to tears; she had never +before seen her, in any way, moved. She was distressed and +uncomfortable. It was as though Lady Adela were, suddenly, after all +these years, about to be driven from a position that had seemed, in its +day, impregnable.</p> + +<p>"Oh! don't, please don't, now!" was Lizzie's silent cry. "It will spoil +it all—all these years."</p> + +<p>Lady Adela didn't. Her voice became dry and hard, her eyes without +expression.</p> + +<p>"We shall go down, I expect, on Monday if Dr. Christopher thinks that a +good day."</p> + +<p>"I hope that the Duchess——"</p> + +<p>"My mother's very well to-day—quite her old self. I have just been up +with her. It is odd, but for thirty years she has never expressed any +interest in Beaminster. Now she is impatient to be there."</p> + +<p>"One often, I think, has a sudden longing for places."</p> + +<p>"Yes. I shall be glad myself to be there again."</p> + +<p>"This house?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! we shall shut it up—for the time Lord John will come down to +Beaminster with us. I have spoken to Norris, but to-morrow morning, if +you don't mind, we will go through things."</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>"The house has not been shut for a great number of years—a very great +number. During the last thirty years through the hottest weather my +mother was here.</p> + +<p>"It will seem strange ..." Her voice trembled.</p> + +<p>"Is there anything more this afternoon?" Lizzie turned to the door.</p> + +<p>"No, I think not. Except—perhaps ..." Lady Adela was in great +agitation. Her eyes sought Lizzie, beseeching her help.</p> + +<p>"Miss Rand—I think it only right to say. I'm afraid one cannot—in the +nature of things—it's impossible, I fear, to expect—my mother to live +very much longer." Her voice caught in a dry strangled cough. "Dr. +Christopher has warned us. After my mother's death my life, of course, +will be very different. I shall live very quietly—a good deal in the +country and abroad, I expect.</p> + +<p>"I shall not, of course, have a secretary."</p> + +<p>"I quite understand," said Lizzie quietly.</p> + +<p>"I want you to know, Miss Rand," Lady Adela continued, "that although +during all these years I have seemed very unappreciative.... It is not +my way—I find it difficult to express—But I have, nevertheless, been +very conscious—we have all been—of the things that you have done for +me, indeed for the whole house. You have been admirable; quite +admirable."</p> + +<p>"I have been very happy here," said Lizzie.</p> + +<p>"I am very glad of that. I must have seemed often very blind to all that +you were doing. But I should like you to know that it is more—it is +more—than simply your duty to the house—it is the many things that you +have done personally for me. You have not yourself been, I dare say, +aware of the effect that your company has had upon me. It has been very +great."</p> + +<p>Lizzie smiled. "I've loved the house and the work. It has meant a very +important part of my life. I shall never forget it."</p> + +<p>Their embarrassment was terrible. After a moment of struggle Lady +Adela's voice was hard and unconcerned again. "You know, Miss Rand, +that—when the time comes for this change—anything that I, or any of +us, can do ... I do not know what your own plans may be, but you need +have no fear, I think."</p> + +<p>"Thank you very much, Lady Adela. That is very kind."</p> + +<p>There was a little pause—then they said good night.</p> + +<p>As Lizzie went down the great staircase, on every side of her, the +stones of the house were whispering, "You're all going—you're all +going—you're all going."</p> + +<p>Her heart was very sad.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>As she passed the Regent Street Post Office Francis Breton came out of +it. They had not met often lately, but she was conscious that ever since +that interview in Regent's Park, they had been very good friends. Her +absorption with Rachel and affairs in the Portland Place house had +assisted her own resolution and she had thought that she could meet him +now without a tremor. Nevertheless the tremor came as she caught sight +of him there and, for a moment, the traffic and the shouting died away +and there was a great stillness.</p> + +<p>He was very glad to see her. He stood on the post office steps looking +richer and smarter than she had ever known him. He wore a dark blue suit +and a black tie and a bowler hat—all ordinary garments enough—but they +surrounded him with an air of prosperity that had not been his before. +He seemed to her to gleam and glitter and shine with confidence and +assurance. One hurried glimpse she had had of him some weeks before, +miserable, unkempt, almost furtive. She was glad for his sake that all +was well with him, but he needed her more when he was unhappy....</p> + +<p>But he was delighted. "Miss Rand. That's splendid! Are you going back to +Saxton Square now? The very thing! I've been wanting badly to see you!" +It was always, she thought, in little hurried and occasional walks that +they exchanged their confidences. There was not much to show for all the +elaborate palace that she had once been building—snatches of +conversation, clutches at words and movements, even eloquent +interpretation of silences—well, she was wiser than all that now!</p> + +<p>But, when they started off together, she found that she was caught up +instantly into that fine assumption of intimacy that was one of his most +alluring qualities. Radiant though he was he still needed her; he was +more eager to talk to <i>her</i> than to anyone else even though he had +forgotten her very existence until he saw her standing there.</p> + +<p>"I am glad to see you. I should have come down and tried to find you, +anyway, in a day or two. I've been through a rotten time—really +rotten—and one doesn't want to see anyone—even one's best friends—in +that sort of condition, does one?"</p> + +<p>"That's just the time your <i>real</i> friends—if they're worth +anything—want to see you. If they can be of any use——"</p> + +<p>"But you'd been such a tremendous help to me. I was ashamed to come to +you any more. Besides, you'd showed me, in a way, that I ought to get +through on my own without asking help from anyone. You'd taught me that +I did try."</p> + +<p>She saw that he was shining with the glory of one who had come, +rather mightily, unaided through times of stress. A pleasant +self-congratulatory pathos stirred behind his words. "It <i>was</i> a bad +time—but it's all right now. And I expect it was good for me," was +really what he said.</p> + +<p>"I do want to tell you," he went on eagerly, "about Rachel. It's all +been so strange—wonderful in a way. After that talk I had with you in +the park I was absolutely broken up. Oh! but done for! I simply went +under. I tried to go back to some of that old set I've told you about +before, but the awful thing was that Rachel wouldn't let me. Thinking of +her, wanting her when all those other women were about. It simply wasn't +possible....</p> + +<p>"It got worse and worse. I thought I'd go off my head. Then—do you +remember that awful thunderstorm we had?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Lizzie, "I remember it very well."</p> + +<p>"That night was a kind of climax. I'd dined with Christopher, then got +wandering about—it was horribly close and heavy—got into some music +hall. I suppose I'd been drinking—anyway, I had suddenly a kind of +vision, there in the music hall. I thought Rachel was dead, that I'd +lost her altogether. And then—it's all so hard to explain—but when I +came to myself I seemed to understand that the only way I could keep her +was by giving her up.... I've got it all muddled, but that was what it +came to."</p> + +<p>"You were quite right," said Lizzie.</p> + +<p>"Well, then—what do you think happened? The very next day my uncle, +John Beaminster, came to see me—yes, came himself. Talked and was most +pleasant and wanted to be friends. At the same time—now just listen to +this—came a note from Seddon asking me to go and see him. I went, found +Rachel there. Apparently my delightful grandmother had been telling him +stories about Rachel and me, and he wanted to put things straight. As +though this weren't enough, right upon us, without a word of warning, +dropped my grandmother herself!"</p> + +<p>He stopped that he might convey fully to Lizzie the drama of the +occasion.</p> + +<p>There was, in his words, just that touch of absurdity and exaggeration +that she had noticed at her very first meeting with him. He was always +too passionately anxious to thrill his audience!</p> + +<p>"There <i>was</i> a scene! You can imagine it! We all tried to behave at +first, although of course it was immensely difficult. I don't think +Seddon had in the least realized the kind of thing it would be. Then +she—the old tyrant—could contain herself no longer and burst out +concerning me, the blackguard I was and the rest of it. She was furious, +you see, at Seddon taking my friendship with Rachel so quietly. He was +<i>splendid</i> about it!</p> + +<p>"Well, when she burst out about all the family cutting me and everybody +casting me out, the opportunity was too good. I <i>couldn't</i> help it. I +had to tell her that Uncle John had been round that very afternoon to +see me and that the family was holding out its arms."</p> + +<p>"What happened?" said Lizzie, as he paused.</p> + +<p>"She collapsed—altogether, completely. She never said another word—she +just went."</p> + +<p>"You shouldn't have done it!" Lizzie cried, turning almost furiously +upon him. "Oh! it was cruel—she was so old and all of you so young and +strong."</p> + +<p>"Yes!" he answered her—"But think of the years that I've waited—the +times she's given me, the suffering——"</p> + +<p>"No," interrupted Lizzie, quiet again now. "If you're weak enough to be +pushed down by anybody like that, then you're weak enough to sink by +your own fault, whether there's anyone there or no. She's been hard in +her time, I dare say, but everything's left her now and she's ill and +lonely. It was wrong of all of you. I shouldn't have thought Sir +Roderick——"</p> + +<p>"He only wanted things to be straightened out," Breton said eagerly. "He +didn't <i>intend</i> to have a scene. But I expect you're right, Miss Rand, +as you always are. I've been a brute, the most howling cad. But there's +one thing—I don't think it's hurt my grandmother. She likes those +scenes, and she's been none the worse since."</p> + +<p>"She's been much worse," said Lizzie gravely. "She's dying—She's going +down to Beaminster on Monday."</p> + +<p>He stopped. "Oh! but I'm sorry ... That's dreadful ... I'd no idea. I'm +always responsible——"</p> + +<p>He had sunk to such depths that she was compelled to raise him.</p> + +<p>"I don't think you need be disturbed, Mr. Breton. Something of the sort +would have been certain to happen very soon. She would have found out in +any case ... and there were other things, I know. Rachel——"</p> + +<p>"Ah!" he broke in, eager again and almost cheerful. "That was the +wonderful thing. When I saw her there first with Seddon—I'd never met +him before, you know—I felt angry and impatient. I wanted to carry her +off—away from everybody. And then, when Seddon began to speak I lost +all sense of Rachel's belonging to me. She seemed older, ever so far +away from him, and he was so fine, so splendid about it all that I +felt—I felt—well, that I'd do anything in the world for both of +them—but never anything that could separate them or make him unhappy."</p> + +<p>"You can't separate them now," said Lizzie, "nobody can."</p> + +<p>"No. It was just finished—our episode together that wasn't really an +episode at all if you consider the little that we saw one another.... +Besides, I've never got near Rachel, and I felt in some way that the +nearer I got to her the farther away she was. Why, the only time that I +kissed her she was the farthest away of all!"</p> + +<p>They were walking up the grey, peaceful square.</p> + +<p>"You don't mind my telling you all this, do you, Miss Rand? You've seen +it all from the beginning. But I'm odd in a way....</p> + +<p>"Uncle John coming to me, Seddon being friendly to me, the family taking +me back ... that seems to have made all the difference to me. Although +I'd never confess it, even to myself, I know that if Rachel and I had +gone off together I'd never have been happy. You see, we're both alike +that way. We're restless, one half of us, but oh! we're Beaminster the +other, and even Rachel, who's been fighting the family all her days, has +one part of her that's happy to be married to Seddon and to be quiet and +proper and English. That's why neither I nor Seddon ever could hold +her—because to be with me she'd have had to give up the other. If she +had a child, that might——"</p> + +<p>"She's going to have a child!" said Lizzie.</p> + +<p>He stopped and stared at her.</p> + +<p>"Miss Rand!... Is that certain?"</p> + +<p>"Quite."</p> + +<p>"Ah, well, Seddon's got her all right. They'll be happy as anything." He +sighed. "You know, Miss Rand, Rachel and I have been fighting the old +lady, and we seem to have won ... but I'm not sure whether, after all, +she hasn't!"</p> + +<p>On the step he paused.</p> + +<p>"I'm sticking to Candles, I've got work. I'm recognized again. I've got +that little bit of Rachel that she gave me and that nobody else can +have, and—I've got you for a friend—Not so bad after all!"</p> + +<p>He laughed, opened the door for her, and then as they stood in the dark +little hall he said:</p> + +<p>"All along you've been <i>such</i> a friend for me. I want someone like +you—someone strong and sensible, without my rotten sentiment and +impulses. We'll always be friends, won't we?"</p> + +<p>He held her hand.</p> + +<p>"Always," she said, smiling at him.</p> + +<p>But, perhaps, to both of them there came, just then, sighing through the +dark still hall, a breath, a whisper, of that hour when life had been at +its intensest, that hour when Breton had held Rachel in his arms, that +hour when Lizzie had dressed, with trembling hands, for the theatre....</p> + +<p>For Breton his place once again in the world, for Lizzie work and peace +of heart, but once on a day life had flamed before both of them and they +would never forget—</p> + +<p>"Well, good night, Mr. Breton."</p> + +<p>"Good night, Miss Rand."</p> + +<p>When he had gone, she stood in the hall a moment.</p> + +<p>Their little dialogue had closed, with the sound of a closing door, a +stage in her life. She would never be the same as she had been before +that episode. It had shown her that she was as romantic as the rest of +the world. It had made her kinder, tenderer, wiser. And now once again +she was independent—once again her soul was her own. She could be, once +more, his friend, seeing him with all his faults, his impetuosities, his +weak impulses.</p> + +<p>Her place was there for her to fill. It was not the place that she would +once have chosen. But she had regained her soul, had once more control +of her spirit. She was free.</p> + +<p>There stretched before her a world of work, of thrilling and +ever-changing interest. There were Rachel and Rachel's baby....</p> + +<p>"You seem in very good spirits, Lizzie," said Mrs. Rand as she came in. +"I'm sure I'm very glad because it's too tiresome. Here's Daisy gone +off...."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Afterwards she said to her mother:</p> + +<p>"I'm going down to Beaminster on Monday. I'm afraid I shall be away some +time."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Lizzie!" said Mrs. Rand reproachfully. "Well, now—That <i>is</i> a +pity. Why must you?"</p> + +<p>"The Duchess is going and Lady Adela must go with her and I must go with +Lady Adela."</p> + +<p>"Dear, dear. Whatever shall we do, Daisy and I? Daisy gets idler every +day. It's always clothes with her now.... I suppose we shall manage."</p> + +<p>"I shall come up for week-ends."</p> + +<p>"What a way you speak of it! Of course you don't care! If you went away +for years you wouldn't miss us, I dare say. I can't think why it is, +Lizzie, that you're always so hard. Daisy and I have got plenty of +feeling and emotion and your father, poor man, had more than he could +manage. But I'm sure more's better than none at all, where feelings are +concerned."</p> + +<p>"I suppose," said Lizzie, speaking to more than her mother, "that if +everyone had so much feeling there'd be nobody to give the advice. +Feelings don't suit everybody."</p> + +<p>"You're a strange girl," said Mrs. Rand, "and you're like no one in our +family. All your aunts and uncles are kind and friendly. I don't suggest +that you don't do your best, Lizzie. You do, I'm sure—and nobody could +deny that you've got a head for figures and running a house. But a +little heart...."</p> + +<p>"I've come to the conclusion I'm better without any," Lizzie laughed. "I +expect I'm more like you and Daisy, mother, than you know——"</p> + +<p>"Well, you're a strange girl," said Mrs. Rand again, "and I never +understand half you say."</p> + +<p>Lizzie came to her and kissed her.</p> + +<p>"You always miss me, you know, mother, when I'm away, in spite of my +hard heart."</p> + +<p>"Well, that's true," said Mrs. Rand, looking at her daughter with wide +and rather tearful eyes. "But I'm sure I don't know why I do."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIB" id="CHAPTER_XIB"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>THE LAST VIEW FROM HIGH WINDOWS</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Not without fortitude I wait ...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">... I, in this house so rifted, marr'd,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So ill to live in, hard to leave;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I, so star-weary, over-warr'd,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That have no joy in this your day."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>Francis Thompson.</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Rachel, on the morning of April 28th, received this letter from Lady +Adela:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Beaminster House</span>,</p> + +<p><i>April 27th.</i></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">My dear Rachel</span>,</p> + +<p>Mother suddenly last night expressed an urgent wish to see you. +She has not been at all well during the last few days and Dr. +Christopher, who has been here since last Saturday, says that +if you can come down and see her he thinks that it would be a +comfort to her. She is sleeping very badly, but is wonderfully +tranquil and seems to like to be here again.</p> + +<p>If you can come down to-morrow afternoon I will send to meet +the 5.32 at Ryston. That is quicker than going round to +Munckston. If I don't hear I conclude that you are coming by +that train.</p> + +<p>My love to Roddy.</p> + +<p>Your affectionate aunt,</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Adela Beaminster</span>."</p></blockquote> + +<p>Rachel showed the letter to Roddy.</p> + +<p>"I'm so glad," she said, "I've been hoping that she'd send for me. I've +felt, ever since that day, that I should never be easy again if I +hadn't the chance to tell her that I see now that I—that we—were +wrong."</p> + +<p>"She's never answered my letter," said Roddy. "Perhaps she wasn't well +enough to write. Yes, I'm glad you're going, Rachel."</p> + +<p>She was moved by many emotions, the old lady dying, the house in whose +shadow she had spent so many of her timid, angry, adventurous young +years, the thrill that the thought of her child gave her now at every +vision of the world, the knowledge that in Roddy she, at last, had +someone in her life to whom, after every absence, however short, she was +eager to return—these things shone with new, wonderful lights around +her journey.</p> + +<p>The April evenings were lengthening and the dusks were warm and scented. +The little station lay peacefully in the heart of green fields; across +the sky, washed clean of every colour, a dark train of birds slowly, +lazily took their flight, trees were dim with edges sharp against the +sky-line, a dog barking in the distance gave rhythm to the stillness. +Rachel, driving through the falling dark, felt, as she had felt it when +she was a small child, the august colour and space and dignity of the +first vision of the great house, white as a ghost now under the first +stars, speaking to her with the old voice, fountains that splashed in +gardens, the river that ran at the end of the sloping lawns, the chiming +clock that rang out the hour as she drove up to the door.</p> + +<p>Aunt Adela, Uncle John, Dr. Chris, Lizzie, they were all there, and +their presences made less chill the dominating reason for their +assembly.</p> + +<p>Over all the house the shadow fell. The wide, high rooms, the long +picture gallery, the comfortless grandeur of a house that had not found, +for some years, many human creatures to lighten it, these echoed and +flung forwards and backwards the note of suspense, of pause, of +impending crisis.</p> + +<p>But Rachel spent one of the happiest evenings of her life with Uncle +John and Christopher. She knew that Uncle John had had a short but +terrible interview with her grandmother, that he had been charged with +treachery and dishonour and every traitorous wickedness.</p> + +<p>A week ago, when he had told her this, he had been the picture of +despair and shame. "I hadn't meant her to know. She wasn't to come into +it at all. And then that she should meet him at Roddy's on that very +afternoon.... There's nothing bad enough for me." But he had added with +a strange note of defiance so unlike the old Uncle John: "I had felt it +my duty, Rachel ... to speak to Francis. I had felt it the right thing +to do. I had felt it very strongly."</p> + +<p>Then he had been overwhelmed, now he was once more at peace, and +tranquil.</p> + +<p>"It's all right," he told Rachel. "I've been forgiven. I think she's +forgiven all of us.</p> + +<p>"She wouldn't listen when I wanted to tell her how sorry I was. She +seems now not to care."</p> + +<p>"She's never forgiven anyone anything before," said</p> + +<p>Rachel.</p> + +<p>"Hush, my dear, I don't think you ought to say that. We've never +understood her, any of us. She's always been beyond us. You'll realize +to-morrow, Rachel, how wonderful, how <i>wonderful</i> she is!"</p> + +<p>But he was very happy. He had his old Rachel back, the old Rachel whom +he had expected never to see again. She sat between him and Christopher, +at dinner, no longer fierce and ironical, with sudden silences and swift +angers, but affectionate, sympathetic, happy.</p> + +<p>"Mother will see you to-morrow," Adela told her. "She's glad that you've +come. The morning's rather a bad time for her. Could you stay for the +whole day?"</p> + +<p>"Of course," Rachel said.</p> + +<p>At the end of the evening she went up to Lizzie's room; when midnight +rang from the tower they parted, but first, Rachel said:</p> + +<p>"Lizzie, I wonder whether you realize what you've been—to all of us—to +me of course ... but to the others—to the whole family."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Nonsense!"</p> + +<p>"Roddy was speaking about it yesterday. He said that you were the most +wonderful person in all the world for making all the difference without +saying or doing anything—by just being there."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Roddy thinks everybody——"</p> + +<p>"But this is what I'm coming to. You can't yourself know how much +difference you make to everyone. But there's just this.... Roddy feels +and I feel that when—He—comes (of course it'll be a boy) we'd rather +have you for his friend than anyone in the whole world. You will—you +will be, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"My dear—I should <i>think</i> so. I'll whack him and bath him and snub him +and teach him his letters—anything you like." Then she added, rather +gravely:</p> + +<p>"There's one thing, Rachel, I've wanted to say for some time. I want you +to know definitely, that all wounds are closed now, everything's +healed—about Mr. Breton, I mean. I was afraid that you might think I +still cared.... That's all ended, closed up, that little episode.</p> + +<p>"You needn't be afraid, Rachel. I'm happier, I'm freer than I've ever +been in my life.... Good night, my dear. Your friendship is more to me +than any number of heart-burnings.... I was always meant to be +independent, you know...."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>It was very strange to Rachel, who had been, on so many, many evenings, +to that other room, to pause now outside this new door, to knock with +the house solemn and still around her, to hear Dorchester's voice, then, +with the old hesitation and—yes—with some of the old fear, to enter.</p> + +<p>She had considered what she would say. Coming down in the train she had +turned it over and over—her apology, her submission, her cry: "See, I'm +different—utterly different from the Rachel whom you knew.... I was a +prig of the very worst. I deserved everything you thought of me. Just +say you forgive me even though you can't like me." This was the kind of +thing that, in the train, had seemed possible enough; now, with the +opening of the door and that sharp recurrence of the old thrill, she was +not at all sure that she wanted to be submissive and affectionate. "I +don't feel fond of her—nothing could make me—there are too many +things...."</p> + +<p>Space and silence saluted Rachel. Two great mirrors ran from floor to +ceiling, high windows flooded the room with light and everything seemed +to be intended only for such a situation as this—the very house, the +grounds, the colour of the day had arranged themselves, in their purity +and air and silence, about the central figure. The Duchess lay in a long +low chair before the window; she was wrapped in white shawls and thick +rugs covered her body; Dorchester, the same stern, unbending Dorchester, +said gravely to Rachel, "Good afternoon, my lady. I hope that you are +well," then moved into another room.</p> + +<p>The Duchess had not stirred at the sound of the closing doors, nor at +Dorchester's voice, nor at Rachel's approach. She was gazing out, beyond +the windows, to the expanse of sunlit country, fields that sloped +towards the river, an orchard, white with blossom, running down the +hill, its colour, dazzling, almost visibly trembling against the sky.</p> + +<p>Rachel had only seen her in the Portland Place rooms, with the china +dragons, the gold ornaments, the red lacquer bed, the blazing +wall-paper. It had seemed then that she must have those things around +her, that she needed the colour and extravagance to support her flaming +passion for life, so curbed and shackled by disease.</p> + +<p>Their absence made her older, feebler, more human, but also grander and +more impressive. Rachel had always feared her, but despised herself for +her fear; now she was in the presence of something that made her proud +to be afraid.</p> + +<p>She thought that she might be asleep, so she moved, very quietly, a +chair forward near the window and, sitting down, waited. The only sound +in all the world was the steady splash—splash—splash of the fountain +below, the only movement the stealthy creeping of the long shadows, +flung by white boulder clouds, across the shining fields.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, without turning her head, the Duchess spoke.</p> + +<p>"Very good of you, Rachel. I hoped that you would come."</p> + +<p>Her voice was weak, her words indistinct as though she were speaking +through muffled shawls, but, nevertheless, behind them the presence of +the old dominating will was to be discerned, but now it was a will +quiescent, struggling no longer for power.</p> + +<p>"I would have come before if you had sent for me. I'm so glad that you +did."</p> + +<p>"I can't talk for very long, my dear, and I don't suppose that you want +to spend hours in my company any more than you've ever done. No, you +needn't protest. We're neither of us here for compliments.... But +there's something that I must say to you. Christopher allows me half an +hour."</p> + +<p>"I hope you're better—that being here has done you good."</p> + +<p>"Better? Nonsense. I don't want to be better. That's all over and done +with. I had another stroke three days ago and the next one will finish +me. So don't pretend. You used to be honest enough. I've asked you to +come because I want to speak to you about Roddy."</p> + +<p>"He wrote," Rachel said.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I got his letter. I couldn't reply. I can't write myself and I +won't have anyone else do it for me. Besides, there was nothing to write +about. He said he was sorry about that little conversation we all had +together the other day."</p> + +<p>"And I—" Rachel began eagerly, "I was so sorry. I've been longing to +tell you—it was all wrong, but Roddy has no imagination. He didn't +realize in the least——"</p> + +<p>"Ah, my dear. I expect I know Roddy a great deal better than you do. +He'll do the same sort of thing to you, one day. He's got the devil in +him and will always have it, however much you coddle him or let him lie +there thinking over his sins. Do you suppose I'd have been so fond of +Roddy all these years if I hadn't known him capable of such little +revenges? I liked it. There was no need to write to me and he knew +it—but I'm afraid you influence him a good deal."</p> + +<p>Rachel coloured. "I hope——"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, you do, and that's exactly why I wanted to see you."</p> + +<p>She turned then and, very carefully, very slowly, her eyes searched +Rachel's face.</p> + +<p>"I let him marry you, you know. I thought it would be good for you. If +I'd guessed the effect that you'd have had upon him I'd have prevented +it."</p> + +<p>Rachel's anger was rising.</p> + +<p>"What effect?"</p> + +<p>"He's begun to worry about other people—a fatal thing with a man like +Roddy who was meant to do things, not think about them. But, anyway, +that's all too late now.... Waste of time discussing it.... What I +wanted you for is this——"</p> + +<p>Her eyes left Rachel's face and returned to the window.</p> + +<p>"You're the one person now that influences him and you will always be +so. I can see ahead well enough. Poor Roddy ... and he might have been a +fine man. All the same, I admire him for it; there are things about you +I could have liked if I'd wanted to find them, but we've been fighting +from the beginning until now—when it's the end ..." She caught her +breath, stayed for an instant struggling for words, then went on:</p> + +<p>"We can call a truce now. We don't like one another, but just at the +moment you're moved a little because I'm feeble and shall be dead in a +fortnight. That disturbs you.... It needn't. Some months ago a moment +did come when I realized that I should die soon. I hated it—I fought +and struggled with all my might ... but now that it has come it doesn't +matter. Nothing matters. I regret nothing. I've had my time. I hate the +new generation, the manly woman and the soft man with all this +sentimental nonsense about caring for other people. Think of yourself, +fight for yourself, keep up your pride—that's the only way the world's +ever been run. You're a sentimentalist and you're making one of +Roddy.... Nonsense it all is.... But all this isn't what I really wanted +to say." She turned back and her eyes, as again they held Rachel, were +softer.</p> + +<p>"Roddy's been my only weakness. I've loved that boy and he's far too +good and fine for a wobbler like yourself. That's why I hated it the +other day. I couldn't bear that he should see me beaten by the pair of +you, both of you thinking yourself so noble with your fine +confessions—not that I believe a word that you said—but it was clever +of you. You <i>are</i> clever and know how to manage men.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that hurt me, but afterwards I loved him all the better, I +believe. I'd rather he hadn't written me that soppy letter, but that was +your doing, of course.... But listen. After I'm gone, I want Roddy to +think of me kindly. He's going to think very much what you make him. +It's in your hands. You, when you've got past this sentimental moment, +will hate the memory of me. It's natural that you should and I'm sure I +don't mind. But I want you to leave Roddy alone. If he likes to think of +me kindly, let him. Don't blacken his mind to me. I wish to feel—my +only weakness I do believe—that Roddy will be fond of my memory. That +rests with you."</p> + +<p>She stopped with a little final movement of her head as though, having +said what had been in her mind for a long while, she was finished, +absolutely, with it all, and wanted no word more with any human being.</p> + +<p>Rachel answered quietly: "You've said some rather hard things. You +mustn't feel that I'd ever try to make Roddy think badly of you. That's +not fair.... I'm not very proud of myself, but you don't understand me. +You've always been determined not to—and perhaps, in the same way, I've +not understood you. We're different generations, that's what it really +is.</p> + +<p>"But over Roddy we <i>can</i> meet. I didn't love him when I married him, but +I do now, and we're going to have a child.... That will make us both +very happy, I expect. You love Roddy and I love him. You needn't be +afraid that I'll harm his memory of you."</p> + +<p>Her voice was trembling and she was very near to tears. She would have +liked to have said something that would have offered some terms of peace +between them, something upon which, afterwards, she might look back with +comfort. For her that hostility seemed, in the face of death, so small +and poor a thing.</p> + +<p>But no words would come.</p> + +<p>Her grandmother, in a voice that was very weak, said:</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Rachel; that's a great relief to me. That's good of +you ... and now, my dear, I think Christopher would say that I'd talked +enough. Good night."</p> + +<p>Rachel knew that this was their last meeting, that here was the absolute +conclusion of all the years of warfare that there had been between them.</p> + +<p>There was nothing to say.... She bent down and kissed the dry cheek, +waited for an instant, but there was no movement.</p> + +<p>"Good night, grandmamma," she said. "I hope that you'll be better +to-morrow," then softly stole away.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>The Duchess lay very still, watching the shadows as they crept across +the fields. They were evening shadows now, for the sky, pink like the +inside of a shell, had no clouds upon its surface.</p> + +<p>She would not get up again; this evening should be the last to see her +gaze upon the world. It was too fatiguing and all energy had flowed from +her, leaving her without desire, without passion, without regret, without +fear. Very dreamily and at a great distance figures and scenes from her +past life hovered, halted, and passed. But she was not interested, she +had forgotten their purpose and meaning, she did not want to think any +more.</p> + +<p>The splashing of the fountain was phantasmal and very far away.</p> + +<p>The long black shadow crept up the field. She watched it. At the top of +the red ridge of field, against the sky-line, very sharp and clear, was +a gate, golden now in the sun. When the shadow caught it she would go to +bed ... and she would never get up again.</p> + +<p>She waited lazily, indifferently. The gate was caught; the last gleams +of the sun had left the orchard and the evening star glittered in a sky +very faintly green.</p> + +<p>She touched a bell at her side and Dorchester appeared.</p> + +<p>"I'll go to bed, Dorchester."</p> + +<p>"Very well, Your Grace."</p> + +<p>"I shan't get up again. Too much trouble." She turned away from the +window and closed her eyes.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIIB" id="CHAPTER_XIIB"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>RACHEL, RODDY, LORD JOHN, CHRISTOPHER</h3> + +<blockquote><p>"'Everybody came in to dinner in the best of spirits.... +Everything was discussed.'"—<i>Inheritance.</i></p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>The Duchess of Wrexe died on the morning of May 2nd at a quarter-past +three o'clock. The evening papers of that day and the morning papers of +the next had long columns concerning her, and these were picturesque and +almost romantic. She appealed as a figure veiled but significant, hidden +but the landmark of a period—"Nothing was more remarkable than the +influence that she exercised over English Society during the thirty +years that she was completely hidden from it"—or again, "Although +disease compelled her, for thirty years, to retire from the world, her +influence during that period increased rather than diminished."</p> + +<p>It must be confessed, however, that London Society was not moved to its +foundations by the news of her death. People said, "Oh! that old woman; +gone at last, I see. She's been dying for years, hasn't she? Quite a +power in her day ..." Or, "Oh, the Duchess of Wrexe is dead, I see. I +must write to Addie Beaminster. Don't expect the family will miss her +much—awful old tyrant, I believe ..." or "I say, see Johnnie +Beaminster's old lady's gone? She kept the whip-hand of <i>him</i> in his +time.... Damned glad he'll be, I bet."</p> + +<p>Two years earlier and it would not have been thus, but now there was the +War (daily the relief of Mafeking was frantically anticipated) and fine +regal majesty, sitting dignified in a solemn room, irritated the world +by its quiescence.</p> + +<p>"What we're needing now is for everyone to get a move on. No use sitting +around." A few carefully selected American phrases can very swiftly +kill a great deal of dignity and tradition.</p> + +<p>In the Beaminster camp itself there was an unexpressed disappointment. +They had grown accustomed to thinking of her as a fine figure, sitting +there where, rather fortunately, they were not compelled to visit her, +but where, nevertheless, she had a grand effect. They had known, for a +long time now, that she was not so well, but they had expected, in a +vague way, that she would go on living for ever. They had been making, +during the last two years, a succession of enforced compromises and now +the crisis of her death showed them how far they had gone without +knowing it.</p> + +<p>"Things will never be the same as they were...." And in their hearts +they said, "We're getting old—we aren't wanted as we once were."</p> + +<p>Meanwhile there was a fine funeral down at Beaminster. The Queen was +represented, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, all the +heads of all the old families in England, artists and one or two very +distinguished actor-managers (who looked far more sumptuous than anyone +else present).... Everyone was there.</p> + +<p>Christopher detected Mrs. Bronson and wondered what the Duchess would +think of it if she knew: Brun, also, although Christopher did not see +him, flashed upon them from the Continent, was present, neat and solemn +and immensely observant. It was all admirable and worthy of the best +English traditions.</p> + +<p>"She was a fine figure," said the Prime Minister, who had known her and +disliked her intensely. "We shall never see her like again," but his +sigh was nearer relief than regret.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Christopher, three days after the funeral, went to have tea with Roddy +and Rachel. He was a man of great physical strength and had never had +"nerves" in his life, but he was feeling, just now, tired out. He had +not realized, in the least, during all these years, the part that that +old woman played in his life, and he found that his whole scheme of +things was now disorganized and without vitality. It was vitality that +she had given him, a tiresome, troublesome, irritating vitality perhaps, +but, nevertheless a fire, an energy, a driving curiosity.</p> + +<p>He would capture it again, his eagerness to investigate, to assist, to +prophesy, but it would never any more be quite the same energy—everyone +with whom she had had anything to do would find life now a little +different....</p> + +<p>Some weeks before her death Roddy had sent for him. "I'm awfully upset, +Christopher," he said and then he had told him about the scene in his +rooms and had begged to know the truth. "I hear she's much worse—she's +had a stroke—I wrote to her and she hasn't answered me. Christopher, +tell me truthfully, was it her comin' to me that day and all the kick-up +and everythin' that made her so much worse?"</p> + +<p>Christopher had reassured him—"Quite honestly, if she'd asked my leave +to let her go out that afternoon I'd not have granted it. But as it +turned out she wasn't a bit the worse. I saw her directly +afterwards—she told me all about it. She was rather grimly pleased. +Mind you, it marked, I think, a kind of crisis. As she put it to me she +saw that afternoon that the whole scheme of things had gone out of her +hands and that the new generation didn't want her—But I think she was +glad to have it settled for her, she was tired of it all, her struggle +to keep it had been much earlier.</p> + +<p>"She just wasn't going to bother any more and she might have gone on in +that sort of way for years."</p> + +<p>But although he had thus reassured Roddy he was not, in his heart, so +certain. He seemed to see a long chain of events (he dated his own +observation of them from the time of Rachel's coming out), that had led +both Rachel and the Duchess to the climax of their actual challenge one +to another. It was not that that meeting in Roddy's house had been of +itself so important, it was rather that the fates had selected it as a +definite culmination of the struggle. That meeting stood for a sharp +visualization of much more than the personal conflict.</p> + +<p>She had been glad to go, he did not in any way see her death as a +tragedy, but her departure had marked the opening of a new period, a new +personal history for the remaining characters, ultimately perhaps a new +social epoch for everybody—</p> + +<p>Meanwhile he was happy about Roddy and Rachel for the first time since +their marriage and, as he was a man who lived in the lives of his +friends, their happiness meant his own.</p> + +<p>He found Lord John with Roddy, Rachel was with Aunt Adela, but "would be +back for tea." Lord John, rather solemn and awkward in black clothes, +was demanding comfort and assistance from his friends. His trouble was +that he did not miss his mother as fundamentally as he desired, and +that, at the same time, life was now most terribly different. His +brothers, Vincent and Richard, had instantly after the funeral adapted +themselves, with gravity and assurance, to the new conditions.</p> + +<p>Lord John had never adapted himself to anything, but had fitted his +stout body into the soft places that life had offered to him and had +been placidly grateful for their softness. Only once had he shown energy +of his own initiative and that had been in the matter of his nephew +Francis, and of that now he did not dare to think.</p> + +<p>He could never, so long as he lived, forget the slightest detail of that +horrible quarter of an hour with his mother when she discovered his +iniquity—and yet, even now, he felt, obscurely but obstinately, that he +had done right. Nevertheless he would never again take life into his own +hands: upon that he was absolutely resolved. What he needed now was +reassurance from his friends. He had always before found that life +arranged itself about him in a comfortable way and he confidently +expected that it would do so now, but meanwhile he must have kind looks +and words from somebody. He was a man who hailed with joy the +opportunity of bestowing affection upon a friend who was not likely, at +a later time, to rebuff him. He had never been quite sure of Rachel—she +was so strange and uncertain—but upon Roddy, helpless, good-natured, +and a man of his own world, he felt that he could rely. He spent +therefore many hours at Roddy's side, rather silent, smiling a great +deal, playing chess with him, sticking little flags on the War Map.</p> + +<p>At times, as he sat there, he would think of his mother, of the Portland +Place house shortly to be sold, of a world altered and alarming, and +then he would wonder how long the time would be before he might again +take up his old habits, his old houses, his old comforts, and then his +fat cheerful face would gather wrinkles upon its surface. "It's after a +thing like this that a feller gets old—Richard and Adela and I—We'll +have to make up our minds to it."</p> + +<p>Christopher found them busied with the map, discussing the probable hour +of Mafeking's relief. Lord John looked at Christopher a little +anxiously, perhaps <i>he</i> was going to be down upon <i>him</i>! But Christopher +was a very quiet and genial Christopher. He sank down into a chair with +a sigh of comfort, waved his hand to them.</p> + +<p>"Don't you mind me. I'm tired to death. Was up all last night with a +case——"</p> + +<p>"You see," said Roddy, "there's Ramathlabama. Well—Plumer lost a lot o' +men there and they say his crowd have had fever too and there ain't much +to hope for there—now Roberts——"</p> + +<p>But Lord John's attention was distracted. He wished to be quite sure +that Christopher did not regard him with severity.</p> + +<p>"You look fagged out, Christopher."</p> + +<p>"I am!" said Christopher, smiling.</p> + +<p>"I'm feeling a bit done up, too. Think I'll take Adela abroad somewhere +for a little."</p> + +<p>"I should," said Christopher. "Excellent thing for both of you."</p> + +<p>"Now where do you suggest?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, anywhere different from London. Go on a cruise——"</p> + +<p>"Adela's a bad sailor—wretched. I'm not very good myself."</p> + +<p>They discussed places. Christopher was more than friendly. There had +been occasions when he had been the stern family physician and had +treated Lord John with some severity. Now there was implied a new +comradeship as though they had passed through perils together and would +have always between them in the future a strong bond of friendship.</p> + +<p>John felt that the atmosphere at this moment was so friendly and +comforting that he would not risk the disturbance of it.</p> + +<p>He got up.</p> + +<p>"Think I'll be going on, Roddy. Don't like leaving Adela alone. Rachel +will be on her way here now, so I'll be getting back."</p> + +<p>He was staying with Adela at a quiet little hotel in Dover Street.</p> + +<p>"Well, good-bye for the moment, Christopher. Adela'd be very glad if +you'd come in and see her. Come and have lunch with us to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Thanks, I will."</p> + +<p>He stood, for a moment, looking out upon the park, warm and comfortable +under the sun. He thought of Rachel. He had regained the old Rachel the +other night at Beaminster—dear Rachel!</p> + +<p>Rachel, Roddy, Christopher—how nice they all were! There was, he felt, +a new feeling of security amongst them all. Yes, he really <i>did</i> +believe that life, now, was going to be very comfortable and safe and +easy....</p> + +<p>"So long, Roddy."</p> + +<p>He beamed happily upon them and went.</p> + +<p>Jacob, the dog, came in from his afternoon walk, very grave, paying no +attention to Christopher, but going at once and lying, full length, near +Roddy's sofa, his head between his paws, his eyes fixed upon his master.</p> + +<p>"What's happened to all your other dogs?" asked Christopher. "They must +be missing you very badly."</p> + +<p>"Oh, they're down at Seddon, got a jolly good man there whom I can +trust—don't think they miss me. <i>This</i> beggar would though. Funny +thing, Christopher—when I was goin' about and all the rest of it I +thought nothin' of this dog, couldn't see why Rachel made such a fuss of +it—now—why I don't know how I'd ever get on without it, so +understandin' and quiet with it all too. Nothin' like a trouble of some +sort for showin' who's worth what, whether they're dogs or people...."</p> + +<p>"I hope the funeral did Rachel no harm," Christopher said.</p> + +<p>"Not a bit of it. She'd had a last interview with the old lady and knew, +after that, she'd never see her again. In a way she hasn't felt it, but +in a way too I believe she'd like to have all the old time over again +and see whether she couldn't manage it better ... she said to me she'd +never understood the old woman until that last talk with her, not that +there was much love lost between 'em even then. Was Breton there?"</p> + +<p>"No—He scarcely could go, in the circumstances."</p> + +<p>"Funny feller, Breton. What puzzles me is what did he go and give up +Rachel so easily for? I couldn't tell you why, but that day he came here +I was as sure as I was lyin' here that whatever there was between them +was finished. I wouldn't have said what I did, seemed to take it so +quietly, if I hadn't seen in a minute it was all over."</p> + +<p>"Ah, you don't know Francis," said Christopher. "It's all romantic +impulses that set him going—Rachel romantic impulse on one side, +getting back to the family romantic impulse on the other. He knew if he +went off with her that getting back to the family would be over for ever +as far as he was concerned. He knew that he'd never cease to regret +it.... John Beaminster coming to him gave him what he'd been waiting +for, longing for. He seized it——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but it was more than that," said Roddy slowly. "It all lies with +Rachel. He never got close to her any more than I've done. I know now +that she's fond of me, but it's by the child I'll hold her and by my +helplessness, nothin' else. And she'll have her wild moments when myself +and everythin' about me will seem simply impossible, just as if she'd +gone off with Breton she'd have had her comfortable domestic sort of +longin's and hated <i>him</i> and everythin' about <i>him</i>. I believe Breton +knew—just as I knew—that never tryin' to hold her was the way to keep +her, and he'd have <i>had</i> to have her if he'd gone off with her....</p> + +<p>"Anyway, Rachel wouldn't be so adorable if there wasn't a lot of her +that no one man could master. But I've been given all the tricks in the +game by bein' laid up like this—just when I thought I'd lost all worth +havin' in life and never a chance of a kid again!... Funny thing, Life!</p> + +<p>"But she's mine! Christopher, and no one can take her. Breton's got his +idea of her; there <i>is</i> a bit of her that he stirred that I never could +touch, but it don't matter—she's the most wonderful creature on this +earth and I'm the luckiest beggar."</p> + +<p>"She'll be quieter," said Christopher, "now that the Duchess is gone. +They were always conscious of one another...."</p> + +<p>"And now there'll be the kid instead. If he's a boy I swear he shall be +the best rider, the best sportsman in this bloomin' old world—not that +I'd mind a girl, either. I'd like to have a girl—just the time for a +woman nowadays. Whichever way it is I'll be contented. Not, you know," +he added hastily, "that I'm going to be a sort o' blessed angel with +domestic bliss and never wantin' to get off this old sofa and the +rest—not a <i>bit</i> of it—it's damned tryin' and I curse hours together +often enough. Peters has the benefit of it. I wasn't born an angel and I +shan't die one...."</p> + +<p>"Nobody wants you to," said Christopher.</p> + +<p>"Well, you needn't worry. But it's funny how I get talkin' +nowadays—never used to say a word—now I gas away.... Well, cheers for +the new generation, cheers for young Roddy Secundus.... Long life to +him!"</p> + +<p>"There's one thing," said Christopher, looking at him. "Whatever +inspired you, that day you had the scene here, to behave to Frank Breton +as you did? To give them both carte blanche—it wouldn't be the way of +most husbands confronted with such a question—it was the <i>only</i> way for +Rachel ... but how did you know her well enough? You'll forgive my +saying so, your method as a rule is to drive straight in, let fly all +round, and then count the bits."</p> + +<p>"If you love anybody," said Roddy, with confusion and hesitation, "as +much as I love Rachel you become wonderfully understandin'.... Look +here," he broke off, "don't let's talk any more rot. Just drop all jaw +about feelin's and such. There's been an awful lot of it lately."</p> + +<p>He would say no more; they got the war map and, very happily for the +next quarter of an hour, moved flags up and down its surface.</p> + +<p>Then came Rachel and, after her, tea. They were a quiet but very happy +company during the next half-hour.</p> + +<p>"How's Aunt Adela?" asked Roddy.</p> + +<p>"Very well, considering," said Rachel. "Of course she's confused and +lost her bearings rather. She misses the Portland Place house more than +anything, I think—she was there so long. But Uncle Vincent was right; +it would have been very bad for her if she'd stayed in it.... She's +quiet and depending a lot upon Lizzie——"</p> + +<p>When tea was ended Rachel said, "Dr. Chris, I've got something to say to +you. I'm going to tear you away from Roddy for five minutes if you'll +come upstairs."</p> + +<p>"Well, that's a nice sort of thing——" protested Roddy.</p> + +<p>"I won't keep him." She took him up to the little drawing-room and as +they sat there by the window together he thought of that day when he had +told her the Duchess was downstairs with Roddy. They had all travelled a +long way since then.</p> + +<p>"There's a favour I want you to grant me."</p> + +<p>"Anything in the world."</p> + +<p>"It's about Francis—" She gave him the name with a little hesitation +and with an air of restraint as though about the very whisper penalties +could linger.</p> + +<p>"You're the best friend that he's got—the best friend any man could +have—and I want you to care for him, to look after him, to watch over +him. I know," she went on hurriedly, "that you always have done that, +but I want you to feel now that you're doing it a little for my sake as +well as your own. I want you to be the one link that I've still got with +him."</p> + +<p>"But Roddy asked him——" began Christopher.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes! I know—Roddy was splendid. But of course that can't be. We +can't meet, at any rate for years. Besides, that time is so utterly done +with. There's only Roddy now for me in all the world. But I know, +better, I expect, than you think, how weak Francis is, how much he +depends upon what the people whom he cares for say to him—and so I want +you——"</p> + +<p>"But of course," Christopher said. "He knows that he can count on me +whatever happens—he's always known that."</p> + +<p>He stopped and waited for her to continue; he saw that she had more to +say.</p> + +<p>"It's so strange," she said, staring, her eyes deep and black seeing +into sacred places that were known only to her, "how grandmother's +death has cleared, amazingly, the air. The motive for almost everything +has gone. I didn't see—I hadn't the least idea—how all my thoughts and +actions and wishes and impulses came from my sense of opposition to her. +Francis saw that—knowing that we both hated her—and that was why I was +so difficult with Roddy, because I thought that grandmother had arranged +the marriage and had him under her thumb—I had no idea of the kind of +person Roddy was."</p> + +<p>"Nor had I—nor had anyone," said Christopher.</p> + +<p>"That whole affair with Francis was in idea—always—more than in fact. +I knew, and I believe that he knew, that it was simply a piece of wild +rebellion on my part; and on his—well, he's like that, romantic, +rebellious, responding in a minute to everything, but wanting, really, +all the time to be safe and proper. That day we met in his rooms, we +both knew, at heart, that something was missing—something one had to +have if one was going to break away altogether. He was always a rebel by +force of circumstances, never by real inclination."</p> + +<p>She put her hand on Christopher's knee and drew very close to him. +"Chris dear, I'm terrified now when I think of how near I was to +absolute, complete disaster. If it hadn't been for Roddy's accident and +for Lizzie ... Lizzie's been to all of us everything in the world.</p> + +<p>"Do you remember once telling me about Mr. Brun's Tiger? I've often +thought of it since and it seems to me now that to all of us—for Roddy +and Francis and Lizzie and me—the moment of our consciousness came. +Ever since that day when they carried Roddy back to Seddon each one of +us has had to wait, just holding ourselves in.... But, you know, Dr. +Chris, that's the secret of the whole matter. It wasn't I, or Breton, or +even Lizzie or Roddy that defeated grandmother—it was simply Real Life. +First the War, then Roddy's accident—Roddy's accident most of all. We +had, all five of us, been leading sham lives, then suddenly God, Fate, +Providence, what you will, steps in, jerks us all back, takes away from +all of us what we thought we wanted most, puts us in line with the real +thing—our Tiger, if you like. Grandmother simply couldn't stand it. +Lizzie and Roddy are real—half of Breton and me, and most of +grandmother unreal—Well, Lizzie and Roddy have just put things straight +quietly.... Grandmother's generation saw things 'through a glass +darkly'—They're gone. It's all going to be 'face to face' now."</p> + +<p>Christopher looked at her, smiling. She was so young, so adorably young +with her seriousness.</p> + +<p>She broke in—"What rot I'm talking! It only comes to this, that I wish +now, like anything, that I'd been nicer to grandmamma. One sees things +always too late.... I'd like to have another try, to begin with +grandmamma again, to be more tolerant, to hate her less. But I expect in +the end it would be the same. She'd have had me tied up, without a will +of my own, without a word to say!... that was her idea of controlling us +all. It's over, it's done with—no one, I expect, will have her kind of +power again.... But she was fine! I only see now how fine she was!</p> + +<p>"No one, I expect, will have her kind of power again...."</p> + +<p>Now she stood away from Christopher, looking at him and also beyond him, +as though she were finally, once and for all, surveying, cataloguing +that same power—</p> + +<p>"She wasn't terrible, she wasn't fine, she wasn't really anything except +a kind of peg for all sorts of traditions to hang on to. In herself she +was just a plucky, theatrical, obstinate old woman. It was simply the +idea of her that frightened us all. I remember the first time that I saw +Yale Ross's picture of her—He'd caught all the ceremony and the terror. +It was then that I had the first faint suspicion that she didn't, in +herself, live up to the picture in the least.</p> + +<p>"I suppose," she went on, coming up closer to him, "that that's why no +one will ever be like her again—because no one will ever be taken in so +completely by shams again, never by the empty shell of anything. But +that's just how she influenced us—all of us. Myself, you, Lizzie, +Roddy, Francis ... we were all mixed up in it—</p> + +<p>"And then the first moment that we really came into contact with her she +wasn't anything—wasn't simply there. Do you know, Dr. Chris, seeing her +now, just an old sick woman, conscious that everyone was escaping her, I +almost love her!... I do indeed!"</p> + +<p>She sprang up and stood before him and laughed, crying—</p> + +<p>"I'm grown up, Dr. Chris, I'm grown up! It's taken a time, but it's +happened at last! Meanwhile I shall be the most perfect wife, the most +perfect mother, and when the Tiger is restive there'll be the youngest +Seddon to put it all into. Oh! What a child that child will be! Roddy +and his impatience, me and my tempers——"</p> + +<p>She laughed and for an instant her old fierce defiance was there then, +as though some spirit had flashed, before his eyes, through the window +into space and freedom it was gone. She herself proclaimed its +dismissal.</p> + +<p>"It's gone—it's all gone—Dr. Chris. I'm the happiest woman in +England!"</p> + +<p>But even as she spoke her eyes were wistful; half-seen, half-recalled, +eloquent with a colour, a flame that was too fierce for her present +world, hung before her the memory of a moment when, in a darkened room, +she had caught a letter to her lips, had sunk upon her knees before a +passion whose face she had scarcely seen but whose voice she had +heard and still now, in her new life, remembered. She had had her +moment ... the last strains of its dying music were still in her ears. +She caught her breath, then, turning, dismissed it; and, standing back +from Christopher, gave him her last word—</p> + +<p>"But look after Francis. Be with him as much as you can.... He needs all +that you can spare—He's got to be—he's simply <i>got</i> to be—the success +of the family!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIIIB" id="CHAPTER_XIIIB"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3>EPILOGUE—PROLOGUE</h3> + +<blockquote><p>"Third Apparition—A Child Crowned ..."</p> + +<p><i>Macbeth</i>.</p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Late on the evening of May 17th Christopher heard of the relief of +Mafeking. It was too advanced an hour, he understood, for the town to +display its triumph that evening. Let Christopher wait.</p> + +<p>The following night Brun, whom he had not seen for many months, +appeared. The clocks had struck nine and Christopher was finishing his +dinner, when the little man, shining and dapper, pleased and impersonal, +was shown in.</p> + +<p>"Hullo!" cried Christopher; "thought you were abroad somewhere."</p> + +<p>"I saw you at the Duchess's funeral. Of course I was there. What do you +suppose? Meanwhile come out now and see your fine people make +manifestations."</p> + +<p>"Is there a noise?"</p> + +<p>"A noise! <i>Mon Dieu!</i> But come and look!"</p> + +<p>They went out together. Harley Street was silent and deserted and above +it a night sky, scattered with stars, was serenely still. But, beyond +the further roofs and chimneys, golden light hovered and a confused +murmur, like the buzzing of bees, hummed upon space.</p> + +<p>Through Oxford Street a great crowd of people was passing, but it was a +crowd hurrying to find some other crowd. Oxford Street was plainly not +the meeting-place. There was a good deal of shouting and singing; young +men, five abreast, passed, girls with "ticklers" and whistles screamed +and laughed and sang; merry bells were ringing, lights flared in the +windows and now and again a rocket with a whiz and a shriek flashed +into the sky and broke with a little angry splutter into coloured stars.</p> + +<p>They crossed into Bond Street, down which other people were hurrying; +sometimes a roaring echo of a multitude of discordant voices would be +carried to them and then would be hidden again as though some huge door +in front of them were swinging to and fro.</p> + +<p>At the end of Bond Street, suddenly, as they might turn the corner of +some sea road and, instantly, be confronted with the crash of a plunging +surf, they met the crowd.</p> + +<p>"Look out!" cried Brun, clutching hold of Christopher's arm. "We don't +want to get drawn into this!"</p> + +<p>Although they had apparently been walking quietly down Bond Street with +no crowd about them, they now were pursued, upon all sides, by people. +They raised themselves on to a doorstep, hanging there, bending their +feet forward, and feeling that if the crowd in front of them were for a +moment to give way down they would go!</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, along Piccadilly, towards the clubs and Hyde Park Corner, a +thick mass of human beings was pressing. This gathering seemed, of +itself, to lack all human quality.</p> + +<p>A face, a voice, a hand, a cry——these things might now and again, as +fish flash in a stream, detach themselves; sometimes a light from a +flaring window or an illumination would fling into pale, unreal relief a +bundle of faces that represented, at that instant, a piece of human +history, but sank instantly back again into chaos.</p> + +<p>One might fancy that this was no crowd of human beings, but some new, +unknown creature, dragging its coils from the sluggish bed of some +hidden river, stamping to destruction as it went.</p> + +<p>Then as though one were watching a show, with a click, the human element +was back again. There two girls, their hats pushed aside, their hair +half uncoiled, their cheeks flushed, their eyes partly bold and partly +frightened, were screaming:</p> + +<p>"Oo're yer 'itting? Don't again then. Good old England! Gawd save——"</p> + +<p>It was not on the whole a crowd stirred only by national joy and pride. +It may, in its units, when it first left its many homes, have announced +its intention of giving "a jolly 'ooray" for our splendid country and +our Beloved Queen, but, once in a position from which there was no +returning, once in the hands of a force that was stronger than any felt +before, it had forgotten the country and its defeats and successes. Only +two courses open. Either admit fear, feel that the breath of you is +slowly but quite surely in process of being crushed out of you, feel +that your arms and legs are being torn from you, that your ribs are +being smashed into powder and that your heart is being pressed as flat +as a pancake, let then panic overwhelm you, fight and scream to get out +and away from it, see yourself finally falling, trampled, kicked, your +face squashed to pulp, your eyes torn out, your breath strangled in your +body ... so much for Fear. Or, on the other hand arouse Frenzy!</p> + +<p>Be above and beyond your body, scream and shout, rattle rattles and blow +whistles, trample upon everything that is near you, smack faces with +your hand, pull off clothing and scatter hats and bonnets, scream aloud, +no matter what it is that you are screaming, let your voice exclaim that +at length, at length, you, a miserable clerk on nothing a week, in the +City, are, for the first time in your existence, the Captain of your +soul, the ruthless master of a wretched, law-making tyrannous world.... +So much for Frenzy!</p> + +<p>Either way, be it Frenzy or Fear, the Country has not much to say to it +at all. With every moment it seems that from the Circus more bodies, +more arms and legs are being pressed and crushed and packed; with every +moment the clanging of the bells is louder, the fire in the sky higher +and wilder, the singing, the screaming, the oaths and the curses are +nearer, the defiance that loss of individuality gives.</p> + +<p>"Let's get back," said Brun. He turned, but, at that moment, someone +from behind him cried, "Oo are yer shoving there?" He was pushed, with +Christopher, half falling, half clutching at arms and shoulders, forward +into the street.</p> + +<p>They righted themselves, Brun fastened upon Christopher's arm, shouting +into his ear, "We'd better go along with the crowd for a bit. We'll get +a chance of cutting up Half Moon Street. Can't do anything else."</p> + +<p>They were pressed forward. Now, received into the bosom of the crowd, +they were conscious both of the human element and of the stronger +composite spirit that was mightier than anything human, a creation of +the City against whose walls they were now so riotously shouting.</p> + +<p>Next to Christopher was a young man in evening dress; his hat had +disappeared, his collar was torn, sweat was pouring down his forehead +and at the top of his voice he screamed again and again:</p> + +<p>"Good old England! Good old England! Good old Bobs! Good old Bobs!" +Squeezed up against Christopher's arm was a stout body that looked as +though it had once belonged to some elderly gentleman who liked white +waistcoats and brass buttons. From somewhere, in obvious connection with +these buttons, came a weak, breathless voice: "You'll excuse me hanging +on so, sir. It's familiar—not my way—but this crowd ..."</p> + +<p>A girl, with crimson face, leant against Christopher, put her arm round +his neck, tickled his face with a feather; she screamed with laughter: +"Oo-ray! Oo-ray—Oo-bloody-ray!"</p> + +<p>"Look out, you swine!" somebody shouted.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"And 'e shouted out, did Bobs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Come along, you stinking nobs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We will show you—"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Around them, above them, below them there tossed a whirlpool of noise, +something outside and beyond the immediate sounds that they were making. +Bells, voices, shouts that seemed to have no human origin, the very +walls and stones of the City crying aloud.</p> + +<p>Then, opposite the entrance to Half Moon Street another crowd seemed to +meet them. There was pause. "Get out of it!" "Go the other way." "Damn +yer eyes, step off it." "Go back, carn't yer?"</p> + +<p>It was then that for the briefest moment and for the first time in his +life Christopher was afraid. Someone was pressing into his back until +surely it would break, some other was leaning, and driving his chest in, +driving it so that the breath flooded his face, his eyes, his nose. +Colours rose and fell; someone's evil breath burnt upon his cheeks. +Light flashed before him in broad, steady flares.</p> + +<p>"Brun, Brun," he cried.</p> + +<p>"All right," a voice from many miles away answered him.</p> + +<p>He was seized with the determination to survive. They thought that they +could "down" him, but they should see that they were mistaken; his rage +rising, he was no longer Dr. Christopher of Harley Street, but something +savage, lawless beyond even his own control. He drove with his arms; +curses met him and someone drove back into him and a ridiculous face +with staring eyes that stupidly pleaded and a nose that was white and +trembling and a mouth that dribbled at the corners came up against his.</p> + +<p>"Keep back, can't you?" someone shouted.</p> + +<p>"Brun, Brun," he called again, and then was conscious that bodies were +giving way before him. His hand met a stomach covered with cloth and +little hard buttons, and then coming against a woman's arm soft and +warm, Christopher had instantly gained possession of his soul once more.</p> + +<p>"Hope I didn't hurt you," he heard himself saying, then, some barrier of +legs and bodies yielding, found that he was flung out, away, stumbling, +in spite of himself, on to his knee.</p> + +<p>He caught someone by the arm, and it was Brun.</p> + +<p>"Good Lord!" said Christopher.</p> + +<p>"It's all right," answered Brun. "We're in Half Moon Street. We're out +of it."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Somewhere in the peaceful retirement behind the clubs they surveyed one +another and then laughed. Brun—the dapper perfect Brun—had a bleeding +cheek, a torn waistcoat, and a large and very unbecoming tear in his +trousers. He was half angry and half amused—finally a survey of +Christopher, with mud on his nose and his collar hanging from one button +and revealing a fat red neck, restored his good temper.</p> + +<p>"You'd better come back with me," said Christopher, "and be cleaned up."</p> + +<p>They went back to Harley Street and half an hour later were sitting +quietly in easy chairs, with the house as though it were made of +cotton-wool, so silent and hidden was it, about them.</p> + +<p>Both men were excited; Christopher had been changed by the events of the +last few weeks, and Brun, if he had not been so personally involved, had +seen enough to excite his most eager curiosity and speculation.</p> + +<p>Brun's sharp little eyes, flashing across the tip of his cigar, sought +Christopher's large comfortable face, fell from there over his large +comfortable body, down at last to his large comfortable boots.</p> + +<p>"Well ... First time I've seen a Continental crowd in England."</p> + +<p>"Continental?"</p> + +<p>"Always your Englishman, however excited and of whatever rank, knows +there are things a gentleman doesn't do. Those people to-night had not +that knowledge. Very interesting," he added.</p> + +<p>Christopher peacefully smoked, his body well spread out in the chair, +his broad rather clumsy-looking fingers clutching devotedly at his +pipe.</p> + +<p>"So you were at the funeral the other day?"</p> + +<p>"I was. I expect I mourned her more sincerely than any of you. I'd never +seen her, but she meant a lot to me—as a symbol. And I like symbols +better than human beings."</p> + +<p>He pulled his body together with a little jerk and leaned forward: +"Christopher, do you remember, a long while ago, going into a gallery in +Bond Street and meeting Lady Adela Beaminster there and Lady Seddon? It +was just after Ross's portrait was first shown."</p> + +<p>"I remember," said Christopher, nodding his head. "You were there."</p> + +<p>"I was. I was there with Arkwright the African explorer man. I only +mention the day because Arkwright was interested in Lady Seddon, wanted +to know all about her, and I talked a bit, I remember. My point to him +was that there was a situation between that girl and her grandmother +that would be worth anybody's watching. I followed it myself for a while +and then I lost it. But you're a friend of the family—tell me, +Christopher, what happened between those two."</p> + +<p>"Nothing," Christopher said, laughing.</p> + +<p>"Oh, nonsense," Brun answered. "They were all in it. Something went on. +Then Seddon had that accident ... Breton was in it."</p> + +<p>But Christopher only smiled.</p> + +<p>"Well, if you won't—<i>n'importe</i>—I have my own idea of it all. That +girl was a fine girl, and the old woman was fine too—</p> + +<p>"But how they must have hated one another!"</p> + +<p>He chuckled; then sitting back in his chair, his little eyes on the +ceiling, he said almost to himself—"Once, years ago, when I was very, +very young and romantic—almost—just for a year or two I loved your +Shelley. He was everything—I could quote him by the page.... He's gone +from me now, or most of him has, but there was one line that seemed to +me then the most romantic thing I had ever read and has remained with +me always. It went—'And we'll have fires out of the Grand Duke's +wood'—It's in the letter to Maria Gisborne, I think—I've quite +forgotten what the context is now—it's all pretty trivial and +unimportant, but those were the days when I made pictures—I saw it! +Lord, Christopher, how it comes back! The wood, very thick, very large, +very black, no sun—very still, and the great house behind it, huge and +white, with long gardens and green lawns and peacocks, and the Grand +Duke, with his powdered wig, and diamond-buckled shoes, his gorgeous +suit, his jewelled sword, his snuff and his wine, his silly little +dried-up yellow face.</p> + +<p>"Then the rabble—dirty, smelling, ill-conditioned fellows—breaking +through the silence, tearing up the Wood, knocking down the palace, +hanging the Grand Duke from a tree, last of all, setting the whole thing +into the most splendid blaze!... Oh! of course that wasn't Shelley's +context—<i>his</i> was all about boiling a kettle or something—but that's +the way I saw it—just like that." Nothing stirred Brun like the sound +of his own voice and now he was getting very excited indeed and was +waving his hands.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Christopher placidly. "Very dramatic. What does it all +mean?"</p> + +<p>"Well, this. It seems to me that that's just what's been happening over +here. Your Duchess is dead and instead there is to-night's crowd. The +Grand Duke is gone and all that was his—now for the fires!"</p> + +<p>Christopher, filling his pipe, paused, and then, his voice grave and +serious: "Romantics aside, Brun, for a minute. Do you remember your +Tiger idea you delivered to me once? I've often thought of it since. You +said then that the reason why the Duchess and her times—the Grand Duke +and his wood—had got to go was because their policy had been to give +the Tigers of the world no liberty—to pretend indeed that they weren't +there, and that now the time had come when every man should declare his +Tiger, should give it liberty and, whether he restrained it or no, +acknowledge its existence.... Well, now—what I want to know is this. +What to your thinking is going to come of it all? I'm old-fashioned. I +like the old settled laws and customs and the rest of it, and yet I'm +not afraid of this new Individualism; but what I expect and what you +expect to come of it all are sure to be mightily different things."</p> + +<p>"They are," said Brun, laughing. "You see, Christopher, as I've often +said to you before, you're a sentimentalist—people matter to you; +you're concerned in their individual good or bad luck. Now none of that +is worth anything to me. I observe from the outside—always. What I want +to see is less muddle, more brain, less waste of time, more progress. I +believe the loosing of the Tiger is going to bring that about. That's +why I welcome it—I don't care one little damn about your +individual—let him be sacrificed every time for the general wisdom. +Your Duchess, she was good for her age. Now she is against progress. She +vanishes. That crowd of to-night has swept her away.... There'll be a +chaos here for a time—people like the Ruddards will mix things up; a +woman like Mrs. Strode will destroy as many good people as she can. But +the time will come; out of that crowd that we got into to-night a world, +ruled by brain, by common sense, by understanding, not by sentiment and +confusion, will arise.... May I not be with the good God!"</p> + +<p>"'Sentiment and confusion,'" said Christopher, smiling. "That's me, I +suppose."</p> + +<p>"Well, you <i>are</i> sentimental," said Brun. "You're stuffed with it."</p> + +<p>"Do you yourself ..." asked Christopher, "is there no one—no one in the +world—who matters to you?"</p> + +<p>"Nobody," said Brun. "No one in the world. I think I like you better +than anybody; you're the honestest man I know and yet one of the most +wrong-headed. Yes, I like you very much; but it would not be true to say +that it would leave any great blank in my life if you were to die. +Women! Yes, there have been women! But—thank the good God! for the +moment only. The Heart—no—The Brain—yes——"</p> + +<p>"Well, then," said Christopher, "that's all clear enough. It isn't very +wonderful that we differ. People are to me everything. Love the only +power in the world to make change, to work miracles; I don't mean only +sensual love, or even sexual love, but simply the love of one human +being for another, the love that leads to thinking more of your +neighbour than yourself—self-denial.</p> + +<p>"Self-denial; the only curb for your Tiger, Brun. I've been watching it +in a piece of private history, all this last year and a half. There +might have been the most horrible mess; self-denial saved it all the +time. You'll say that all this is so vague and loose that it's worth +nothing."</p> + +<p>"Not at all," said Brun politely. "Go ahead."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, the reason why I, old-fashioned and Philistine as I am, +hail the passing of the Grand Duke with joy—and I cared for the old +woman, mind you—is just this. I see some chance at last for the plain +man—not the clever man, or the especially spiritual man or the wealthy +man—but simply the ordinary man. When I say Brotherhood I don't mean +anything to do with associations or meetings or rules—Simply that I +believe in an age when a man's neighbour will matter to a man more than +himself, when it won't be priggish or weak to help someone in worse +plight than yourself, when it will simply be the obvious thing ... when, +above all, there'll be no jealousy, no getting in a man's way because he +does better than you, no knocking a man down because he sees the +world—this world and the next—differently. That's my Individualism, my +Rising City, and if you had watched the lives of a few friends of mine +during the last year or two as I've watched them you'd know that 'Love +thy neighbour as thyself' is the fire that's going to burn all the +Grand-Ducal woods in the world in time."</p> + +<p>Brun laughed. "You'll be taken in horribly one of these days, +Christopher."</p> + +<p>"You speak as though I were a chicken," Christopher broke out +indignantly. "Man alive, haven't I lived all these years? Haven't I seen +the poorest and rottenest and feeblest side of human nature time and +time again? But this I know: That it's losing the thing you prize most +that pays, it's the pursuit, the self-denial, the forgetting of self +that scores in the material, practical world as well as the spiritual, +heavenly one. That's where the Millennium's coming from. Brains as well +perhaps, but souls first."</p> + +<p>"We'll see," said Brun. "A bit of both, I dare say. Anyhow, it's the +next generation that's going to be interesting. All kinds of people free +who've never been free before, all sorts of creeds and doctrines smashed +that seemed like Eternity. The old woods flaming already. <i>Après la +Duchesse!...</i> But as for your Love, your Brotherhood, Christopher, I've +a shrewd suspicion that human nature will change very little. +Unselfishness? Very fine to talk about—but who's going to practise it? +Every man for his own hand, now as ever."</p> + +<p>"We'll see," answered Christopher. "I'm not clever at putting things +into words. If I were to go along to the man in the street and say, +'Look here, I've made a discovery—I've got something that's going to +make everything straight in the world,' and he were to say, 'What's +that?' and then I were to answer, 'Self-denial. Unselfishness—Love of +your neighbour,' he would, of course, instantly remind me that Someone +greater than myself had made the same remark a few thousand years ago. +He'd be right.... There's nothing new in it. But it's coming new to the +world just because the laws and conventions that covered it are +breaking. The Tiger in Every Man and Self-denial to curb it ... That's +my prophecy, Brun."</p> + +<p>Brun gave himself a whisky-and-soda. "No idea you were such a talker, +Christopher.... But I'm right all the same."</p> + +<p>He held up his glass.</p> + +<p>"Here's to the Tiger in the next generation." He drank, then held it up +again. "And here," he cried, "to the memory of the last Great lady in +England!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>When Brim had gone it seemed that he had left that last toast of his in +the air behind him.</p> + +<p>Christopher was haunted by the thought of the Duchess, he felt her with +him in the room; she stirred him to restlessness so that at last, +desperately, he took his hat and went out.</p> + +<p>His steps took him, round the corner, to Portland Place; here all was +very quiet, a few cabs in the middle of the street, a few lights in the +windows, the silver field of stars, in the distance the sky golden, +fired now and again into life as a rocket rose shielding beneath its +glow all that stirring multitude. Sounds rose—a cry, a shout, +singing—then died down again.</p> + +<p>He was outside No. 104. He thought that he would ring and see whether +Mrs. Newton were in; perhaps she had gone to bed, it was after eleven, +but, if she were there, he would take one last look at the Portrait +before it was packed up and sent down to Beaminster.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Newton unbolted the door and smiled when she saw him—"I was just +going to bed—There's only myself and Louisa here—and the watchman."</p> + +<p>"I won't keep you, Mrs. Newton," he said. "The fancy just took me to +look at some of the pictures once more before they're packed up. Lady +Seddon told me that a good many of them were to be packed up to-morrow; +they won't look quite the same at Beaminster."</p> + +<p>"No, that they won't, sir," said Mrs. Newton. "I shall miss the old +house. Just to think of the years; and now, all of us scattered!"</p> + +<p>She lit a lamp for him and he went up the stone staircase, found the +long drawing-room, and there, on the farther wall, the Portrait.</p> + +<p>The furniture, shrouded in brown holland, waited like ghostly watchers +on every side of him. The huge house, always a place of strange silences +and vast disturbances, multiplied now in its long mirrors and its air of +cold suspense as though it were waiting for something to happen, showed +its recognition of death and death's consequences.</p> + +<p>But the Portrait was alive! As he held the lamp up to it the face leapt +into agitation, the eyes were bent once again sharply upon him, the +mouth curved to speak, the black silk rustled against the chair.</p> + +<p>A host of memories crowded the room, he was filled with a regret more +poignant than anything that he had felt since her death.</p> + +<p>"She <i>was</i> fine! I miss her more than I had any notion that I would! She +stirred one up, she made one alive!"</p> + +<p>He put the lamp upon the floor and sat down for a minute amongst the +shrouded furniture.</p> + +<p>His mind passed from Brun's generalizations to the little bundle of +people whom he knew—Rachel, Francis, Roddy, Lizzie Rand. To all of them +the Tiger's moment had come; and out of it all, out of the stress and +suffering and struggle, Rachel's child was to be born—instead of the +Duchess the new generation. Instead of this old house, the hooded +furniture, the anger at all freedom of thought, the jealousy of all +enterprise, the slander and the malice, an age of a universal +Brotherhood, of unselfishness, restraint, charity, tolerance ...</p> + +<p>Perhaps after all, he <i>was</i> an old, sentimental fool. There had always +been those at every birth and every death who had had their dreams of +new human nature, new worlds, new virtues and moralities....</p> + +<p>He looked his last at the Portrait—</p> + +<p>"I'm nearly as old as you. I shall go soon. But I miss you ... you'd be +yourself surprised if you knew how much!"</p> + +<p>He took up the lamp and left her.... He said good night to Mrs. Newton +and closed the door behind him.</p> + +<p>Standing on the steps of the house he looked about him. Portland Place +was like a broad river running silently into the dark trees at the end +of it. There was a great rest and quiet here.</p> + +<p>Southwards the sky flamed, the noise of a great multitude of people came +muffled across space with the rhythm in it of a beating song. Rockets +slashed the sky, broke into golden stars; the bells from all the +churches in the town clashed and, from some great distance, guns +solemnly booming rolled through the air.</p> + +<p>Christopher, standing there, smiled as he thought of Brun's little +picture.</p> + +<p>Brun springing up, of course, at the right moment, to point his moral. +Brun, who appeared, like some Jack-in-the-box, in city after city, with +his conclusion, his prophecy, neat and prepared.</p> + +<p>"And we'll have fires out of the Grand Duke's Wood..."</p> + +<p>There was the Wood, there the mob, there the Grand Duke, dead and +buried—</p> + +<p>Christopher shrugged his shoulders; whatever Brun might say human beings +were more than summaries, prophecies, conclusions.</p> + +<p>As he looked towards the trees and felt a little breeze caress his face +with, he could swear, some salt of the sea, he thought of the human +beings who were his friends—Rachel, Roddy, Lizzie, Francis.</p> + +<p>And then it seemed to him that, out of the trees, down the shining +surface of Portland Place, a figure came towards him—the figure of +Rachel's child.</p> + +<p> </p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="NOVELS_BY_HUGH_WALPOLE" id="NOVELS_BY_HUGH_WALPOLE"></a>NOVELS BY HUGH WALPOLE</h2> + +<h3><i>STUDIES IN PLACE</i></h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i12">THE WOODEN HORSE<br /></span> +<span class="i12">MARADICK AT FORTY<br /></span> +<span class="i12">THE GODS AND MR. PERRIN<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h3><i>TWO PROLOGUES</i></h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i12">THE PRELUDE TO ADVENTURE<br /></span> +<span class="i12">FORTITUDE<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h3><i>THE RISING CITY</i></h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i12">1. THE DUCHESS OF WREXE<br /></span> +<span class="i12">2. THE GREEN MIRROR<br /></span> +<span class="i12">(<i>In preparation</i>)<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUCHESS OF WREXE***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 33086-h.txt or 33086-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/3/0/8/33086">http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/0/8/33086</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL</a> + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** +</pre> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/33086.txt b/33086.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f7fdb49 --- /dev/null +++ b/33086.txt @@ -0,0 +1,19306 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Duchess of Wrexe, by Hugh Walpole + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Duchess of Wrexe + Her Decline and Death; A Romantic Commentary + + +Author: Hugh Walpole + + + +Release Date: July 5, 2010 [eBook #33086] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUCHESS OF WREXE*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Lybarger, Mary Meehan, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +THE DUCHESS OF WREXE + +Her Decline and Death + +A Romantic Commentary + +by + +HUGH WALPOLE + +Author of "Fortitude," etc. + + + + + + + +New York +George H. Doran Company + +Copyright, 1914, +By George H. Doran Company + + + + + TO + MY MOTHER +A SMALL EXPRESSION OF GRATITUDE + BEYOND WORDS + + + "And we'll have fires out of the Grand Duke's Wood." + _Letter to Maria Gisborne_ + + + + +THE RISING CITY: I + +THE DUCHESS OF WREXE + +_NOTE: This is an age of Trilogies and Sequels. The title at the +beginning of this book, "The Rising City: I," may lead nervous readers +to fear yet another attempt in that extended and discursive direction_. + +_To reassure them I wish to emphasize this point--that_ The Duchess of +Wrexe _is entirely a novel complete and independent in itself. It is +grouped, with the two stories that will follow it, under the heading of +"The Rising City" because the three novels will be connected in place, +in idea, and in sequence of time. Also certain of the same characters +will appear in all three books. But the novels are not intended as +sequels of one another, nor is "The Rising City" a Trilogy.--H. W._ + + + + +CONTENTS + + +BOOK I: THE DUCHESS + + I Felix Brun, Dr. Christopher, Rachel Beaminster--They + Are Surveyed by the Portrait + + II Rachel + + III Lady Adela + + IV The Pool + + V She Comes Out + + VI Fans + + VII In the Heart of the House + + VIII The Tiger + + IX The Golden Cage + + X Lizzie and Breton + + XI Her Grace's Day + + XII Defiance of the Tiger--I + + XIII Defiance of the Tiger--II + + +BOOK II: RACHEL + + I The Pool and the Snow + + II A Little House + + III First Sequel to Defiance + + IV Rachel--and Christopher and Roddy + + V Lizzie's Journey--I + + VI All the Beaminsters + + VII Rachel and Breton + + VIII Christopher's Day + + IX The Darkest Hour + + X Lizzie's Journey--II + + XI Roddy Is Master + + XII Lizzie's Journey--III + + +BOOK III: RODDY + + I Regent's Park--Breton and Lizzie + + II The Duchess Moves + + III Roddy Moves + + IV March 13th: Breton's Tiger + + V March 13th: Rachel's Heart + + VI March 13th: Roddy Talks to the Devil and the Duchess + Denies God + + VII Chamber Music--A Trio + + VIII A Quartette + + IX Rachel and Roddy + + X Lizzie Becomes Miss Rand Again + + XI The Last View from High Windows + + XII Rachel, Roddy, Lord John, Christopher + + XIII Epilogue--Prologue + + + + +BOOK I + + +THE DUCHESS + + + + +CHAPTER I + +FELIX BRUN, DR. CHRISTOPHER, RACHEL BEAMINSTER--THEY ARE SURVEYED BY THE +PORTRAIT. + + +I + +Felix Brun, perched like a little bird, on the steps of the Rede Art +Gallery, gazed up and down Bond Street, with his sharp eyes for someone +to whom he might show Yale Ross's portrait of the Duchess of Wrexe. The +afternoon was warm, the date May of the year 1898, and the occasion was +the Young Portrait Painters' first show with Ross's "Duchess" as its +principal attraction. + +Brun was thrilled with excitement, with emotion, and he must have his +audience. There must be somebody to whom he might talk, to whom he might +explain exactly why this occasion was of so stirring an importance. + +His eyes lighted with satisfaction. Coming towards him was a tall, gaunt +man with a bronzed face, loose ill-fitting clothes, a stride that had +little of the town about it. This was Arkwright, the explorer, a man who +had been lost in African jungles during the last five years, the very +creature for Brun's purposes. + +Here was someone who, knowing nothing about Art, would listen all the +more readily to Brun's pronouncement upon it, a homely simple soul, +fitted for the killing of lions and tigers, but pliable as wax in the +hands of a master of civilization like Brun. At the same time Arkwright +was no fool; a psychologist in his way, he had written two books about +the East that had aroused considerable interest. + +No fool, Arkwright.... He would be able to appreciate Brun's subtleties +and perhaps add some of his own. + +He had, however, been away from England for so long a time that +anything that Brun had to tell him about the London world would be +pleasantly fresh and stimulating. + +Brun, round and neat, and a citizen of the world from the crown of his +head to the top of his shining toes, tapped Arkwright on his shoulder: + +"Hallo! Brun. How are you? It _is_ good to see you! Haven't seen a soul +I know for the last ever so long." + +"Good--good. Excellent. Come along in here." + +"In there? Pictures? What's the use of me looking at pictures?" + +"We can talk in here. I'll tell you all the news. Besides, there's +something that even you will appreciate." + +"Well?" Arkwright laughed good-humouredly and moved towards the door. +"What is it?" + +"The Duchess," Brun answered him. "Yale Ross's portrait of the Duchess +of Wrexe. At last," he triumphantly cried, "at last we've got her!" + + +II + +The Duchess had a small corner wall for her own individual possession. +The thin glowing May sunlight fell about her and the dull gold of her +frame received it and gave it back with a rich solemnity as though it +had said, "You have been gay and unrestrained enough with all those +crowds, but here, let me tell you, is something that requires a very +different attitude." + +The Duchess received the colour and the sunlight, but made no response. +She sat, leaning forward a little, bending with one of her dry wrinkled +hands over a black ebony cane, a high carved chair supporting and +surrounding her. She seemed, herself, to be carved there, stone, marble, +anything lifeless save for her eyes, the tense clutch of her fingers +about the cane, and the dull but brooding gleam that a large jade +pendant, the only colour against the black of her dress, flung at the +observer. Her mouth was a thin hard line, her nose small but sharp, her +colour so white that it seemed to cut into the paper, and the skin +drawn so tightly over her bones that a breath, a sigh, might snap it. + +Her little body was, one might suppose, shrivelled with age, with the +business and pleasure of the world, with the pursuit of some great +ambition or prize, with the battle, unceasing and unyielding, over some +weakness or softness. + +Indomitable, remorseless, unhumorous, proud, the pose of the body was +absolutely, one felt, the justest possible. + +On either side of the chair were two white and green Chinese dragons, +grotesque with open mouths and large flat feet; a hanging tapestry of +dull gold filled in the background. + +Out upon these dull colours the little body, with the white face, the +shining eyes, the clenched hand, was flung, poised, sustained by its +very force and will. + +Nothing in the world could be so fierce as that determined absence of +ferocity, nothing so energetic as that negation of all energy, nothing +so proud as that contemptuous rejection of all that had to do with +pride. + +It was as though she had said: "They shall see nothing of me, these +people. I will give them nothing" ... and then the green jade on her +bosom had betrayed her. + +Maliciously the dragons grinned behind her back. + + +III + +Arkwright, as he watched, was conscious suddenly of an overwhelming +curiosity. He had in earlier days seen her portrait, and always it had +been interesting, suggestive, provocative; but now, as he stood there, +he was aware that something quite definite, something uncomfortably +disconcerting had occurred; life absurdly seemed to warn him that he +must prepare for some new development. + +The Duchess had, he was aware, taken notice of him for the first time. + +Little Felix Brun watched Arkwright with interest. They were, at that +moment, the only persons in the room, and it was as though they had +begged for a private interview and had been granted it. The other +portraits of the exhibition had vanished into the mild May afternoon. + +"She doesn't like us," Brun said, laughing. "She'd turn the dragons on +to us if she could." + +"It's wonderful." Arkwright moved back a little. "Young Ross has done it +this time. No other portrait has ever given one the least idea of her. +She _must_ be that." + +Brun stood regarding her. "There'll never be anything like her again. As +far as your England is concerned she's the very, very last, and when she +goes a heap of things will go with her. There'll be other Principalities +and Powers, but never _that_ Power." + +"She's asked us to come," said Arkwright, "or, at any rate, asked _me_. +I wonder what she wants." + +"She's only asked you," said Brun, "to tell you how she hates you. And +doesn't she, my word!" + +There were voices behind him; Brun turned, and Arkwright heard him +exclaim beneath his breath. Then in a moment the little man was received +with: "Why, Mr. Brun! How fortunate! We've come to see my mother's +portrait." + +Arkwright caught these words, and knew that the lady standing there must +be Lady Adela Beaminster, the Duchess's only daughter. He had never seen +Lady Adela before, but it amused him now that she should resemble so +exactly the figure that he had imagined--it showed, after all, that one +could take the world's verdict about these things. + +The world's verdict about Lady Adela was that she was dull, but +important, bearing her tall dried body as a kind of flag for the right +people to range themselves behind her--and range themselves they did. +Standing now, with Felix Brun in front of her demanding a display of +graciousness, she extended her patronage. Thin, with her sharp nose and +tight mouth, she was like an exclamation mark that had left off +exclaiming, and it was only her ability to be gracious, and the sense +that she conveyed of having any number of rights and possessions to +stand for, that gave her claim to attention. + +Her black hat was harsh, her hair iron-grey, her eyes cold with lack of +intelligence. Arkwright thought her unpleasant. + +Standing a little behind her was a tall thin girl who was obviously +determined to be as ungracious as a protest against her companion's +amiability should require. The girl's thinness was accentuated by her +rather tightly clinging white dress, and beneath her long black gloves +her hands moved a little awkwardly, as though she were not quite sure +what she should do with them. A large black hat overshadowed her face, +but Arkwright could see that her eyes, large and dark, were more +beautiful than anything else about her. Her nose was too thin, her mouth +too large, her face too white and pinched. + +Her body as she stood there was graceful, but not yet disciplined, so +that she made movements and then checked them, giving the impression +that she wished to do a number of things, but was uncertain of the +correctness of any of them. + +She was of foreign blood Arkwright decided--much too black and white for +England. But it was her expression that demanded his attention. As she +watched Felix Brun talking to Lady Adela, she seemed to be longing to +express the contempt that she felt for both of them, and yet to have +behind that desire a pathetic hesitation as to whether she had a right +to be contemptuous of anyone. + +It was the pathos, Arkwright decided, that one ultimately felt +concerning her. She looked lonely, she looked frightened, and she looked +"in the devil of a temper." Her black eyes would be beautiful, whether +they were filled with tears or with anger, and it seemed that they must +very often be filled with both. "I wouldn't like to have the handling of +her," thought Arkwright, and then instantly after, "I'd like to take +away some of that loneliness." + +"She'll have a fine old time," he thought, "if she isn't too sensitive." + +Lady Adela had now moved forward with Brun to look at the picture, but +the girl did not move with them. She did not look at the portrait nor +did she appear to take any interest in the other pictures. She stood +there, making, every now and again, little nervous movements with her +black gloves. + +Arkwright moved about the gallery by himself a little, and he was +conscious that the girl's large black eyes followed him. He fancied, as, +for an instant he glanced back, that the Duchess from her high wall +leaned forward on her cane just a little further, so that she might +force the girl to give her attention. "That girl's got plenty of +spirit," thought Arkwright, "I'd like to see a battle between her and +the old lady. It would be tooth and nail." + +Then once again the door opened--there was again an addition to the +company. Arkwright was, at that moment, facing the girl, and as he heard +the sharp closing of the door he saw in her eyes the welcome that the +new-comer had received. + +She was transformed. The pallor of her face was now flooded with colour, +and she seemed almost beautiful as the hostility left her, and her mouth +curved in a smile of so immense a relief that it emphasized indeed her +earlier burden. Her whole body expressed the intensity of her pleasure; +her awkwardness had departed; she was suddenly in possession of herself. +Arkwright's gaze went past her to the door. The man who stood there was +greeting the girl with a smile that had in it both surprise and +intimacy, as though they were the two oldest friends in the world, and +yet he was astonished to see her there. The man was large, roughly +built, with big limbs and a face that, without being good-looking, +beamed kindness and good-nature. His eyes and mouth were sensitive and +less ragged than the rest of him, his nose the plainest thing about him, +was square and too large for his mouth. His hair was white, although he +looked between forty and fifty years of age. His dress was correct, but +he obviously did not give his clothes more consideration than the +feelings of his friends required of him. Ruddy of face, with his white +hair and large limbs and smiling good-humour, he was pleasant to look +upon, and Arkwright did not wonder at the girl's welcome; he would be, +precisely, the kind of friend that she would need--benevolent, +understanding, strong. + +They greeted one another, and then they moved forward and spoke to Lady +Adela and Brun. + +Arkwright watched them. There they all were, gathered together under the +sharp eyes of the Duchess, and she seemed, so Arkwright fancied, to hold +them with her gaze. Little Brun was neater than ever, and Lady Adela +drier than ever by the side of the stranger. They talked; they were +discussing the picture--their eyes travelled up to it, and for an +instant there was silence as though they were all charging it with their +challenge or surrender, as the case might be. The girl's eyes moved up +to it with a sudden sharpened, thinning of the face that brought back +the gleam of hostility that it had worn before. Then her eyes fell, and, +with a smile, they sought her friend. + +Arkwright did not know any reason for his interest, but he watched them +breathlessly, and the sense that he had had, on first entering the room, +of being on the verge of some new experience, deepened with him. + +Brun was apparently suddenly conscious that he had left his friend alone +long enough, for he detached himself from the group, shook hands with +Lady Adela and the girl, bowed stiffly to the man and joined Arkwright. + +"Seen enough?" he said. + +"Yes," said Arkwright. + +They went out together. + + +IV + +Felix Brun and Arkwright were not intimate friends. No one was intimate +with Brun, and the little man came and disappeared, was there and was +not there, was absent for a year, and then back again as though he had +been away a week, was, indeed, simply a succession of explanatory +footnotes to the social history of Europe. + +It was for the social history of Europe that he lived, for the eager +penetrating gaze into this capital and that, something suddenly noted, +some case examined and dismissed. Life is discovered most accurately by +those who learn to watch for its accidents rather than its intentions, +and it was always the things that occurred by change that gave Brun his +discoveries. He was a cosmopolitan of a multitude of acquaintances, no +friends, no occupation, an enthusiasm only for cynical and pessimistic +observation, invaluable as a commentator, useless as a human being. + +When, as was now the case, some chance meeting had assisted his theories +his neat little body shone like a celluloid ball. If, having made his +discovery, he might also have his audience to whom he might declare it, +then his very fingers quivered with the excitement of it. His hands, +white and thin and tapering, waved now. His eyes were on fire. As they +walked up Bond Street one might have imagined air-bladders at his +armpits, Mercury's wings at his heels. The quiet evening air was charged +with him. + +"Well," said Arkwright, smiling and looking down at his companion. "Who +are they all?" + +"Lady Adela Beaminster, Rachel Beaminster, Christopher----" + +"Christopher?" + +"Dr. Christopher, the Harley Street man. He's the Duchess' doctor, has +been for years. The girl was the Duchess' granddaughter--Lady Adela's +niece." + +"Well?" + +"The girl's coming out in three days' time. They're giving a ball in +Portland Place for her. Nobody knows much about her. She's been educated +abroad, and always kept very close when she's here. I shouldn't think +the old Duchess loves her much. She loved the girl's father, but he +married a Russian actress, bolted to Russia with her, and the old lady +never forgave him. He and the actress were both killed in a Petersburg +fire, and the child was sent home--only tiny then----" + +"Ah! that explains the foreign air she had. She didn't look as though +she loved her aunt very much either." + +"No--don't suppose she does. But that's not it--that's not it." + +They had arrived now at the top of Bond Street, and they paused for a +moment to allow the Oxford Street traffic to sweep past them. + +It was an hour of stir and clatter--hansoms, carts, lumbering omnibuses, +bicycles, all were hurled along as though by some impatient hand, and +the evening light crept higher and higher along the walls of the street, +leaving grey-purple shadows beneath it. + +They crossed over, and were instantly in a dim, golden, voiceless +square. It was as though a door had been closed. + +Brun still held Arkwright's arm. "Now we can talk--no noise. Francis +Breton has come back." + +To Arkwright this name, unfortunately, conveyed nothing. + +"You don't know?" Brun was disappointed. + +"Never heard of him." + +"Fancy that. World of wonders; what have you been doing with your time? +He is the Duchess's grandson, son of the beautiful, the wonderful Iris +Beaminster, who eloped with Kit Breton thirty years ago. I believe the +old Duchess pursued her relentlessly until the end. They were married +only a few years and then Iris Breton committed suicide. Kit Breton beat +her and was always drunk; an absolute rascal. There was one boy, and he +wandered about Europe with his father until he was twenty or so. Then +Kit Breton died, and the boy came home. Revenge on his grandmother was +his one idea. He was taken up by her enemies, of whom she always had a +goodly store, and they might have made something out of him, if he +hadn't developed his father's habits and finally been mixed up in some +gambling scandal, and forced to leave the country. + +"You can imagine what all this was to the Beaminsters--the great +immaculate Beaminsters--you can picture the Duchess.... He went and saw +her once ... but that's another story. Well, abroad he went, and abroad +he stayed--just now, coming out of the Gallery, I saw him----" + +"You are sure?" + +"Positive. There could be no mistake. He's just the same, a trifle +tireder, a trifle lower down--but the same, oh yes." + +It was when Brun was most excited that he was unmistakably the +foreigner. Now little exclamations that escaped him revealed him. As a +rule in England he was more English than the English. + +They had left the square and were passing up Harley Street. The houses +wore their accustomed air of profitable secrecy. The doors, the windows, +the brass knockers, the white and chastened steps were so discreet that +Sunday morning was the only time in the week when they were really +comfortable and at home. In every muffled hall there was lying in wait a +muffled man-servant, beyond every muffled man-servant there was a +muffled waiting-room with muffled illustrated papers: only the tinkling, +at long intervals, of some sharp little bell from some inner secrecy +would pierce that horrible discretion. Upon both men that shining +succession of little brass plates produced its solemnity. + +Arkwright was nevertheless interested by Brun's discoveries. He was +accompanied, as they talked, by that picture of the thin, dark girl +moving restlessly her long, gloved hands. He could see now that look +that she had flung at the picture.... Oh! she was interesting! + +"But tell me, Brun," he said, "you go on so fast. As I understand you +there are these two, Breton and the girl, both of them the result of +tragedies.... Do they know one another, do you suppose?" + +"No. The girl was only a small child when Breton was in England, and you +can be sure that she was carefully kept out of his way. But now that +he's back ... now that he's back!" + +"It's the girl that interests me!" said Arkwright. + +"Oh! the girl!" Brun was almost contemptuous. "There you go--English +sentiment--missing all the time the great thing, the splendid thing." + +"Explain," Arkwright said, laughing; "I know you won't be happy until +you have." + +"Why--it's the Duchess, the Duchess, the Duchess all the time. She's the +centre of the picture; she _is_ the picture. _She's_ the subject." + +Arkwright said nothing. Brun tossed his hands in the air. + +"Oh--you English! No wonder you're centuries behind everything--you miss +the very things under your nose. There's the Duchess, sitting there--a +great figure as she has been these sixty years, but a figure hidden, +veiled. There she has been for the last thirty years, shut up in that +great house, wrapped about and concealed. Nobody knows what the matter +was--I don't know. I should think Christopher's the only man who can +tell. At any rate, thirty years ago she retired altogether from the +world, and sees only the fewest of people. But all the ceremony goes on, +dressing up, receiving, and the influence she has! She was powerful +enough before she disappeared, but since! Why, there's no pie she hasn't +her finger in: politics, society, revolution, life, death; nothing goes +on without her knowledge, her approval, her disapproval----" + +"Her family, poor dears!" + +"Oh; they love it--at any rate, the ones who are left do. The rebels are +the younger generation. Society in England, my dear Arkwright, is +dissolved into three divisions--the Autocrats, the Aristocrats, and the +Democrats. I take my hat off to the Aristocrats--the Chichesters, the +Medleys, the Darrants, the Weddons. All those quiet, decorous people, +poor as mice many of them, standing aside altogether from any movements +or war-cries of the day, living in their quiet little houses, or their +empty big ones, clever some of them, charitable all of them, but never +asserting their position or estimating it. They never look about them +and see where they are. They've no need to. They're just there. + +"The Democrats are quite a new development--not much of them at +present--the Ruddards, the Denisons, the Oaks--but we shall hear a lot +of them in the future, I'm sure. They'll sacrifice anything for +cleverness; they must be amused; life must be entertaining. They embrace +everybody: actors, Americans, writers; they're quite clever, mind you, +and it's all perfectly genuine. They're not snobs--they say, 'Here are +our lands and our titles. You're common and vulgar, but you've got +brains--you're amusing and we're well born--let's make an exchange. Life +must be fun for us, so we'll have anyone with money or talent." + +"Then, last of all, the Autocrats--the Beaminsters, the Gutterils, the +Ministers. I'm using Autocrat in its broadest sense, but that's just +what they are. You _must_ have your quarterings, and you must look down +on those who haven't. But, more than that, everything must be preserved, +and continual ceremonies, dignities, chastities, restraints, pomps, and +circumstances. Above all, no one must be admitted within the company who +is not of the noblest, the stupidest, the narrowest. + +"The Beaminsters are the bodyguard of this little army, and the Duchess +is their general. There, behind her shut doors, she keeps it all going; +an American like Mrs. Bronson, a democrat like George Lent, she spoils +their games here, there, everywhere. So far all has been well. But at +last there are enemies within her gates--that girl, Breton. Now, at +last, for the first time in her life, she must look out." + +He paused. They had reached Portland Place. To right and left of them +the broad road was golden in the sun--dark trees guarded one end of it, +bronzed roofs the other. + +Two carriages stood like sentinels at the upper end. + +Brun raised his hand as though he would invoke the spirit of it. "There, +Arkwright, there's your subject. The Duchess, tiny, indomitable, +brooding over this place. This square of London round the Circus, your +prostituted street, this splendour, Harley Street, Morris Square with +its respectability, Ferris Street with its boarding-houses, over them +all the Duchess is ruling. There's not one of them, I dare fancy, that +is not conscious of her existence, not one of them that will not see +life differently when she is gone. Meanwhile, she'll fight for her +Autocrats to the last breath, and she's got a battle in front of her +that will take her all her time. And when she goes the Autocrats will go +with her, the Beaminsters as Beaminsters will be done for; life here +round the Circus will never be the same again. There's a new city +rising, Arkwright, and the new citizens may forget, the Aristocrats may +compromise with the Democrats, but they'll turn out the Autocrats. A lot +of good things will go with them--good old things--but a lot of fine new +things will come in." + +As they passed out of Portland Place the wooden-legged crossing-sweeper +touched his hat to them. + +"Will _he_ come in?" said Arkwright, laughing. + +"Perhaps," said Brun gravely. + +Arkwright shook his head. "You can talk, Brun, you can say a lot. But +it's artificial the whole of it. Your subject, as you call it, is in the +air. We're realists nowadays, you know." + +Brun's flat stared at them with its hideous red brick and ugly +shapelessness. No romance for Dent Street; the glittering expanse of +Portland Place was gone. + +"You can't be a realist only, if you're to do the Duchess properly," +said Brun. "There's more than that wanted." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +RACHEL + + "My dear thing, it all comes back, as everything always does, + simply to personal pluck. It's only a question, no matter when + or where, of having enough."--HENRY JAMES. + + +I + +No. 104 Portland Place was the house where the Duchess of Wrexe had +lived now for sixty years. On the left as you go towards the park it had +an air that no other house in the Place had ever been able to catch. +There were certain buildings, Nos. 31, 26, 42, for instance, that were +obviously doing their little best to present a successful imitation, but +they were left a long, a very long way behind. The interesting thing +would be to know whether No. 104 had had that wonderful "note" sixty +years ago, when the Duchess came to it. Probably not; it was, beyond +question, her presence that had thus given it its distinction. Its grim +facade, without her, would not so strangely have hinted at beauties and +wonders and glories within, nor would the windows have gleamed so +finely, nor the great hall-door have symbolized such rich dark depths. + +Here the temple of the Beaminsters, here, therefore, the shrine of all +that is best and finest in English aristocracy. It was indeed the +largest house in Portland Place, and most of the houses there were +large, but, across that blank austere front more was written than mere +size. It was Age at its most scornful, but observant Age, an Age that +could compare one period with another, an Age that had not forgotten the +things that belonged to its Youth. + +There was very little, up and down Portland Place, at morning, at +midday, at night, that the house did not perceive. Those high, broad, +shining windows were not as other windows--there was assertion in their +very bland stupidity. + +Within the house was dark and cold, with high square rooms, wide stone +staircase, and a curious capacity for clutching any boisterous or seedy +humanity on the very threshold and strangling it. + +From the hall the great stone staircase was the feature. It struck a +chill, at once, into the heart of the visitor so vast was it, so cold +and white, so uncompromising, so scornful of other less solid +staircases. Very ancient, too--went back a long, long way and would +last, just like that, for ever! + +What people it must have known, what scenes, what catastrophes +encountered! About it, on either side, the hall vanished into blackness; +here a gleaming portrait, there some antlers, here again an +eighteenth-century gentleman with a full wig and the Beaminster nose and +comfortable contempt in his eyes ... and, around and about it all, +silence; no sound from any part of the house penetrated here. + +Up the stone staircase, passages, doors, more family portraits, more +staircase, more passages, more doors and, somewhere, in some hidden +solemnity, the ticking of a clock, so lonely in all that silence that +every now and again it would catch its breath with a little whir, as +though it wondered whether it really could go on in the teeth of so +contemptuous an indifference. + +Rachel Beaminster's sitting-room overlooked Portland Place, and caught +the sun on lucky days for quite a time. It was small, square of shape, +like a box with a high window, a tiny fireplace, an arm-chair, and a +squat table with a bright blue cloth. + +Always during the two years that had been devoted to "finishing" in +Munich she had had that little room, cosy, compact, before her. Now did +it seem a little shabby, the carpet and tablecloth and curtains a little +faded; it yet had its cosiness, there in the heart of the great waste +and desert that the house presented to her. + +The little silver clock on the mantelpiece had struck five: she had come +back with Aunt Adela from the picture gallery, and, hearing voices in +the Long Drawing-room (the voices said, "My dear Adela, we just +came...." "Adela dear, how well...."), she slipped up the stairs and +secured her own refuge, and rang for tea to be brought to her there. + +She wanted to think: she wanted to lie in the arm-chair there with the +window a little open and the evening air coming from the park across +Portland Place curiously scented like the sea. + +As she lay back in her chair her body seemed fragile, and, almost, in +its abandonment, exhausted. Under the black eyes her cheeks and neck +were very white, and her black hair gave it all the intensest setting. + +She _was_ tired, horribly tired, and she wondered, vaguely, as she lay +there how she was ever to manage this life that, in three days' time, +she must take up and carry, a life that offered, perhaps, a little +freedom, a little release, but so many, so many terrors. + +As her gaze took in the little room--its grey paper, a photograph of +Uncle John, a book-case with poets, some miscellaneous and +untidy-looking novels, and a number of little red Carlyles, a china +cockatoo with an impertinent stare, a copy of Furze's "Ride," and a +water-colour of red Munich roofs signed "Mary," a tiny writing-table +with one old yellow photograph of a sad dark woman in a silver +frame--these things were, it seemed the only friendly things she knew. +Outside this room there was her grandmother, the house, London, the +world--more and more horrible as the circles grew wider and wider. + +At the mere thought of the things that she must, in three days' time, +face, her heart began to beat so that she could scarcely breathe, and, +with that beating, came the iron determination that no one should ever +know. + +She could not remember a time when these two emotions had not come +together. She saw, as though it had happened only an hour ago, a tiny +child in a black frock stumbling across endless deserts of carpet +towards someone who looked older and more curious than anything one +could have conceived possible. Someone sitting in a high carved chair, +someone leaning on a stick, with two terrifying great dragons behind +her. + +The child was seized with such a panic that her breath came in little +pumping gasps, her legs quivered and trembled, her mouth was open, her +eyes like saucers. And then, suddenly, after what had seemed a century +of time, there came the thin trembling voice: "Why, the child's an +idiot!" + +Since that awful day Rachel had determined that "no one should ever +know." There had come to her, at that moment, the knowledge that round +every corner there might lurk dragons and a witch. Sometimes they were +there, sometimes they were not, but always there was the terror before +the corner was turned. + +Life for Rachel during those early years was one long determination to +meet bravely that half-hour, from six to half-past. Every evening at +five minutes before six down the long passages she would be led, then +would come the short pause before the dark door, a pause when the +beating of the child's heart seemed the only sound in the vast house; +then the knock, someone's voice "Come in," then the slow opening of the +door, the revelation of the strange dim room with the old mirrors, the +purple carpet, the china dragons, and grandmother in the high carved +chair. There was always, in the hottest weather, a fire burning, always +Dorchester, a large ugly woman, behind the chair, always the cockatoo +see-sawing on a golden perch and crying out every now and again with +shrill, hostile cries. And then, in the centre of this, grandmother, +with her terrible hands, her terrible nose, her terrible eyes, and, most +terrible of all, her voice. + +Rachel would sit upright on her chair, and very often nothing would be +said throughout the half-hour. Sometimes Dorchester would ask questions, +such as: "And what has Miss Rachel been doing to-day?" "Did Miss Rachel +enjoy her walk in the park this afternoon?" "Has Miss Rachel enjoyed her +lessons to-day?" Sometimes, and these were the terrible occasions, her +grandmother would speak: "Well, have you been a good little girl?" or +"Tell me what you have been doing, child." + +At the sound of that voice the room would flood with terror: the child +would still, by an effort of will, her body. She could feel now, from +all that distance of years, the discipline that it had needed to steady +her little black legs that dangled from her chair. She learnt, in time, +to control herself so that she could give long answers in a grave, +reserved tone. + +The old lady never moved as she spoke, only bent forward and stared at +her, as though she would see whether it were the truth that she were +speaking. + +As the days passed and Rachel grew older it was around this half-hour +that the house ranged itself. The things in it--the rooms, the passages, +the stairs, the high, cold schoolroom with its shining maps and large +frigid table, the tapestry room, long and dark and mysterious with +strange beasts and horsemen waving in the dusk, the white drawing-room +so delicate and fragile that the furniture seemed to be all holding its +breath as though a little motion in the air would dissipate it, the vast +dining-room with the great hanging candelabra, and the family portraits +and the stone fireplace--all these things existed only that that +terrible half-hour might fling its shadow about the day. + +The child was much alone; she had governesses, a music master, a drawing +master, but from these persons, however friendly they might be, she held +aloof. She told them nothing of her thoughts. She had behind her her +very early years that were now to her like a dream; she did not know +that it had ever really existed, that picture of snow and some dark kind +figure that was always beside her protecting her, and in the air always +a noise of bells. As she grew older that picture was not dimmed in the +vision of it, but only she doubted its authenticity. Nevertheless, the +memory provided a standard and before that standard these governesses +were compelled to yield. + +There were, of course, her uncles and her aunt. Aunt Adela was more +immediately concerned in the duty of her niece's progress than any +other, but as a duty she always, from the first, represented it. From +that first morning, when she had given her cold dry cheek to the little +girl to kiss until now, three days before Rachel's freedom, she had made +no suggestion nor provocation of affection. "It is a business, my dear +niece," she seemed to say, "that, for the sake of our family, we must go +through. Let us be honest and deny all foolish sentiment." + +To this Rachel was only too ready to agree. She did not like her Aunt +Adela. Aunt Adela resembled a dry, wintry tree, a tree whose branches +cracked and snapped, a tree that gave no hope of any spring. Rachel +always saw Aunt Adela as an ugly necessity; she was not a thing of +terror, but merely something unpleasant, something frigid and of a +lukewarm hostility. + +Then there were the uncles--Uncle Vincent, Uncle John, and Uncle +Richard. + +Uncle Vincent, the Duke, was over sixty now and very like his mother, +withered and sharp and shrivelled, but he was without her terror, being +merely dapper and insignificant, and his sleek hair (there was only a +little of it very carefully spread out) and his white spats were the +most prominent things about him. He was fond, Rachel gathered, of his +racing and his club and his meals, and he was unmarried. + +Uncle Richard had been twice Prime Minister and was a widower. He lived +in a beautiful house in Grosvenor Street, and collected wine and fans +and first editions. He was always very kind to Rachel, and she liked his +tall thin figure, bent a little, with his high white forehead, +gold-rimmed pince-nez on the Beaminster nose, and beautiful long white +hands. She went to have tea with him sometimes, and this was an hour of +freedom and delight, because he talked to her about the Elizabethans and +Homer, and, when she was older, Nietzsche and Kant. She liked the warm +rooms, with their thick curtains and soft carpets and rows and rows of +gleaming glittering books, and he always had tea in such beautiful china +and the silver teapot shone like a mirror. But she never felt that she +was of the same value to him as a first edition would be, and he talked +to her of the Elizabethans for their sake, and not for hers. + +Lastly, there was Uncle John, and her heart was divided between Uncle +John and Dr. Christopher. Uncle John was a dear. He was round and fat, +with snow-white hair that had waves in it, and his face resembled that +of a very, very good-natured pig. His nose was not in the least a +Beaminster nose, being round and snub and his eyes beamed kindliness. +Rachel, although she had always loved him, had long learnt to place no +reliance upon him. His aim in life was to make it as comfortable, as +free from all vulgar squabble and dispute, as pleasant for everyone +everywhere as it could possibly be. He was a Beaminster in so far as he +thought the Beaminsters were a splendid and ancient family, and that +there was no other family to which a man might count himself so +fortunate to belong. But he was kind and pleasant about the rest of the +world. He would like everyone to have a good time, and it was vaguely a +puzzle to him that it should be so arranged that life should have any +difficulties--it would be so much easier if everything were pleasant. +When, however, difficulties did arise they must at all costs be +dismissed. There had been no time in his life when he had not been in +love with some woman or other, but the hazards and difficulties of +marriage had always frightened him too much. + +He was not entirely selfish, for he thought a great deal about the +wishes and comforts of other people, but unpleasantness frightened him, +like a rabbit, into his hole. He lived the life of the "Compleat +Bachelor" at 93 Portland Place, having a multitude of friends of both +sexes, spending hours in his clubs with some of them, week-ends in +country houses with others of them, and months in delightful places +abroad with one or two of them. + +He was very popular, always smiling and good-natured, and cared more for +Rachel than for anyone else in the world ... but even for Rachel he +would not risk discomfort. + +There they all were, then. + +Gradually they had emerged, for her, out of the mists and shadows, +arranging themselves about her as possible protections against that +horrible half-hour of hers. She soon found that, in that, at any rate, +they would, none of them, be of use to her except Uncle John. Uncle +Vincent did not count at all. Uncle Richard only counted as china or +pictures counted. + +Uncle John could not count as a very strong defence, it was true, but he +was fond of her; he showed it in a thousand ways, and although he might +never actually stand up for her, yet he would always be there to comfort +her. + +Not that she wanted comfort. From a very early age indeed she +resolutely flung from her all props and sympathies and sentiments. She +hated the house, she hated the loneliness, most of all she hated +grandmother ... but she would go through with it, and no one should know +that she suffered. + + +II + +Then, when she was seventeen, came Munich. + +On the day that she first heard that she was to go to Germany to be +"finished" the flashing thought that came to her was that, for a time at +any rate, the "half-hour" would be suspended. Standing there thinking of +the days passing without the shadow of that interview about them was +like emerging from some black and screaming, banging, shouting tunnel +into the clear serenity of a shining landscape. Two years might count +for her escape, and perhaps, on her return, she would be old enough for +her grandmother to have lost her terrors--perhaps.... + +Meanwhile, that Germany, with its music and forests and toys and +fairies, danced before her. Her two years in it gave her all that she +had expected; it gave her Wagner and Mozart and Beethoven, it gave her +Goethe and Heine, Jean Paul and Heyse, Hauptmann and Moerike, it gave her +a perception of life that admitted physical and spiritual emotions on +precisely the same level, so that a sausage and the _Unfinished +Symphony_ gave you the same ecstatic crawl down your spine and did not, +for an instant, object to sharing that honour. + +Munich also gave her the experience and revelations of May Eversley. + +There were some twenty or thirty girls who were, with Rachel, under the +finishing care of Frau Bebel, but Rachel held herself apart from them +all. She could not herself have explained why she did so. It was partly +because she felt that she had nothing, whether experience or discovery, +to give to them, partly because they seemed already so happy and +comfortable amongst themselves that they had surely no need of her, and +partly because she feared that from some person or some place, suddenly +round the corner there would spring the terror again. She could even +fancy that her grandmother, watching her, had placed horrors behind +curtains, closed doors, grimed and shuttered windows.--"If you think, my +dear," she might perhaps be saying, "that you've escaped by this year or +two in Germany, you're mightily mistaken.--Back to me you're coming." + +But May Eversley was different from the other girls. She was different +because she saw things without a muddle, knew what she wanted, knew what +she disliked, knew what was delightful, knew what was intolerable. + +To Rachel this clear-cut decision was more enviable than any other +quality that one could have. At this stage of her experience it was the +assent, so it seemed to her, that could give life its intensest value. +"Sit down and see, without any exaggeration or false colouring, what +you've got. Take away, ruthlessly, anything that you imagine that you've +got but haven't. See what you want. Take away ruthlessly everything +that you imagine that you would like to have but are not confident of +securing. See what's happened to you in the past. Take away ruthlessly +any sentimental repentances or sloppy regrets, but learn quite +resolutely from your ugly mistakes." + +Rachel's world had hitherto been limited very largely to the schoolroom +in Portland Place, the park and Beaminster House, the country +place-in-chief (three others, one in Leicestershire, one in +Northumberland, one in Norfolk), but even within this limited country +the terrific importance of those rules was driven in upon her. + +She felt that her grandmother was clear-headed, but, no, none of the +others--not Aunt Adela, nor the uncles, nor any of the governesses. She +was allowed to meet one or two little boys and girls of her own age. She +walked with them in the park, played with them at Beaminster House, had +tea with them occasionally, but they were, none of them, clear-headed. + +She was not priggish about this discovery of hers. She did not despise +other people because their definite rules did not seem to them of +importance. She did not talk about these things. + +To see facts very steadily without blinking was impelled upon her by the +necessity for courage. It was the only weapon wherewith to fight her +grandmother. "Now," she might say to herself, "this half-hour of yours. +Is it so bad? What definitely do you fear about it? Is it the knock at +the door? Is it the crossing the room? Is it answering questions?" + +So challenged her terror did fall, a little, away from her, ashamed at +its inadequate cause. So she went to face every peril--"Is the danger +really so bad? What exactly is it?..." + +May Eversley was thin and spare, small with sharp features, pince-nez, +hair brushed sternly back, and every inch of her body trained to the +purpose that it was meant to fulfil. She rang her sentences on the air +like coin on a plate. Meanwhile, as she explained to Rachel, she had +been fighting since she was five. Her mother, Lady Eversley, was the +widow of Tom Eversley, now happily deceased, once the most dissolute +scamp in Europe. He had died leaving nothing but debts behind him. Since +then his widow and his daughter had lived in three little rooms above a +public house off Shepherd's Market, and the widow had battled to keep up +the gayest of appearances. May had been, at a very early age, introduced +to the struggle. "My silver mug and rattle were pawned to get a dress +for mother to go to a drawing-room in. I shouldn't be here now if it +weren't for an uncle, and it's the last thing he'll do for us. So back I +go in two year's time--to do my damnedest." + +Of course she was clear-headed--she had to be. + +"There are only two sorts of people," she said to Rachel. "Like +soup--thick and clear--the Clear ones get on and the Thick don't." + +May obviously liked Rachel, but was amused by her. Nobody, it seemed to +May, showed so nakedly her emotions as Rachel, and yet, also, nobody +could produce, more suddenly, the closest of reserves. May, to whom the +world had been, since she was six, a measured plain of contest, +marvelled at the poignancy of Rachel's contact with it. "If she's going +to be hurt as easily as this by everything, how on earth is she going to +get through?" + +Then, as the Munich days passed, May found, to her own delight, Rachel's +keen sense of humour. Munich afforded enough food for it, and finally +one discovered that Rachel smiled more readily than she trembled, but +she hid her smile because, as yet, she was not sure of it. + +"All she wants," May Eversley concluded, "is to be told things." + +Nobody in the world could be better adapted to give out these +revelations. London, to May Eversley, was an open book; moreover, the +most stormy of battle-fields on which the combatants fought, were +wounded, were slain, were gloriously victorious. + +She told Rachel a great deal--a great deal about people, a great deal +about sets and parties, a great deal about likes and dislikes. She had +on her side one burning curiosity to know about Rachel's Duchess. "Is +she as terrible, so tremendous as people say? Has she such a brain even +now? Old Lady Grandon, who was a great friend when they were both girls, +says that she wasn't clever then a bit--rather stupid and shy--but you +never know. Jealousy on old Grandon's part, I expect. They say she's +wonderful still." + +Questions of taste never worried May Eversley, and it did not worry her +now that Rachel might dislike so penetrating an inquisition. But at +least May got nothing for her trouble. Rachel told her nothing. + +May's final word was, "You care too much about it all--care whether it's +going to hurt, whether it's going to be frightening or not. My advice to +you is, just dash in, snatch what you can, and dash out again. It +doesn't matter a hair-pin what anyone says. Everyone says everything in +London, and nobody minds. They've all got the shortest memories." + +Rachel, sitting now in her little room and thinking of Munich wondered +how completely her own discovery of London would coincide with May's. +May's idea of it was certainly not Aunt Adela's. Aunt Adela, Rachel +thought, was far too dried and brittle to risk any sharp contact with +anything. None of her uncles, she further reflected, liked sharp +contacts, and yet, how continually grandmother provided them! + +How comfortable all of them--Aunt Adela and the uncles--would be without +their mother, and yet how proud they were of having her! For herself, +Rachel faced her approaching deliverance with a tightening of all the +muscles of her body. "I won't care. It shall be as May says--and there +are sure to be some comfortable people about, some people who want to +make it pleasant for one." + +Then there was a tap at the door and Uncle John came in. Uncle John +often came in about half-past five. It was a convenient time for him to +come, but also, perhaps, he recognized that that approaching half-hour +that Rachel was to have with his mother demanded, beforehand, some kind +of easy, amiable prologue. + +To-day, however, there was more in his comfortable smiling countenance +than merely paying a visit warranted. He stood for a moment at the door +looking over at her, rather fat but not very, his white hair, his pearl +pin, his white spats all gleaming, a rosiness and a cleanliness always +about him so that he seemed, at any moment of the day, to have come +straight from his tub, having jumped, in his eagerness to see you, into +his beautiful clothes, and hurried, all in a glow, to get to you. + +"They're all chattering downstairs--chattering like anything. There's +Roddy Seddon, old Lady Carloes and Crewner and some young ass Crewner's +brought with him and your Uncle Dick looking bored and your Aunt Adela +looking nothing at all--and so out of it I came." + +He came over and sat on the broad, fat arm of her chair and looked out, +in his contented, amiable way, over the light, salmon-coloured and pale, +that now had persuaded Portland Place into silence. His eyes seemed to +say: "Now this is how I like things--all pink and quiet and +comfortable." + +Rachel leant a little against his shoulder, and put her hand on his +knee-- + +"You've had tea down there?" + +"Yes, thank you--all I wanted. What have you been doing all the +afternoon?" + +He put his own hand down upon hers. + +"Oh! Aunt Adela and I went to look at grandmother's portrait." + +"Well?" + +"It's as clever as it can be. To anyone who doesn't know her, it's the +most wonderful likeness. It's what grandmother would like herself." + +He caught the note in her voice that threatened the pink security of +Portland Place. He held her hand a little tighter. + +"In what way?" + +"Oh, it's got the dragons and the tapestry and the purple carpet. All +the coloured things that grandmother like so much and that help her so. +Why, imagine her for a second in an ordinary room, in an old arm-chair +with a worn-out carpet and everlastings on the mantelpiece; what _would_ +she do? The young man, whoever he is, has helped her all he can." + +Rachel felt his grasp of her hand slacken a little. + +"Yes, I know it's wrong of me to talk like that. But it's all so sham. +It's like someone in one of those absurd fantastic novels that people +write nowadays when half the characters are out of Dickens only put into +a real background. I'm frightened of grandmother--you know I always have +been--but sometimes I wonder whether----" + +She paused. + +"Whether there's anything really to be frightened of. And yet the relief +when I can get off this half-hour every evening--the relief even now +when I'm even grown up--oh! it's absurd!" + +"Well, my dear, you're coming out, you're going to break away from all +of us--you'll have your own life now to make what you like of." + +"Yes, that's all very well. But I've been brought up all wrong. Most +girls begin to come out when they're about ten and go on, more and more, +until, when the time actually comes, well, there's simply nothing in it. +I've never known anyone intimately except May, and now at the thought of +crowds and crowds of people, at one moment I'd like to fly into a +convent somewhere, and at the next I want to go and be rude to the lot +of them--to get in quickly you know, lest they should be rude to me +first." + +Now that she had begun, it came out in a flood. "Oh! I shall make such a +mess of it all. What on earth am I to talk about to these people? What +do they want with me or I with them? What have I ever to say to anybody +except you and Dr. Chris, and even with you I'm as cross as possible +most of the time. Grandmother always thought me a complete fool, and so +I suppose I am. If people aren't kind I can't say a word, and if they +are I say far too much and blush afterwards for all the nonsense I've +poured out. It doesn't matter with you and Dr. Chris because you know +me, but the others! And always behind me there'd be grandmother! She +knows I'm going to be a failure, and she wants me to be--but just to +prove to her, just to prove!" + +She jumped up, and standing in front of the window, met, furiously, a +hostile world. Her hands were clenched, her face white, her eyes +desperate. + +"--Just to prove I'll be a success--I'll marry the most magnificent +husband, I'll be the most magnificent person--I'll bring it off----" + +Suddenly her agitation was gone--she was laughing, looking down on her +uncle half humorously, half tenderly. + +"Just because I love you and Dr. Chris, I'll do my best not to shame +you. I'll be the most decorous and amiable of Beaminsters.--No one shall +have a word to say----" + +She bent down, put her arms round his neck, and kissed him. Then she sat +down on the edge of the arm-chair with her hands clasped over his knee. +Uncle John would not have loved her so dearly had he not been, on so +many occasions, frightened of her. She was often hostile in the most +curious way--so militant that he could only console himself by thinking +that her mother had been Russian, and from Russia one might expect +anything. And then, in a moment, the hostility would break into a +tenderness, an affection that touched him to the heart and made the +tears come into his eyes. But for one who loved comfort above everything +Rachel was an agitating person. + +Now as he felt the pressure of her hands on his knees, he knew that he +would do anything, anything for her. + +"That's all right, Rachel dear," was all that he could say. "You hold on +to me and Christopher. We'll see you through." + +The little silver clock struck six. She got up from the chair and smiled +down at him. "If I hadn't got you and Dr. Chris--well--I just don't +know what would happen to me." + +Meanwhile Uncle John had remembered what it was that he had come to say. +His expression was now one of puzzled distress as though he wondered how +people could be so provoking and inconsiderate. + +He looked up at her. "By the way," he said, "it's doubtful whether +mother will see you this evening. You'd better go and ask, but I +expect----" + +"What's happened?" + +"I may as well tell you. You're bound to hear sooner or later. Your +cousin Francis is back in London. He's written a most insulting letter +to your grandmother. It's upset her very much." + +"Cousin Frank?" + +"Yes. He's living apparently quite near here--in some cheap rooms." + +May Eversley had, long before, supplied Rachel with all details as to +that family scandal. + +Rachel now only said: "Well, I'll go and see whether she would like me +to come." + +For a moment she hesitated, then turned back and flung her arms again +about her uncle's neck. + +"Whatever happens, Uncle John, whatever happens, we'll stick together." + +"Whatever happens," he repeated, "we'll stick together." + +His eyes, as they followed her, were full of tenderness--but behind the +tenderness there lurked a shadow of alarm. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +LADY ADELA + + "At first it seemed a little speck, + And then it seemed a mist; + It moved and moved, and took at last + A certain shape, I wist." + + _The Ancient Mariner._ + + +I + +Lady Adela had returned from that visit to her mother's portrait with a +confused mind. She was not used to confused minds and resented them; +whenever so great an infliction came upon her she solved the confusion +by dismissing it, by leaving her mind a blank until it should take upon +itself to be clear again. To obtain that blank an interval of reflection +was necessary, and now, to-day, that had been impossible. On returning, +she had been instantly confronted by a number of people who required to +be given tea and conversation, and no time had been allowed her in which +she might resolve that her mind should be cleared. + +Her confusion was that the portrait of her mother was precisely like, a +most brilliant affair, and yet wasn't like in the least. Further than +that, in some completely muddled way, it was in the back of her mind +that her mother, suddenly, this afternoon, presented herself to her as +not entirely living up to the portrait, as being less sharp, less +terrible, less magnificent. Horror lest she should in any way be +doubting her mother's terror and magnificence--both proved every day of +the week--lay, like a dark cloud, at the back of her confusion. + +She could not, however, extract anything definite from the little +cluster of discomforts; old Lady Carloes and Lord Crewner, a young thing +that Lord Crewner had brought with him, and her brother Richard were +all waiting for tea, and floods of conversation instantly covered Lady +Adela's poor mind and drowned it. + +The Long Drawing-room, where they now were, was long and narrow, with +two large open fireplaces, a great deal of old furniture rather faded +and very handsome, silver that gleamed against the dark wall-paper, one +big portrait of the Duchess, painted by Sargent twenty years ago, and +high windows shut off now by heavy dark green curtains. + +The Duchess, it was understood, did not approve of electric light and +the house therefore disdained it. Parts of the room were lighted by +candles placed in heavy old silver candlesticks. Round the fireplace at +the farther end of the light shone and glittered; there the tea-tables +stood, and round about them the company was gathered. + +The rest of the room, hung in dark shadow, stretched into black depths, +lit only now and again by the gleam of silver or glass as the light of +the more distant fire flashed and fell. + +The voices, the clatter of the tea-things, these sounds seemed to be +echoed by the darker depths of the farther stretches of the room. + +Lady Carlos was eighty, extremely vigorous, and believed in bright +colours. She was dressed now in purple, and wore a hat with a large +white feather. Her figure was bunched into a kind of bundle, so that her +waist was too near her bosom and her bosom too near her chin and her +chin too near her forehead. + +It was as though some spiteful person had pressed all of her too closely +together. But this very shapelessness added to her undoubted amiability; +her face was fat and smiling, her hair white and untidy, and she +maintained her dignity in spite of her figure. Nobody knew anything with +certainty as to her income, but she was charitable, and ran a little +house in Charles Street with a great deal of ceremony and hospitality. +Her husband had long been dead and her two daughters had long been +married, so that she was happy and independent. Many people considered +her tiresome because her curiosity was insatiable and her discretion +open to question, yet she was a staunch Beaminster adherent, an old +friend of the Duchess, and saw both this world and the next in the +proper Beaminster light. + +Lady Adela depended on her a good deal, at certain times: she had +forseen that the old lady would come to-day; she had heard of course of +Frank Breton's arrival in town, she would demand every detail; Lady +Adela knew that the account that she gave to Lady Carloes would be the +account that the town would receive. + +By the fire Lord Richard, Lord Crewner and the nondescript young man +were talking together. Lady Adela caught fragments. "But of course +Dilchester is incautious--when was he anything else? What these fellows +need----" + +That was her brother. + +And then Lord Crewner, who believed that the windows of White's and +Brook's were the only courts of Ultimate Judgment. "That's all very +well, Beaminster, but I assure you, they were saying last night at the +club----" + +As far as all that was concerned Lady Adela flung it aside. She must +attend to Lady Carloes, she must give to her the version of Frank +Breton's arrival that her mother would wish her to give. But what _was_ +that version? And _was_ her mother really to be depended upon? + +At so terrible a flash of disloyalty Lady Adela coloured.--Why were +things so difficult this afternoon? And why had she ever gone to that +picture-gallery? + +Lady Carloes had, however, not yet arrived at Frank Breton. She never +paid a visit anywhere without tabulating carefully in her mind the +things that she must know before leaving the house. Her theory was that +she was really very old indeed, and couldn't possibly live much longer, +and that no moment therefore must be wasted. The more news that she +could give and receive before her ultimate departure, the more value +would her life have in retrospect. + +She never went definitely into the exact worth that all the gossip that +she collected might have for anybody or anything; as with any other +collection it was pursuit rather than acquisition that fired the blood. +At the back of her old mind was a perfect lumber-room of muddle and +confusion--dusty gossip, cobwebs of scandal, windows thick with grime +and tightly closed. There was no time left now to do anything to that. +Meanwhile every day something was purchased or exchanged; muddle there +might be, but, thank God, nobody knew it. + +"You must be very busy about the ball, my dear." + +"Yes--it means a great deal of work. It's so long since we've had +anything here, but Norris is invaluable. You don't find servants like +that nowadays." + +"No, my dear, you don't. But, of course, it will go off splendidly. +We're all so anxious that Rachel shall have a good time. It's the least +we can do for your mother." + +At the mention of Rachel Lady Adela's thoughts straightened for a +second; _that_ was where the confusion lay. It had been Rachel's +attitude to the portrait that had caused Lady Adela's own momentary +disloyalty. Of course Rachel hated her grandmother. Lady Adela made a +little sound with her fingers, a sound like the clicking of needles. + +"As far as Rachel is concerned nobody can tell possibly how she's going +to take it all. I don't pretend to understand her." + +Lady Carloes found this interesting--she bent forward a little. "We're +all greatly excited about her. You've kept her away from all of us and +one hears such different accounts of her. And of course her success is +most important--as things are just now." + +Lady Adela answered, "I can tell you nothing. She isn't in the least +like any of us, and I don't suppose for a moment that she'll listen to +anybody. She made a friend of May Eversley in Munich, and I don't think +that was the best thing for her. But you know--I've talked about this to +you before." + +Not only had Lady Adela talked; all of them had done so. In the +Beaminster camp this appearance that Rachel was about to make was of the +last importance. There were enemies, redoubtable enemies, in the field. +Rachel Beaminster's bow to the world was for the very reason that all +the world was watching, a responsibility for them all. + +But there were many rumours. Rachel was not to be relied upon--she hated +her grandmother, she was strange and foreign and morose. Lady Carloes +was not happy about it, and Lady Adela's attitude now was anything but +reassuring. + +John Beaminster came in. Lady Carloes liked him because he was +good-tempered and injudicious. He told her a number of things that +nobody else ever told her, and he had so simple a mind that extracting +news from it was as easy as taking plums from a pudding. He did not come +over to them at once, but stood laughing with Lord Crewner and his +brother. He would come, however, in a moment, so Lady Carloes made a +last hurried plunge at her friend. + +"What's this I hear, my dear, about Frank Breton?" + +"Yes, it's perfectly true. He's come back, and has taken rooms quite +near here. He wrote to mother----" + +Lady Carloes took this in with a gulp of delight. "My dear Adela! What +did he say?" + +"Oh! a very rude letter. He told mother that he knew that she would like +him to be near at hand and that they ought to let bygones be bygones, +and that he was sure that she would be glad to hear that he was a +reformed character. Of course he hates all of us." + +"What will you all do?" + +"Oh! Nothing, of course. We gave him up long ago. By a tiresome +coincidence he's taken rooms in the same house as my secretary, Miss +Rand. I would send her away if she weren't simply invaluable. But it +gives him a kind of a link with us." + +"Monty Carfax saw him yesterday. He's lost his left arm, Monty says, and +looks more of an adventurer than ever. So tiresome for your mother, my +dear." + +Then, as Lord John began to break away from the group at the fireplace +and move towards them---- + +"Roddy Seddon told me he might look in this afternoon.... Your mother's +so devoted to him. He seems to understand her so well." + +The two ladies faced one another. Their eyes crossed. Lady Carloes +murmured, "Such a splendid fellow!" then, as Lord John's cheerful laugh +broke upon them---- + +"Isn't Rachel coming down?" she asked. + + +II + +Lady Adela left her brother and Lady Carloes together and crossed over +to the group at the fireplace. Of all her brothers, she liked Richard +best. He seemed to her to be precisely all that a Beaminster should be: +she liked his appearance--his fine domed forehead, his grey hair, his +long rather melancholy face, his austere and orderly figure. + +He had to perfection that reserve, that kind benignancy that a +Beaminster ought to have; whenever Lady Adela questioned the foundations +upon which the stability of her life depended he reassured her. Without +saying anything at all, he gravely comforted her. That is what a +Beaminster ought to do. + +She knew, as she saw him standing there by the fire, that _he_ would +never doubt his mother. To him she would always be splendid and +magnificent, and with what determination would he expel from him any +base attacks on that loyalty! Lady Adela thought that power to expel +resolutely and firmly everything that attacked the settled assurance of +one's mind the finest thing in the world. + +Lord Crewner was a thin, handsome man of any age at all over forty and +under sixty. He was polished and brushed and scrubbed to such an extent +that he looked like an advertisement of some fine old English firm that +produced, at great cost and with wonderful completeness, Fine old +English gentlemen. He believed in not thinking about things very much, +because thinking let in Radicals and diseases and the poor, and made one +uncomfortable. He loved the London that he knew, a London bounded by +Sloane Square, the Marble Arch, Trafalgar Square and Westminster. + +He was a bachelor, but might have married Lady Adela had the Duchess not +refused to hear of Lady Adela leaving her; he adored the Duchess, +although he was scarcely ever allowed to see her because he bored her. +He always lowered his voice a little when talking to women, and +heightened it a little when talking to men; to his valet he spoke in the +voice that Nature had given him. + +Lady Adela was reassured as she came towards them. Although she did not +especially desire to marry Lord Crewner, the thought that he might, had +affairs been differently arranged, have asked her, placed him, in her +eyes, apart from other men. At any rate these two were comfortable to +her, and, for a moment, she was able to dismiss Rachel and Frank Breton +from her mind. + +They talked easily beside the fireplace. The voices of Lady Carloes and +Lord John, the pleasant murmur of the fire, the ticking clocks, all +helped that lazy swaying of time and space about one, that happy +reassurance that as the world had been so would it continue ever to be, +and that the old emotions and the old experiences and the old opinions +would always hold their own against all invasion and decay. + +Lord Richard talked of Chippendale and some wonderful Lowestoft, Lord +Crewner talked of Madeira and Lady Masters' new house; Lady Adela +listened and was soothed. + +Upon them all broke a voice: + +"Sir Roderick Seddon, my lady." + +There stood in the doorway the freshest, the most beaming of young men. +He was tall and broad; his face was of a red-brick colour, and his dark +London clothes, although they were well cut and handsome enough, were +obviously only worn to please a necessary convention. His hair was light +brown and cut close to his head, and his body had the healthy sturdiness +of someone whose every muscle was in proper training. + +He came forward to the group at the fireplace with the walk of a man +accustomed to space and air and freedom; his smiling face was so genial +and good-humoured that the whole room seemed to break away a little from +its decorous and shining propriety. They were all pleased to see him. +Lady Carloes and Lord John came over and joined the group, and they +stood all about him talking and laughing. + +Roddy Seddon was the only young man whom the Duchess permitted, and +people said that that was because he was the only young man who had +never shown any fear of her. The knowledge of this fact gave him in Lady +Adela's eyes a curious interest. She beheld him always rather as she +would have beheld anyone who had learnt an abstruse language that no one +else had ever mastered or some traveller who was reputed to have said or +done the most extraordinary things in some savage country. How _could_ +he? What talisman had he discovered that protected him? And then, +swiftly on that, came the curious thought that she herself was glad that +she had her terror, that she was proud, in some strange, inverted way, +that any Beaminster could have the effect upon anyone that her mother +had upon her. + +But Roddy Seddon had another especial interest for her, for it was +Roddy, all the Beaminsters had decided, who was to marry Rachel. Roddy +was, in every way, the right person; not very wealthy, perhaps, but he +had one nice place in Sussex, and Rachel would not, herself, be a +pauper. + +Roddy would never let the Beaminsters down; he hated all these new +invaders as strongly as any Beaminster could. He hated this mixing of +the classes, this perpetual urging of the working man to think. + +"Lots of our fellows," Lady Adela had heard him say, "get along without +thinkin'--why not the other fellers?" + +She felt now that a conversation with Roddy would complete the soothing +process that Lord Crewner and her brother had begun. He would finally +reassure her. + +She had no difficulty in securing him. Lady Carloes sat by the fire and +talked to Lord Crewner, and the nondescript, and the two brothers +departed. + +When Roddy had drunk his tea, she led him away to the farther part of +the long dim room, and there by that more distant fireplace the two of +them sat, shadowy against the leaping light, their faces and their hands +white and sharp and definite. + +"Who else is dinin' on Thursday?" + +She gave him names. "The Prince and Princess are coming, you know, but +they aren't alarming. They've been often to see mother when they've been +over here before. They're getting old enough now to be comfortable. He +dances like anything still." + +"I always like dinin' in the place you're dancin' at. You don't get that +shivery feeling comin' up the stairs and puttin' your gloves on. You're +one up on the others if you've been dinin'." + +Lady Adela looked at him, and sighed a little impatiently. He was +incredibly young and might, after all, let them down. + +He was thirty now, but he looked not a day more than nineteen, and he +always talked and behaved as though he were still in his last year at +Eton. She opposed him, in her mind's eye, to that figure of Frank Breton +that had been before her all day. How could a mere boy stand up against +a scoundrel like that? + +Moreover, she had heard stories about Roddy. Women had terrible power +over him, she had been told, and then, with a glance at him, sighed +again at the thought that her own time had gone by for having power +over anybody, even Lord Crewner. + +Well, after all, her mother knew the boy better than anyone did and her +mother loved him--better than everyone else put together her mother +loved him. + +"How's Rachel takin' it?" + +"How does Rachel take anything? She never says anything, and one never +knows. She seems to have no curiosity, or eagerness." + +"I was talkin' to May Eversley about her the other night. May says +she'll be splendid." + +"I don't like May Eversley"--Lady Adela nervously moved her hands on her +lap. "I wish Rachel hadn't made such friends with her in Munich." + +"Oh, May's all right." Roddy's blue eyes were smiling. "Took her down to +Hurlingham yesterday and we had no end of a time." + +It was a pity, Lady Adela reflected, that Roddy was so absolutely on his +own. + +His mother had died at his birth, and his father had been dead for five +years now, and here it seemed to Lady Adela a curious coincidence that +both Rachel and Roddy were orphans--and both so young. + +She leant forward towards him-- + +"You can do a lot for Rachel, Roddy. You can help her to understand her +grandmother, you can reconcile her to all of us." + +"Oh! I say," Roddy laughed. "Perhaps she won't have anythin' to say to +me, you know. My seein' your mother so often is quite enough----" + +"No. She likes cheerful people--Dr. Christopher and John. You're in the +same line of country, Roddy. She doesn't like me, and I haven't got the +things in me to draw affection out of her. I'm not that kind of woman." + +As a rule Lady Adela betrayed no emotion of any kind, but now, this +afternoon, both to Lady Carloes and Roddy she had made some vague, +indefinite appeal. Perhaps the news of Breton's arrival had alarmed her, +perhaps her visit to the gallery with Rachel had really disturbed her. +She seemed to beg for assistance. + +Roddy analysed neither his own emotions nor those of his friends, but, +this afternoon, Lady Adela did appear to him a little more human than +before. He was suddenly sorry for her. + +"Rachel'll be all right," he assured her. "Wait a bit. By the way, I met +that little feller Brun yesterday--said he was comin' on Thursday. He's +wild about your mother's picture----" + +"Yes--we saw him at the gallery this afternoon. Rachel and I were +there." + +"Rachel! What did she think of it?" + +"Seemed to take no interest in it at all. We were there only a few +minutes----" + +Silence fell between them, a silence filled with meaning. Lady Adela had +intended to speak about Breton--now, suddenly, she could say nothing. +The mention of the picture-gallery had brought back all her earlier +discomfort--she saw the picture, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the +white pinched cheeks. Then she saw the great bedroom upstairs, the high +white bed, the little shrivelled figure. + +Had Rachel pointed this contrast? Had Breton? Was it something that +Roddy had discovered already, something that had made his courage so +easy for him? What, what was going to be done with her if she were no +longer afraid? Why, on that terror, on that trembling service, were +built the foundations of all her life. How could she face that picture +that the world had of a splendid, historic, dominating figure if she +herself saw only a sick, miserable old woman tumbling to pieces, passing +to decay? + +The minutes had passed, and she had said nothing. Roddy must be +wondering at her silence. To her relief Lady Carloes came towards her to +say good-bye. + +Roddy's eyes were puzzled. For what had she carried him off if she had +nothing to say to him? + + +III + +When they were all gone she went up to her mother. Before the door she +paused. The house was very still, and her heart was furiously beating. + +She opened the door, and at the sight of the room was instantly +reassured. + +Dorchester met her. "Her Grace went to bed early to-night. But she will +see you, my lady." + +Lady Adela stepped softly to the farther door. All was well. About her, +around her, within her, was that same splendid terror, that same +knowledge that she was approaching some great presence that had been +with her all her life---- + +As she opened the bedroom door and saw the high white bed she knew that +her mother was more magnificent, more wonderful than any painted picture +could possibly make her. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE POOL + + +I + +On that same afternoon in another part of the house Miss Rand, Lady +Adela's secretary, finished her work for the day, and prepared to go +home. + +It was about a quarter-past six, and the May evening was sending through +the windows its pale glow suggesting soft blue skies and fading lights. +Miss Rand's room told you at once everything about Miss Rand. For +efficiency and neatness, for discipline and restraint, it could not be +beaten. Miss Rand herself was all these things, efficient and neat, +disciplined and restrained. + +Her room had against one white and shining wall a black and shining +typewriter. Against another wall was a table, and on this table were so +many contrivances for keeping letters and papers decent and docketed +that it made every other table the observer could remember seem untidy +and littered. There was nothing in the room superfluous or unnecessary, +and even some carnations in a green bowl near the window looked as +though they were numbered and ticketed. + +Miss Rand was a little woman who appeared thirty-five when she was busy, +and twenty-five when someone was pleasant to her. When she was at work +the broad dark belt that she wore at her waist was her most +characteristic feature. Then, in keeping with this, was her dark hair, +beautiful hair perhaps if it had been allowed some freedom, but now +ordered and sternly disciplined; she wore no ornaments, and about her +there was nothing out of place nor extravagant. + +Her face was full of light and colour and her eyes were beautiful, but +no one considered them: it was impossible to look beyond that stern +shining belt--one felt that Miss Rand herself would resent appreciation. + +From ten o'clock in the morning until five o'clock in the evening the +huge Portland Place house absorbed her energies. She saw it sometimes in +her dreams, as a great unwieldy machine kept in place by her hand, but +leaping, did she leave it for an instant, trembling, soaring, carrying +destruction with it into the heart of the city. + +Meanwhile her hand was upon it. From Norris the butler, from Dorchester +the guardian of the Duchess's apartments, down to the smallest, most +insignificant kitchen-maid, Miss Rand knew them all. There was, of +course, Mrs. Newton, the most splendid and elevating of housekeepers, +but when matters below stairs went beyond her control Miss Rand could +always arrange them. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, that, in the +way of managing her fellow-creatures, Miss Rand could not do. + +But it was because Miss Rand never occurred to any single creature in +the Portland Place house as a sentient breathing human being that she +succeeded as she did. She had no prejudices, no angers, no rebellions, +no rejoicings. She was the little engine at the heart of the house that +sent everything into motion. "One can't imagine her eating her meals, +Mrs. Newton," Mr. Norris once said. "And as to her sleeping like you or +me----" + +To see her now as she put the final touches to her room before leaving +it, arranging a paper here and a paper there, going to the bookshelf and +pushing back a book that jutted in front of the others, setting a chair +against the wall, placing the blotting-pad exactly in the middle of the +table, finally taking her hat and coat and putting them on with the same +careful and almost automatic distinction--this sufficiently revealed +her. She seemed, as she looked for the last time about the room with her +bright eyes, like some sharp little bird, perched on a window-sill, +looking beyond closed windows for new adventure. + +It was one of the striking points in her that her eyes always seemed to +be searching for some disorder in some place outside her immediate +vision. + +She closed the door behind her. As she stepped into the passage someone +was coming down the staircase to her right, and looking up she saw that +it was Rachel Beaminster. Rachel was on her way from her grandmother's +room, and before she saw Miss Rand standing there, waiting to let her +pass, her face was grave and, in that half-light, strangely white. Then, +as she saw Miss Rand, she smiled-- + +"Good evening, Miss Rand." + +"Good evening, Miss Beaminster." + +"I'm afraid that this ball is giving you a lot of trouble." + +"I think that everything is arranged now, Miss Beaminster. I hope that +it will be a great success." + +Rachel sighed and then laughed. + +"Don't I wish the whole stupid thing was over. And I expect you do too!" + +Miss Rand smiled a very little. "It's good for the servants," she said. +"They're always happy when they're really busy." + +For a moment they stood there smiling. It occurred to Rachel that Miss +Rand must be rather nice. She had never thought of her before as +anything but Aunt Adela's secretary. + +"Good night, Miss Rand." + +"Good night, Miss Beaminster." + + +II + +In Portland Place Miss Rand drew a little breath and paused. So many +times during the last five years had she walked from Portland Place to +Saxton Square, and from Saxton Square to Portland Place, that the +streets and houses encountered by her had become individual, alive, +always offering to her some fresh adventure or romance. Portland Place +itself was no bad beginning, with its high white colour, its air, and +its dark mysterious park hovering at the edge of it. + +If one had not known, Miss Rand thought, one might have supposed that +just beyond it lay the sea, so fresh and full of breezes was the air. +The light was yellow now and the houses black and sharp against the +faint sky. In another half-hour the lamps would be lit. + +It was pleasant and fitting that the end of Portland Place should be +guarded by the Round Church and the Queen's Hall. "Leave that calm and +chaste society behind you," those places said, "but before you plunge +into the wicked careless world (that is Oxford Circus) choose from us. +Here you have religion or music, both if you will, but here at any rate +we are, the very best of our kind." + +The Queen's Hall looked shabby in the evening light, but Miss Rand liked +that; it heightened her sense of the splendour within--Beethoven and +Wagner and Brahms needed no illumination--it was your musical comedy +demanded that. + +Miss Rand liked good music. + +Then there was the Polytechnic with wonderful offers in the windows +enticing you to see Rome for eleven guineas, and Paris for three, and +there was a hat shop with three glorious hats wickedly dangling on +poles, and there was a pastry-cook's, a tobacconist's, and a theatre +agency: all this variety paving the way between music and religion and +the whirling, tossing, heaving melodrama of Oxford Circus. + +Miss Rand loved Oxford Circus. It was like the sea in that it was never +from one moment to another the same. Miss Rand knew the way that it had +of piling the melodrama up and up, faster and faster, wilder and wilder, +bursting into a frantio climax and then sinking back, for hours perhaps, +into comparative silence. She knew all its moods, from its broom and +milkman mood in the early morning, to its soiled and slinking mood +somewhere between midnight and one o'clock. + +Just now it was getting ready for the evening. Up Regent Street the cabs +and buses were straining, the flower women with their baskets were +bunched in splashes of colour against the distant outline of the Round +Church. Out of every door people were pouring, and in the middle of the +Circus three of the four lines of traffic were turned suddenly into +something sleepy and indifferent by the hand of a policeman. For an +instant the restless movement seemed to be crystallized--the hansoms, +the bicycles, the omnibuses, the carts were all held, then at a sign the +flow and interflow had begun once more; life was hurled in and hurled +out again, stirred and tossed and turned, as though some giant cook were +up in the heavens busy over a giant pudding. + +And the light faded and the lamps came out, and Miss Rand, walking +through two streets that were as dark and secret as though they were +spying on the Circus and were going to give all its secrets away very +shortly, passed into Saxton Square. + +To-night Miss Rand had more to think about than Oxford Circus. She was +tired after all the work that there had been during the last few days, +and she always noticed that it was when she was tired that she was ready +to imagine things. She had been imagining things all day and had found +it really difficult to keep steadily to her proper work, but out and +beyond her imaginations there was, before her, this definite, tremendous +fact--namely, that she would find, this evening, on entering her little +drawing-room, that Mr. Francis Breton was being entertained at tea by +her sister and mother. + +It was a quarter to seven now, so perhaps he had gone, but at any rate +there would be a great deal that her mother and sister would wish to +tell her about him. A week ago Mr. Francis Breton had come to live on +the second floor in 24 Saxton Square, had put there his own furniture, +had brought with him his own man-servant (a most sinister-looking man). +These matters might have remained (although, of course, Miss Lizzie +Rand's connection with the Beaminster family made his arrival of the +most dramatic interest) had not Miss Daisy Rand (Miss Lizzie Rand's +prettier and younger sister) happened, one evening, to run into Mr. +Breton in the dark hall; she screamed aloud because she thought him a +burglar, became very shaky about the knees, and needed Mr. Breton's +assistance as far as the Rand drawing-room. Here, of course, there +followed conversation; finally Mr. Breton was asked to tea and accepted +the invitation. + +On this very afternoon must this tea-party have taken place. Lizzie Rand +knew her mother and sister very well, and she had, long ago, learnt that +their motto was, "Let everything go for the sake of adventure." That was +well enough, but when your income was very small indeed, and you wished +to do no work at all and yet to have your home pleasant and your life +adventurous, certainly someone must suffer. Everything had always fallen +upon Lizzie. + +Mrs. Rand's husband had been a colonel and they had lived at Eastbourne; +on his death it was discovered that he had debts and obligations to a +lady in the chorus of a light opera then popular in London. The debts +and the lady Mrs. Rand had covered with romance, because she considered +that they were due to the Colonel's insatiable appetite for +Adventure--but, romance or no, there was now very little to live upon. + +They moved to London. Daisy was obviously so pretty that it would be +absurd to expect her to work, and "she would be married in a minute," so +Lizzie had, during the last five years, kept the family. It would be +impossible to give any clear idea of the effect on Mrs. Rand that +Lizzie's connection with the Beaminster family had. Mrs. Rand loved +anything that was great and solemn and ceremonious; she loved Royalties, +bands and soldiers gave her a choke in her throat, the "Society News" in +the _Daily Mail_ was like a fine picture or a splendid play. She was no +snob; it was simply that she saw life as a background to slow stately +figures gorgeously attired. + +In all England there was no one like the Duchess of Wrexe; in all +England there was no family like the Beaminster family. + +Even Royalty had not quite their glow and glitter; Royalty you might see +any day, driving, bowing, smiling. The Queen had a smile for everyone +and was at home in the merest cottage; but the Duchess, the Duchess--no +one, not even Lizzie, on whose shoulders the whole fortunes of the +Beaministers rested, ever saw. + +There was nothing about the Beaminsters that Mrs. Rand did not know, and +so of course she knew all about the unhappy past history of Francis +Breton. That any Beaminster should have behaved rather as her own dead +colonel had once behaved gave one a link at once. + +Mrs. Rand's mind was, at the best of times, a confused one, and, in the +dead of night, she could imagine a scene in which the wonderful Duchess +would send for her, give her tea, press her hands and say, "Ah! Dear +Mrs. Rand, our men-folk--your husband and my grandson--what trouble they +give us, but we love them nevertheless." + +So romantic was Mrs. Rand's mind that she saw nothing extraordinary in +the coincidence of Mr. Breton's arrival at their very doors. Of course +he would arrive there! Where else could he arrive? And of course he +would fall in love with Daisy, would reform for her sake; there would be +a splendid marriage; the Duchess would thank Mrs. Rand for having saved +her grandson. + +Yes, Mrs. Rand had an incurably romantic mind. + +Lizzie knew all about her mother's mind, and Daisy's mind. She dealt +with them very much as she dealt with Lady Adela's mind or Lord John's +mind. They were all muddled people together, and the clear-headed people +had the advantage over them. + +So with regard to her mother and sister Lizzie had developed a +protective feeling; she wished to save them from the inroads of the +clear-headed people who might so rob and devour them. + +She saw also that her connection with the Beaminster family was a very +bad thing for her mother and sister because it encouraged them to be +romantic and muddled and idle. But, at present, at any rate, there was +nothing to be done. + +As she turned into the grey silence of little Saxton Square she did hope +that her mother and sister would not behave too outrageously about Mr. +Breton. She was interested, she would like to see him; his whole +possible relation to the Duchess, to Lady Adela, to Miss Beaminster set +her own imagination working. She did hope that her mother and sister +would not behave so disgracefully that they would frighten Mr. Breton +away so that he would never come near them again. + +And then, as she reached the door of No. 24, she thought for a moment of +Rachel Beaminster. + +"I like her," she thought, "I'd like to know her. She's never spoken to +me like that before." + + +III + +No. 24 had three floors: the ground floor was occupied by the Rands, the +first floor by Breton and the second floor by an old decrepit invalid +called Caesar and his son, who was a bank clerk. + +Down in the basement lived Mr. and Mrs. Tweed, owners of the whole +house; he had been a butler and she a housekeeper, and exceedingly +respectable they were. Every floor had its own kitchen and every lodger +found his own servants, but the hall was common for all the three +floors, and if young Mr. Caesar came in at two in the morning and banged +the front door everybody knew about it. + +It must have been a fine old house in its day, No. 24, and there were +still fine carvings, good fireplaces and ceilings, high broad windows +and thick solid walls. Mrs. Rand liked to think that her drawing-room +had once seen fine eighteenth-century ladies reflected in its mirrors, +heard the tapping of high-heeled shoes on its polished floors. The +thought of those glorious days gave her own rather faded furniture a +colour and a touch of poetry. Sometimes, Lizzie thought with a sigh, if +her mother had inhabited a plain nineteenth-century house living within +a small income would have been easier for her. + +Lizzie, entering the drawing-room, knew at once that Mr. Breton was +still there. She saw that he was tall and spare, that he had no left +arm, that he had a rather small pointed brown beard and eyes that struck +her as fierce and protesting. She did not know whether it were the beard +or the eyes or the absence of the arm, but at her first vision of him +she said to herself: "He's too dramatic; it's not quite real," and her +second thought was: "He's just what mother will like him to be!" + +He was standing against the window, and he wore a black suit, a little +faded. The blinds had not been drawn, and the square beyond the window +was elephant grey, with the lamps at each corner a dim yellow; there was +a thin rather ragged garden in the middle of the square, and in the +garden was a statue of a nymph, old and deserted, and some trees now +faintly green. Over it all was a sky so pale that it was more nearly +white than blue. + +Although the curtains had not been drawn a lamp in the middle of the +room was lit and the fire burnt merrily. The furniture had once been +good and was now respectable. There were several photographs, a copy of +"The Fighting Temeraire," and a water-colour sketch of "Lodore Falls." +There was a book-case with the works of Tennyson, Longfellow, and Miss +Braddon, and on one of the tables two French novels, one by Gyp and one +by Zola. + +Mrs. Rand would have been handsome had her grey hair been less untidy +and her clothes more uniform in design and colour. Her blouse was cut +too low and she wore too many rings; her eyes always wore a +lying-in-wait expression, as though she might be called on to be excited +at any moment and didn't wish to miss the opportunity. + +Daisy Rand was pretty and pink with light fluffy hair. All her clothes +looked as though their chief purpose were to reveal other clothes. The +impression that she left on a casual observer was that she must be cold +in such thin things. + +Lizzie, looking at Frank Breton, could not tell what impression her +sister and mother had made upon him. "At any rate," she thought, "he's +stayed a long time. That looks as though he had been entertained." She +was introduced to him and liked the cool, firm grasp of his hand. She +saw that her mother and Daisy were quiet and subdued--that was a good +thing. She caught, before she sat down, his instinctive look of +surprise. She knew that he had not expected her to be like that. + +"We've been telling Mr. Breton, Lizzie," said Mrs. Rand, "all about the +theatres. He's been away so long that he's quite out of touch with +things." + +Lizzie always knew when her mother was finding conversation difficult by +the amount of enthusiasm and surprise that she put into her sentences. + +"So terrible it must be to have missed so many splendid things." + +"I assure you, Mrs. Rand," said Breton, "that I've been seeing other +splendid things in other countries. Now I'm ready for this one again." + +Mrs. Rand was silent and at a loss. Lizzie knew the explanation of this. +Her mother had been trying to venture on to the subject of Breton's +family and had found unexpected difficulty. Perhaps there had been +something in Breton's attitude that had warned her. + +They talked for a little while, but disjointedly. Then suddenly there +was a knock at the door, and young Mr. Caesar, a bony youth with a high +collar and an unsuccessful moustache, came in. He had not very much to +say, but the result of his coming was that Lizzie found herself standing +at the window with Breton; they looked at the square now sinking into +dusk. + +He spoke; his voice was lowered: "I understand that you are secretary to +my aunt, Miss Rand?" + +"Yes," she said. + +"They haven't heard of my return with any great delight, I'm afraid?" + +She noticed that he was trying to steady his voice, but that it shook a +little in spite of his efforts. + +"I don't know," she said, looking up and smiling. "I'm far too busy to +think of things that are not my concern." + +"They are giving a ball to-morrow night for my cousin?" + +"Yes." + +"Do you see much of her?" + +"No--nothing at all. She's been abroad, you know." + +"Yes, so I heard. But I saw her driving yesterday. She looks different +from the rest of them." + +All this time, as he spoke to her, she was conscious of his eyes; if +only she could have been sure that the protest in them was genuine she +would have been moved by them. + +She did not help him in any way, and perhaps her silence made him feel +that he had done wrong to speak to her about his affairs. They looked at +the square for a little time in silence. At last, speaking without any +implied fierceness, he said: + +"You know, Miss Rand, I'm a wanderer by nature, and sometimes I find +cities very hard to bear. Do you know what I do?" + +"No," she said. + +"Turn them into other things. Now here in London, do you never think of +streets as waterways? Portland Place, for instance, is like ever so many +rivers I've seen, broad and shining. And some of those high thin streets +beside it are like canals; Oxford Circus is a whirlpool, and so on----" + +He laughed. "I get no end of relief from thinking of things like that." + +"You hate cities?" she asked him. + +"No--not really. But it depends how they receive you. If they're +hostile----" He shrugged his shoulders. + +"And this square?" she said. "What's this square?" + +"A pool. All the houses hang over it as though they were hiding it. It's +restful like a pool. There's no noise----" + +The statue of the nymph had disappeared. The trees were a black splash +against the lamp-lit walls. Lights were in the windows. + +He seemed suddenly conscious that it was late. When he had gone Lizzie +stood, for some time, looking into the square and thinking how right he +had been. + +All that evening Daisy was out of temper. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +SHE COMES OUT + + +I + +Downstairs the dinner-party was at its height. Mrs. Newton, the +housekeeper, went softly down the passages to give one last glimpse at +the ballroom. There it lay, like a great golden shell, empty, expectant. +The walls were white, the ceilings gold; on the white walls hung the +Lelys, the Van Dycks, and at the farther end of the room Sargent's +portrait of Her Grace, brought up, for this especial occasion, from the +Long Drawing-room. There was the gleaming, shining floor, there the +golden chairs with their backs against the wall, and there before each +picture a little globe of golden flame ministering to its beauties, +throwing the proud pale faces of the old Beaminsters into scornful +relief, and none of them so scornful as that Duchess in the far +distance, frowning from her golden frame. + +Mrs. Newton was plump and important. She worshipped the Beaminster +family, and it yielded her now intense satisfaction to see these rooms, +that were used so seldom, given to their proper glory and ceremony. For +a moment as she stood there and felt the fine reflection of all that +light upon the shining floor, absorbed the silence and the space and the +colour, she was uplifted with pride, and thanked her God that she was +not as other women were, but had been permitted by Him to assist in no +small measure in the glories and splendours of this great family. + +Then, with a little sigh of satisfied approval, she softly walked away +again. + + +II + +Two hours later Rachel Beaminster, standing a little behind her aunt, +saw the people pressing up the stairs. To those who watched her, she +seemed perfectly composed, her flushed cheeks, her white dress, her dark +hair and eyes gave her distinction against the colour and movement of +the room. + +Her eyes were a little stern, and her body was held proudly, but her +hands moved with sharp spasmodic movements against her dress. + +As she stood there men were brought up to her in constant succession and +introduced. They wrote their names on her programme, bowed and went +away. She smiled at each one of them. Before dinner she had been +introduced to the Prince--German, fat and cheerful--and the second dance +of the evening was to be with him. Some of the men who had been dining +in the house she already knew--Lord Crewner, Roddy Seddon, Lord +Massiter, and others--and once or twice now the faces that were led up +to her were familiar to her. + +The great ballroom seemed to be already filled with people, and still +they came pressing up the stairs. + +Rachel was miserably unhappy. For one moment before she had left her +room, where her maid had stood admiringly beside her, when she herself +had seen the reflection of the white dress and the dark hair and the +flushed cheeks in the long mirror, for one great moment she had been +filled with exaltation. This ball, this agitation, this excitement was +all for her. The world was at her feet. The locked doors were at last +rolling open before her and all life was to be revealed. + +Pearls that Uncle John had given her were her only ornament. They +laughed at her from the mirror, laughed and promised her success, +conquest, glory. Life at that instant was very precious. + +But, alas! the dinner had been a terrible failure. She had sat between +Lord Crewner and Lord Massiter, and had no word to say to either of +them. Lord Massiter was middle-aged and hearty and kind, and he had done +his best for her, but she had been paralysed. They had talked to her +about the opera, the theatres, hunting, books, Munich; she had had a +great deal to say about all these things, and she had said nothing. +Always within her there seemed to be rivalry between the Beaminster +way of saying things and the other way. When Lord Crewner said to her, +"What I like in music is a real cheerful little piece that one can go to +after dinner, you know," there were a whole number of Beaminster +observations to make. But as soon as they rose to her mouth something +within her whispered, "You know that you don't mean that. That's at +second hand. Give him your opinion." And then that seemed presumption, +so she said nothing. + +It was all wretched and quite endless. Uncle John sent her encouraging +smiles every now and again, but she felt that he must be disappointed at +her failure. The food choked her. The tears filled her eyes and it was +her pride only that saved her. Through it all she felt that her +grandmother upstairs in her bedroom was planning this. + +Afterwards the Princess, seeing perhaps that she was unhappy, was kind +and motherly to her, and told her funny stories about her childhood in +Berlin. But all the time Rachel was saying to herself, "You're a fool. +You're a fool. You've got no self-control at all." + +She had been dreading the introductions to so many young men, but she +found that that was easy enough. They were not young men; they were +simply numbers on her programme and they vanished as soon as they came. + +Then the band in the distance began to play an extra, whilst the young +men wandered about and discovered their friends, and the sound of the +music cheered her. It amused her now to watch the people as they mounted +the stairs. She noticed that all the faces were grave and preoccupied +until a moment before the arrival at Aunt Adela, and then a smile was +tightly fastened on, held for a moment, and then dropped to give way to +the preoccupation again. + +The room was so full now that it seemed that it would be quite +impossible for any dancing to take place. Uncle John was working very +hard at introducing people to one another, and as she saw his +good-natured face and his white hair her heart went out to him. If +everyone were as kind as Uncle John how nice the world would be! +Meanwhile her eyes anxiously watched the stairs, and as every woman +turned the corner at the bottom the question was--"Was this May +Eversley?" + +There had been a battle about May. Aunt Adela did not like her, +disapproved of her, would not hear of inviting her. Very well, then, +Rachel would not come to the ball at all. They could give the ball for +somebody else. If May were not asked Rachel would not come. + +So Lady Eversley and May had both been asked, and of course they had +accepted. + +Rachel waited and gazed and was continually disappointed. The extra was +over and soon the first dance would begin; with the second dance would +arrive the Prince and Rachel would have no talk with May at all. It was +too bad of May to be late. She had promised so faithfully--Ah! there she +was with her air of one confidently conducting a most difficult +campaign. She mounted the stairs like a general, gave Lady Adela the +tiniest of smiles, and was at Rachel's side. + +That clasp of May's hand filled Rachel's body with confident happiness. +May's hardy self-control, her discipline derived from some stern old +Puritans, dim centuries away, was all waiting there at Rachel's service. + +"How late you are!" + +"Mother was such a time. And then we couldn't get a cab. How are you, +Rachel?" + +"Dinner was terrible--all wrong. I hadn't a word to say to anyone. I'm +better now that you've come." + +"Is the Prince here?" + +"Yes. I'm dancing the next dance with him. The Princess was very kind +after dinner. Oh! May, dinner was a disaster, an absolute disaster!" + +"Not nearly so bad as you thought, you may be sure. Things always seem +so much worse." + +And now May had been discovered. Gentlemen young and old dangled their +programmes in front of her, were received, were dismissed. May had the +air of a general, sitting fiercely in his tent and receiving reports +from his officers as to the progress in the field. Confident young men +were instantly timid before her. + +The first dance was over. Against the white splendour vivid colours were +flung and withdrawn. Threads and patterns crossed and recrossed, and +then presently the glittering floor was waste and deserted; on its +surface was reflected dark gold from the shining walls. + +The second dance came, and with it the Prince. Rachel had now lost all +sense of the ball having been given in any way for herself. The dancing, +it comforted her to see, was not of the very best, and at once she found +that she had herself nothing to fear. The Prince danced well, and soon +she was lost to all sense of everything save the immediate joy of rhythm +and balance, and the perfect spontaneity of the music and her body's +acknowledgment of it. + +When it came to an end, and they were sitting in a corner, somewhere, he +was a fat middle-aged man again, and she Rachel Beaminster, but she knew +now for what life was intended. + +After that, for a long period, her dancers did not concern her. They +were there simply to supply her with that ecstasy of rhythm and +movement. Sometimes they could not supply her because they were bad +dancers, and one of her partners was indeed so bad that she ruthlessly +suggested, after one turn round the room, that they should sit out. Then +she sat in a room near at hand, irritated by the sound of that glorious +music, and paying very scant attention to the young man's stammered +apologies, his information about his experiences of Paris and the way +that he shot birds in Scotland. + +She was to go down to supper with Roddy Seddon, and she was waiting that +experience with some curiosity. If her grandmother were so fond of him, +then he must be a disagreeable young man, and yet his appearance was not +disagreeable. + +He looked as though, like Uncle John and Dr. Chris, he were one of the +comfortable people. Dr. Chris, by the way, had not arrived. He had told +her that he might not be able to escape until late hours. + +And so, as the evening advanced, her happiness grew; impossible now to +understand that speechlessness at dinner, impossible to find reasons for +that earlier misery. She danced now both with Lord Massiter and with +Lord Crewner, and said exactly what she thought to both of them; +impossible now to imagine anything but that the world was an enchanting, +thrilling place especially invented for the happiness of Miss Rachel +Beaminster. + + +III + +Uncle John had been promised a dance; his moment arrived. He had watched +her during the early part of the evening, and had been afraid that she +was not at all happy. + +She was so unlike other girls, and that first miserable hour seemed to +him the most tragic omen of her future career. + +"How is she _ever_ to get on if she takes things as badly as this? I +wish I could help her. I know so exactly how she must be feeling." + +But imagine him now confronted with a figure that shone with happiness, +with success, with splendour! + +She caught his arm--"Come, Uncle John, we won't dance. We'll talk. Up +here--There's no one in this room." + +She ran ahead of him, found a corner for them both, and then, pushing +him on to a sofa, twisted round in front of him, turning on her toes, +flashing laughter at him, sitting down at last beside him, and then +kissing him. + +"Oh, my dear! I'm so glad," he said. "I thought you were miserable." + +"So I was--at first--perfectly wretched. Now it's all +splendid--glorious!" + +This was to him an entirely new Rachel. In her movement, her excitement, +her immediate glad acceptance of the life that an hour ago she had +feared with such alarm, he perceived an element that was indeed foreign +to all things Beaminster. And this new attitude reminded him with +renewed sharpness that he could not now hope to hold the old Rachel with +the intimate affection that had been his before. She was slipping from +him--slipping ... even as he watched her, she was going. + +She laid her hand upon his arm: "Uncle John, I'm a success! I am really. +I can dance, dance beautifully! I can put these young men in their +places. They're frightened!... really frightened." + +"Of course--you're lovely--the biggest success there's ever been. But +what was the matter with you at dinner?" + +"Yes. Wasn't that dreadful? Everything went wrong, and the only thing I +could think of was how glad grandmamma would be. I had a kind of +paralysis." + +Uncle John nodded his head. "I know exactly what it's like." + +"Well, I shall never let myself be so stupid again--never! I swear it!" +They sat in silence for some time, she, restless, straining towards the +music, he a little overcome by her happiness. + +There was a pause between the dances and then the band began once more. + +"Have you danced with Roddy Seddon yet?" + +"No. What's he like?" + +"Oh! he's nice--you'll like him." + +"I don't expect to. He's a friend of grandmamma's. Hark! There's the +band again!... Come along, back we go!" + +Smiling, radiant, she hung upon his arm. Afterwards, standing in a +doorway, he watched her. + +He sighed. "What a selfish old pig I am!... But she'll never be mine +again." + + +IV + +Uncle John held only for a moment Rachel's attention. No single person +now, but rather a gorgeous pattern that the whole evening was weaving +about her. She saw the lights, she heard the music, she felt the +movement of her body, she gathered through a haze of happiness the faces +of her uncles and Aunt Adela and others whom she knew, but now for the +first time in her life she knew what happiness, happiness without +thought, or doubt, or foreboding could be. + +Thus it was that she came to Roddy Seddon, who was certainly enjoying +himself: this, however, was not the first ball of his life nor even, if +all the truth were known, his best. He had expected it to be solemn and +sedate--you could not hope to find here the jolly kind of dance that +they had had at the Menets', for instance, last week; that would not be +possible in a Beaminster household. + +It was all, to be honest, a little old-fashioned. Things were moving a +bit faster nowadays. Waltzes and Lancers were all very well, but one +might have had a cotillon, something unexpected! However, May Eversley +and one or two other girls had had the right kind of go about them. He +smiled a little and tugged at his short bristling yellow moustache, and +then discovered that it was time to take Rachel Beaminster down to +supper. + +This event was of more than ordinary interest to him. He was perfectly +aware that most of his friends and relatives thought that it would be a +very good thing for him to marry Rachel Beaminster. He was, himself, not +scornful of this idea. + +He was thirty-two, and it was time that Seddon Court in Sussex had a +mistress; his life had been varied and exciting and it was right now +that he should make some ties. There were a number of other reasons in +favour of his marrying. + +As to Rachel Beaminster, she was not pretty, but she was interesting. +She was unusual; moreover she was a Beaminster, and an alliance with +that ancient family would be, past dispute, a magnificent alliance. But +the element in it all that intrigued him most was the fact that nobody +could tell him anything about Rachel, even May Eversley who knew her so +well was not sure about her. "You'll go on being surprised," she had +said. + +Surprise, indeed, was waiting for him this evening. On the few occasions +that he had seen Rachel he had seen her grave, shy, a little awkward, +most reserved. Now she met him as though she had known him for years, +glowing, almost pretty, so burning were her eyes. At supper she laughed, +called across the room to May, agreed with everything that everybody +said, and with it all was younger than any girl that he had ever known. +The girls who were Roddy's friends talked about life at times more +boldly than he would have talked with his men friends, and were, at all +events, for ever hinting at the things that they knew. + +Rachel hinted at nothing; she kept nothing back, she allowed him no +disguises. + +"Oh! don't I wish," she cried, "that this night could go on for ever +just like this"--and he, taking the compliment to himself, agreed with +her. He had expected to find someone haughty and cold, a young Aunt +Adela with a dash of foreign temper. + +He found someone entirely delightful. Afterwards, when they sat out on a +balcony overlooking Portland Place, he was encouraged to talk about +himself. + +"I like all this, you know," he said, waving his hand at the grey +mysterious street that the pale lamps so mournfully guarded. "I like +this air comin' along from the park. I'm all for the open, Miss +Beaminster--horses and dogs and rushin' along with the wind at your +back. It's a rippin' little place I've got down in Sussex. I hope you'll +see it one day--old as anything, with jolly Roman roads and such hangin' +around, and the most spiffin' lot of gees. Look, the sun will be gettin' +above the houses soon. I've seen some sunrises in my day. You ought to +be on the Downs at night, Miss Beaminster." + +Roddy was surprised at himself at the way that he was talking, but she +really looked quite beautiful there in the window with her dark hair and +her eyes and white dress. + +"I can't tell you," she said, when it was time for them to part, "how +much all you say interests me. I love horses too, and I adore dogs----" + +"I've got a dog I'd like you to have," he began. "It's a----" + +"Oh no," she answered. "Aunt Adela would never let me keep one here. +Thank you all the same. But you'll let me come down to Seddon Court one +day, won't you?" + +"Let you!" Roddy could find no words. + +She flung one glance at the square, where the dawn was beginning, and +then was back in the ballroom again, dancing, dancing, dancing.... + +The sky was all pink above the roofs, and the birds were making a whirl +of chattering, when her bedroom received her again. + +Her maid was sleepy but proud. + +"They all say it's been a great success, Miss Rachel." + +"Success!" She stood for a moment in the middle of the room with her +arms extended. "Oh! It's been glorious, glorious. I've never----" + +She paused. Her arms fell to her sides--"Oh! Dr. Chris! Dr. Chris! He +never came--he said that he mightn't be able. It was the only thing that +was wrong"--Then more slowly, as she moved to her dressing-table--"And +all the last part I never missed him." + +"Well, I dare say," said Lucy, standing behind Rachel's chair and +staring at the white face in the mirror, "that with his patients and the +rest he couldn't get away----" + +"Oh! But I ought to have missed him," said Rachel, and afterwards, lying +in bed, sleepless with excitement, it was Dr. Christopher's face that +she saw. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +FANS + + "Il est doux de sommeiller a l'ombre chaude, sur le tiede + oreiller d'un mal epicurisme et d'une intelligence ironique, + tres simple, assez curieuse, et prodigieusement indifferente, + au fond." + + Romain Rolland. + + +I + +On the afternoon that followed the ball Lady Adela took Rachel to tea +with Lord Richard. + +It was a superb May afternoon; white clouds, bolster-shaped, were piled +in the heavens and made, so rounded were they, the blue sky seem an +infinite distance away. It was a day of sparkling dazzling gaiety--the +air seemed electric with the happiness of the world, and, as they drove +down to Grosvenor Street, Rachel felt that the little breeze that just +touched the hats and coats of the people on the omnibuses was created +simply by the joy of the beautiful weather. + +As they moved slowly down Bond Street Rachel looked at the world and +thought of last night. She looked at the men with their shining hats and +shining boots; at the messenger boys and the young women with parcels +and the young women without; at the old men who thought themselves young +and the young men who thought themselves old; at the fish shops and the +picture galleries, at the jewellers' and the book shops, at the place +where they taught you Swedish exercises and the place where there was a +palmist with a Japanese name, and it was all splendid and magnificent +and simply carried on the glories of the night before. Before the +turning into Grosvenor Street there was a great crush of carriages and a +long pause. In the carriage next to Rachel there was a very stout, very +richly coloured lady with a strong scent and a pug dog. A little farther +away there were two young gentlemen in a smart little carriage, and +their hats were so large and their expression so haughty and the top of +their canes so golden that it seemed absurd that they should have to +wait for anybody, and near them was a small boy on a little butcher's +cart and near him an omnibus with a red-faced driver and any number of +interested ladies, and all these incongruities seemed only to add to the +haphazard happiness of this shining afternoon. + +Rachel had many things to consider as she sat there. Aunt Adela did not +interfere with her thoughts, because she never talked when she was in a +carriage, but always sat up and looked wearily at the people about her. +She had never very much to say, but the open air made her feel stupid. + +Rachel was aware that last night had altered her point of view for all +time. She was aware, as she sat there in sunshine, of a new world. By +one glance at Aunt Adela was this new world made apparent. Aunt Adela +had hitherto been important--Aunt Adela was now unimportant. + +Had this afternoon been wet and gloomy, then Rachel might have doubted +that passionate discovery of the world that she now felt was hers, but +here with this blazing sun and sky the note was sustained. Surely never +again would Rachel be afraid of her grandmother, surely never again +would she be afraid of anyone. Holding herself very proudly in a dress +that was a soft primrose colour and in a hat that was dark and shady, +Rachel looked round about her on the world. + +"There's Lady Massiter!" Lady Adela smiled lightly and bowed a very +little--"Monty Carfax is with her." + +Rachel thought of Lord Massiter, and wondered again at last night's +dinner--"How could I have been like that? How _could_ I?" + +There passed them a very handsome carriage with a little dark handsome +lady who looked happily round about her, all alone in her magnificence. +Rachel did not know whether her aunt had seen or no: here was the +Beaminster arch-enemy, Mrs. Bronson, a young American widow, incredibly +rich, incredibly fascinating, incredibly bold. Mrs. Bronson had been in +London only a year, had snapped her jewelled fingers at the Beaminsters +and everything that they stood for, had laughed at snubs and threats, +was intending, so it was said, to have London at her feet in a season or +two. + +Rachel considered her. She was like some jewelled bird of paradise. She +was--one must admit it--better suited to this glorious day than was Aunt +Adela. + +Why need Aunt Adela refuse to be glad because the sun was shining? Why +could not Aunt Adela have said something pleasant about last night's +dance? Why must this absurd outward dignity be so carefully maintained? +Why when one was looking attractive in a primrose dress could one's aunt +not say so? + +That reminded her of Roddy Seddon. + +She liked him. He might be a real friend like Dr. Christopher. The +thought of him made her, as she sat there in the sun, feel doubly +certain that the world was a comfortable, reassuring place and that that +vision of cold spaces and dark forests that had been so often with her +was now to be banished like an evil dream never to return. + +At the end of Grosvenor Street the trees were so green that they might +have been painted, and here they were at Uncle Richard's house. + + +II + +But, with the closing of Uncle Richard's doors the sun was taken from +the world. Uncle Richard's house was always soft and dim, like one of +those little jewel cases, all wadding and dark wood. Uncle Richard's +carpets were so thick and soft that everyone seemed to walk on tip-toe, +and the wonderful old prints in the hall and the beautiful dark carving +on the staircase and the sudden swiftness of the doors as they closed +behind you only helped to increase the impression that everything here, +yourself included, was in for a beautiful exhibition, and that light +might hurt the exhibits. + +Uncle Richard's study, where they always had tea, was lined from roof to +ceiling with book-cases, and behind the shining glass there gleamed the +backs of the haughtiest and proudest books in the world. For, were they +old and dingy, then they were first editions of transcendent value, and +were they new and shining, then were they "Editions de luxe," or some of +Uncle Richard's favourites bound in the most intricate and precious of +bindings. + +Some china on the mantelpiece was so valuable that housemaids must +surely have a sleepless time because of it, and all the furniture was so +conscious of its rich and ancient glories that to sit down on the chairs +or to lean on the tables was to offer them terrible insults. + +Two Conders and a Corot shone from the grey walls. + +In the midst of this was Uncle Richard, elaborately, ironically +indifferent to all emotions. "I have governed the country, yes--but +really, my friends, scarcely a job for a fine spirit nowadays. I have +collected these few things--yes, but after all what does it come to? +Don't many pawn-brokers do the same?" + +Rachel, as she stood in the room, felt that her newly found independence +was slipping away from her. With the departure of the sun had fled also +that consciousness of last night's splendours. About her again was +creeping that atmosphere that was always with her in this room, +something that made her feel that she was a wretched, ignorant +Beaminster, and that even if she did learn the value of all these +precious things, why then that knowledge was of little enough use to +her. + +Uncle Richard with his high white forehead, his long dark trousers, his +grey spats and his great collar that bent back, in humble deference, +before the nobility of his neck and chin, Uncle Richard required a great +deal of courage. + +"Well, dear, I hope you enjoyed your dance." + +"Yes, Uncle Richard, thank you." + +"I left early, but everything seemed to be going very well." + +"Yes, I think it was all right." + +How different this from the fashion in which she had intended to fling +her enthusiasm upon him. What, she wondered, would have been the effect +had she done so? How would he have taken it? Could she have pierced that +melancholy ironical armour that always kept the real man from her? + +Meanwhile she was now back again in the old, old world; tea was brought, +the footman and butler moved softly about the room. Aunt Adela said a +little, Uncle Richard said a little ... the lid was down upon the world. + +Meanwhile, impossible to imagine that only a quarter of an hour ago +there had been that gay confusion in Bond Street, impossible to believe +Mrs. Bronson in her carriage anything but common and vulgar, impossible +to prefer that dazzling sun to this cloistered quiet. + +A wonderful lacquered clock ticked the minutes away. "I'm in a cage--I'm +in a cage--and I want to get out," someone in Rachel Beaminster was +crying, and someone else replied, "Thank God that you are allowed to be +in such a cage at all. There's no other cage so splendid." + +Her primrose gown was forgotten; when Uncle Richard asked her questions +she answered "Yes," or "No." Her old terrors had returned. + +Upon the three of them, sitting thus, Roddy Seddon was announced. Roddy +had assaulted and conquered Lord Richard in as masterly a fashion as he +had subdued the Duchess and Lady Adela. He had done it simply by +presenting so boisterous and honest an allegiance to the Beaminster +standard. Lord Richard's irony had been useless against Roddy's +ingenuous appeal. Moreover, there was the Duchess's advocacy--young +Seddon was the hope of the party. + +Roddy brought to view no evidence of last night's energies; he was as +fresh, as highly coloured, as browned and bronzed and clear as any +pastoral shepherd, his skin was so finely coloured that clothes always +seemed, with him, a pity. Lord Richard's melancholy cynicism had poor +chance against such vigour. + +His eyes, as they fastened upon Rachel, brightened. She gave that dim +room such fresh pleasure, sitting there in her primrose frock with her +serious eyes and long hands. No, she was not beautiful; he knew that his +last night's impression had been the true one; but she was unusual, she +would make, he was sure, a most unusual companion. "You wouldn't think +it," May Eversley had said, "but there's any amount of fun in +Rachel--you'll find it when you know her." + +He was not sure but that he saw it now, lurking in her eyes, her mouth, +as she sat there, so gravely, opposite to her uncle and aunt. + +"How d'ye do, Lady Adela? How d'ye do, Miss Beaminster? How are you, +sir? Thanks--I will have some tea. Pretty gorgeous day, ain't it? +Rippin' dance of yours last night, Lady Adela." + +Meanwhile, Rachel knew that she had nothing to say to him. Out there in +the sunlight she might, perhaps, have maintained that relationship that +had been begun between them the night before, but in here, with Aunt +Adela and Uncle Richard so consciously an audience, with the air so dim +and the walls so grey, Roddy Seddon seemed the most strident of +strangers. + +She sat, silently, whilst he talked to Aunt Adela. "I've never had so +toppin' a dance as last night--'pon my soul, no. Young Milhaven, whom I +tumbled on at Brook's at luncheon, said the same. Band first-rate, and +floor spiffin'." + +"I'm glad you liked it, Roddy," said Lady Adela, with a dry little +smile. "I must confess to being glad that it's over." + +Roddy glanced a little shyly at Rachel. "I suppose you're goin' hard at +it now, Miss Beaminster?" + +She looked across the tea-table at him. "There's Lady Grode's and Lady +Massiter's, and Lady Carloes is giving one for her niece----" + +"The Massiter thing ought to be a good one. Always do it well," said +Roddy. "'Pon my word, on a day like this makes one hot to think of +dancing." + +He was perplexed. He had instantly perceived that he had here a Rachel +Beaminster very different from last night's heroine. She was now beyond +all contemplated intimacy. He had heard others speak of that aloofness +that came like a cloud about her. He now saw it for himself. + +After a time he came across to her whilst Lady Adela and her brother +talked as though the world consisted of one Beaminster railed round by +high palings over which a host of foolish people were trying to climb. + +He stood beside her smiling in that slightly embarrassed manner of his, +a manner that caused those who did not know him to say that they liked +Roddy Seddon because he was so modest. + +"Such a day it seems a shame to be in town." + +"Yes--isn't it lovely?" + +"The opera's pretty hot in the evenin' just now. Have you been yet?" + +"I've been in Munich often. I've never been here." + +"My word! Haven't you really? Wish I could say the same. I'm always +bein' dragged----" + +"Why do you go if you don't care about it?" + +"Can't think--always askin' myself. Why do half the Johnnies go? And yet +in a way I like some sorts o' music." + +"_What_ kind of music?" + +"Sittin' in the dark, in a room, with someone just strokin' the piano up +and down--just strokin' it--not hammerin' it. I don't care what the old +tune is----" + +Rachel laughed a little, but said nothing. Of course, she thought him +the most thundering kind of fool, and this made him eager to display to +her his wisdom and common sense. + +But he could say nothing. There followed the most awkward silence. She +did not try to help him, but sat there quietly looking in front of her. + +Suddenly she said: "Uncle Richard, I want to see your fans again. I +haven't seen them for a long time. I know you've added some lately. Sir +Roderick, have you ever seen my uncle's fans?" + +"No," he said. "I'd be delighted----" + +Lord Richard's eyes lifted. The lines of his mouth grew softer. + +Rachel watched him. "Now he'll pretend," she said, "that he doesn't +care. He'll pretend that they're nothing to him at all." + +He went, in his solemn guarded manner, to a place in the room where a +large cabinet was let into the wall. He drew this cabinet forward, and +then, out of it, moving his hands almost pontifically, he pulled trays, +and on these trays lay the fans. + +The others had gathered around him. There were nearly five hundred +fans--fans Dutch and Italian and French and Chinese and Japanese; fans +of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, of the eighteenth and of the +Empire--modern Japanese heavy with iron spokes, others light as +gossamer, with spokes of ivory or tortoise shell. There were French +fans, painted only on one side, with pictures of fantastic shepherds and +shepherdesses; there were Chinese fans with bridges and mandarins and +towers; Empire fans perforated with tinsel and such lovely shades of +colour that they seemed to change as one gazed. + +There they all lay in that rich solemn room, quietly, proudly conscious +of their beauty, needing no word of praise, catching all the colour and +the daintiness and fragrance that had ever been in the world. + +Rachel drank in their splendour and then looked about her. + +Uncle Richard's eyes were flaming and his hands trembling against the +case. + +Then she looked at Roddy Seddon. His head was flung back; with eyes and +mouth, with every vein, and fibre of his body he was drinking in their +glory. + +His eyes were suddenly caught away. He was staring at her before she +looked away--Her eyes said to him, "Why! Do you care like _that_? Do +those things mean _that_ to you?" + +She smiled across at him. They were in communion again as they had been +last night. + +He was surprised that he should be so glad. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +IN THE HEART OF THE HOUSE + + "Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things + The honest thief, the tender murderer, + The superstitious atheist, demirep, + That loves and saves her soul in new French books-- + We watch while these in equilibrium keep + The giddy line midway: one step aside, + They're classed and done with. I, then, keep the line--" + + BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S Apology. + + +I + +The Duchess could but dimly guess at the splendour of that fine May +afternoon. + +It had been her complaint lately that she was always cold and now the +blinds and curtains were closely drawn and a huge fire was blazing. Her +chair was close to the flame: she sat there looking, in the fierce +light, small and shrivelled; she was reading intently and made no +movement except now and again when she turned a page. Dorchester was the +only other person there and she sat a little in the shadow, busily +sewing. + +From where she sat she could see her mistress's face, and behind her +carved chair there were the blue china dragons and the deep heavy red +curtains and a black oak table covered with little golden trays and +glass jars and silver boxes. + +Neither heat nor cold nor youth nor age had any effect upon Dorchester. +No one knew how old she was, nor how long she had been with her +mistress, nor her opinions or sentiments concerning anything in the +world. + +She was tall and gaunt and snapped her words as she might snap a piece +of thread. + +From Mrs. Newton and Norris downwards the servants were afraid of her. +She made a confidant of no one, was supposed to have no emotions of any +kind, absurd and fantastic stories were told of her; she was certainly +not popular in the servants' hall and yet at a word from her anything +that she requested was done. + +With Miss Rand only was it understood that she had a certain friendly +relationship; it was said that she liked Miss Rand. + +Dorchester had witnessed the whole of the Duchess's career. + +As she sat now in the shadow every now and again she looked up and +glanced at that sharp white face and those thin hands. What a little +body it was to have done so much, to have battled its way through such a +career, to have fought and to have won so many conflicts! It seemed to +Dorchester only yesterday that splendid time, when the Duchess had been +queen of London. Dorchester also had been young then and had had an +energy as enduring, a will as finely tempered as had her mistress. + +What a character it had been then with its furies and its disciplines, +its indulgences and its amazing restrictions, its sympathies and cold +clodded cruelties, its tremendous sense of the dramatic moment so that +again and again a position that had been nearly surrendered was held and +saved. She had never been beautiful, always little and sharp and +sometimes even wizened. But she gained her effects one way or another +and beat beautiful and wise and wonderful women off the field. + +And then sweeping down upon her had come disease. At first it had been +fought and magnificently fought. But it was the horror of its unexpected +ravages that had been so difficult to combat. She had never known when +the pain would be upon her--it might seize her at any public moment and +her retreat be compelled before the whole world. There had been doctors +and doctors and doctors, and then operation after operation, but no one +had done any good until Dr. Christopher had come to her, and now, for +years, he had been keeping her alive. + +Out of that very necessity of disease, however, had she dragged her +drama. She had retired from the world, not as an old woman beaten by +pain, but as a priestess might withdraw within her sanctuary or some +great queen demand her privacy. + +And it had its effect. Very, very carefully were chosen to see her only +those who might convey to the world the right impression. The world was +given to understand that the Duchess was now more wonderful than she had +ever been, and it was so long since the world at large had seen her that +every sort of story was abroad. + +Certain old ladies like Lady Carloes who played bridge with her gained +most of their public importance from their intimacy with her. It was +rumoured that at any moment she might return and take her place again in +the world, old though she was. + +All this was known to Dorchester and she smiled grimly as she thought of +it. The real Duchess! Perhaps she and Dr. Christopher alone in all the +world knew the intricacies, the inconsistencies of that amazing figure. +From the moment that illness had come every peculiarity had grown. Her +self-indulgences, her temper, her pride, her egotism--now knew, in +private, no restraint. And yet when her friends were there or anyone at +all from the outside world she displayed the old dignity, the old grand +air, the old imperious quiet that belonged to no one else alive. + +But what, during these last years, Lady Adela had suffered! Dorchester +herself had had many moments when it had seemed that she had more to +control than her strength could maintain, but long custom, an entire +absence of the nervous system, and a comforting sense that she was, +after all, paid well for her trouble, sustained her endurance. + +But Lady Adela had nothing. + +The Duchess had always hated her children, but had used them, +magnificently, for her purposes. They had all been fools, but they were +just the kind of fools that the Beaminster tradition demanded. + +Lady Adela had from the first been more of a fool than the others. She +had never had the gift of words and before her mother was, as a rule, +speechless, and it had been only by her changing colour that an onlooker +could have told that her mother's furies moved her. + +Often Dorchester had attempted interference, but had found at last that +it was better to allow the fury to spend its force. Then also Dorchester +had noticed a curious thing. The Duke, Lord Richard, Lord John, Lady +Adela were proud of these prides and tempers. They were proud of +everything that their mother did; they might suffer, their backs might +wince under the blows, but it was part of the tradition that their +mother should thus behave. + +Dorchester fancied that sometimes there was flashed upon them a sudden +suspicion that their mother was in these days only an old, ailing, +broken woman--no great figure now, no magnificent tyrant, no mysterious +queen of society. And then Dorchester fancied that she had noticed that +when such a suspicion had come upon them they had put it hastily aside +and locked it up and abused themselves for such baseness. + +Curious people, these Beaminsters! + +Well, it was no business of hers. And, perhaps, after all she had +herself some touch of that feeling, some fierce impatient pride in those +very tempests and rebellion. After all, was there anyone in the world +like this mistress of hers? Was there another woman who would bear so +bravely the pain that she bore? And was not that fierce clutch on life, +that energy with which she tried still to play her part in the great +game, grand in its own fashion? + +Would not Dorchester also fight when her time came? + +She looked across the firelight at her mistress. When would arrive the +inevitable moment of surrender? How imminent that moment when in the +eyes of all those about her the old woman would see that all that was +now hers was a quiet abandonment to death! + +Well, there would be some fine, savage struggling when that crisis +struck into their midst. Dorchester smiled grimly, and then, in spite of +herself, sighed a little. + +They were all growing old together. + + +II + +At five o'clock came Dr. Christopher, and Dorchester moved into the +other room and left the two together. With his large limbs and cheerful +smile he made the Duchess seem slighter and more fragile than ever, and +she herself felt always with his coming some addition of warmth and +strength; each visit, so she might have expressed it, gave her life for +at least another tiny span. + +That he, knowing so much of the follies and catastrophes of life, should +yet be an optimist, would have proved him in her opinion a fool had she +not known, by constant proof, that he was anything but that. "Well, one +day he will discover his mistake," she would say, and yet, perversely, +would cling to him for the sake of this very illusion. He helped her +courage, he helped her battle with her pain, he gave her, sometimes, +some shadowy sense of shame for her passions and rebellions, but, more +than all this, he yielded her a reassurance that life, precious, +adorable, wonderful life, was yet for a little time to be hers. + +He knew well enough the influence that he possessed, and when, as on +this afternoon, he felt it his duty to avail himself of it, he could not +pretend that he faced his task with any exultation. + +That he should rouse her fury, as he had one or twice already roused it, +meant humiliation for him as well as for herself, and afterwards +embarrassment for them both as they saw those scenes in retrospect. + +She glanced up at him carefully as he came in and knew him well enough +to realize that there was something that he must say to her. There had +been other such occasions, she remembered them all. Sometimes she +herself had been the subject of them, something that was injuring her +health, some indulgence that he could not allow her. Sometimes the +battle had been about others; she had fought him and on occasions it had +seemed that their relationship was broken once and for all, that nothing +could cover the words that had been spoken--but always through +everything she had admired his courage. + +The way had always been to stand up to her. + +For a little time they talked about her health, and then there fell a +pause. She, leaning back in her chair with her thin, sharp hands on her +lap, watched him grimly as he sat on the other side of the fireplace, +leaning forward a little, looking into the fire. + +"Well," she said at last. "What is it?" Her voice was deep, but every +word was clear-cut, resonant. + +"There _is_ something--two things," he answered her slowly. "You can +dismiss me for an interfering old fool, you know. You often have been +tempted to do it before, I dare say." + +"I have," she said. "Go on." + +But as she spoke she drew her hands a little more closely together. She +was not quite so ready for these battles as she had once been. She was +afraid a little now. A new sensation for her; she hated that restricting +awkwardness that would remain between them for days afterwards. + +She looked at his red, cheerful face and wondered impatiently why he +must always be meddling in other people's affairs. She hated Quixotes. + +"Your Grace," he began again, "has only got to stop me and I'll say no +more." + +"Oh yes, you will," she said impatiently. "I know you. Say what you +please." + +"I want to speak about Francis Breton----" He paused, but she said +nothing, only for an instant her whole face flashed into stone. The +firelight seemed for an instant to hold it there, then, as the flame +fell, she was once again indifferent. + +Christopher had grasped his courage now. He went on gravely: + +"I must speak about him. I know how unpleasant the whole subject is to +you. We've had our discussions before and I've fought his battles with +all the world more times than I can count. You must remember that I've +known Frank all his life--I knew his unhappy father. I've known them +both long enough to realize that the boy's been heavily handicapped from +the beginning----" + +"Must you," she said, looking him now full in the face, "must it be +this? Have we not thrashed it out thoroughly enough already? I don't +change, you know." + +He understood that she was appealing to his regard for their own +especial relationship. But there was a note of control in her voice; he +knew that now she would listen: + +"I've cared for Frank during a number of years. I know he's weak, +impulsive, incredibly foolish. He's always been his own worst enemy. I +know that the other day he wrote a most foolish letter----" + +"It was a letter beyond forgiveness," she said, her voice trembling. + +"Yes, I would give anything to have prevented it. I know that when he +was in England before I pleaded for him, as I am doing now, and that by +a thousand foolhardy actions he negatived anything that I could say for +him. + +"I'm urging no defence for the things that he did, the shady, +disreputable things. But he has come back now, I do verily believe, +ready, even eager, to turn over a new leaf. I----" + +She interrupted him, smiling. + +"Yes. That letter----" + +"Oh, I know. But isn't it a very proof of what I say--would anyone but a +foolhardy boy have done such a thing? Sheer bravado, hoping behind it +all to be taken back to the fold--eager, at any rate, not to show a poor +spirit, cowardice." + +"Over thirty now--old for a boy----" + +"In years, yes. But younger, oh! ages younger than that in spirit, in +knowledge of the world, in everything that matters--I know," he went on +more slowly, smiling a little, "that you've called me sentimentalist +times without number--but really here I'm not urging you to anything +from sentimental reasons. I'm not asking you to take him back and kill +the fatted calf for him. + +"I'm asking nothing absurd--only that you, his relations, all that he +has of kith and kin, should not be his enemies, should not drive him to +desperation--and worse." + +"If you imagine," she said steadily, "that his fate is of the smallest +concern to me you know me very little. I care nothing of what becomes of +him. He and I have been enemies for many years now and a few words from +you cannot change that." + +"I'm only asking you," he replied, "to give him a chance. See what you +can make of him, instead of sending him into the other camp--use him +even if you cannot care for him. There's fine stuff there in spite of +his follies. The day might come, even now, when you will own yourself +proud of him----" + +But she had caught him up, leaning forward a little, her voice now of a +sharper turn. "The other camp? What other camp?" + +He caught the note of danger. "I only mean," he said, choosing now his +words with the greatest care, "that if you turn Frank definitely, once +and for all, from your doors, there may be others ready to receive +him----" + +"His men and his women," she broke in scornfully; "don't I know them? +I've not lived these years without knowing the raffish tenth-rate lot +that failures like Frank Breton affect----" + +"No--there are others," Christopher said firmly, "Mrs. Bronson, for +instance----" + +At that name she broke in. + +"Yes--exactly. Mrs. Bronson. Oh! I know the kind of crowd that Mrs. +Bronson and her like can gather. They are welcome to Francis and he to +them."--She paused. He saw that she was controlling herself with a great +effort. For a little while there was silence and then she went on, more +quietly: + +"There, now you have it. That is why there can never be any truce +between Francis and myself. It is more than Francis--it is all the +things that he stands for, all the things that will soon make England a +rubbish heap for every dirty foreigner to dump his filth on to. Hate +him? Why, I'll fight him and all that he stands for so long as there's +breath in my body----" + +"But Frank is with you," Christopher urged eagerly, "if you'll let him +be. He's only in need of your hand and back he'll come. He's waiting +there now--longing, in spite of his defiance, for a word. Give him it +and in the end I know as surely as I sit here that he'll be worth your +while----" + +"What can he do for me?" + +"Ah! He'll show you. After all, he is one of the family; he's miserable +there in his exile. He's got your own spirit--he'd die rather than own +to defeat--but he'll repay you if you have him." + +He saw then, as she turned towards him, that he had done no good. + +"Listen," she said, "I've heard you fairly. Let us leave this now, once +and for all. I tell you finally no word that God Almighty could speak on +this business could change me one atom. Francis Breton and I are foes +for all time. I hate not only himself and the miserable mess that he's +made of his life, I hate all this new generation that he stands for. + +"I hate these new opinions, I hate this indulgence now towards +everything that any fool in the country may choose to think or say. In +my day we knew how to use the fools. Took advantage of their muddle, ran +the world on it. I loathe this tendency to make everyone as intelligent +as they can be! Why! in God's name! Give me two intelligent men and a +dozen fools and you'll get something done. Take a wastrel like Frank and +turn him out. Take muddlers like my family and keep 'em muddled. Richard +ran the country well enough for a time or two, and he's been a muddler +from his childhood. + +"All this cry to educate the people, to be kind to thieves and +murderers! to help the fools--my God! If I still had my say--Whilst +there's breath in me I'll fight the lot of them." + +She leant back in her chair, waited for breath, and then went on more +mildly: + +"You may like all this noise and clamour, Doctor. You may like your Mrs. +Bronson and the rest--common, vulgar, brainless--ruling the world. Every +decent law that held society together is being broken and nobody cares. + +"Frank Breton may find his place in this new world. He has no place in +mine." + +Then she added: "So much for that--what's the other thing?" + +But he hesitated. Her voice was tired, even tremulous, and he was aware +as he looked across at her that her emotions now treated her more +severely than they had once done. At the same time he was aware that +giving free play to her temper always did her good. + +"Well--perhaps--another day----" + +"No--now. I may as well take my scoldings together--it saves time!" + +He stood up and, leaning on the mantelpiece with one arm, looked down +upon her. + +"Here," he said, "I'm afraid I may seem doubly impertinent, but it's a +matter that is closer to me than anything in the world. You know that +I'm a lonely old bachelor and that all those sentiments that you accuse +me of must find some vent somewhere. I'm fonder of Rachel, I think, than +I am of anyone in the world, and it's only that affection and the +feeling that, in some ways, I know her better than any of you do that +give me courage to speak." + +He could see that now she was reaching the limits of her patience. + +"Well--what of Rachel?" + +"I understand--I know--that you--that all of you intend that she shall +marry young Seddon----" + +"Well?" + +"I know that it is impertinent of me, but, as I have said, I think I +know Rachel differently from anyone else in the world. She is +strange--curiously ignorant of life in many ways, curiously wise in +others. Her simplicity--the things that she takes on trust--there is no +end to it. The things, too, that she cannot forgive--she doesn't know +how often, later on, she will have to forgive them-- + +"But the first man who breaks her trust----" + +"Thank you for this interesting light on Rachel's character. What does +it mean?" + +"It means," he said abruptly, "that she mustn't be hurt. Your Grace may +turn me out of the house here and now if you will, but Seddon is the +wrong man for her to marry----" + +"What are his crimes?" Her voice was rising, and her hand tapped +impatiently on her dress. + +"I know him only slightly, but common repute--anyone who is in the +London world at all will tell you--his reputation is bad. I've nothing +against him myself, but his affairs with women have been many. He is no +worse, I dare say, than a thousand others. At least he's young--and I +myself, God knows, am no moralist. But to marry him to Rachel will be a +crime." + +He knew as he heard his own voice drop that the scene that he dreaded +was upon him. The air was charged with it. In the strangest way +everything in the room seemed to be changed because of it. The +furniture, the dragons, the tables, the very trifles of gold and silver, +seemed to withdraw, leaving the air weighted with passion. + +She was trembling from head to foot. Her voice was very low. + +"You've gone too far. What business is this of yours? How dare you come +to me with these tales? How dare you? You've taken too much on your +shoulders. See to your own house, Doctor----" + +He stepped back from the fireplace. + +"Please--to-morrow----" + +"No. Here and now." Her words flashed at him. "You've begun to think +yourself indispensable. Because I've shown you that I rely upon +you--Because, at times, I've seemed to need your aid--therefore you've +interfered in matters that are no concern of yours." + +"They are concerns of mine," he answered firmly, "in so far as this +affair is connected with my friend." + +"Your friend and my granddaughter," she retorted. "But it is not only +that. I will return you your own words. You say that your friend is in +danger--what of mine? You have dared to attack someone who is more to me +than you and all the rest of the world put together. Someone whom I care +for as I have never cared for my own sons. It was bold of you, Dr. +Christopher, and I shall not forget it." + +He took it without flinching. "Very well," he said. "But my word to the +end is the same. If you marry Seddon to your granddaughter you do your +own sense of justice wrong." + +At that the last vestige of restraint left her. Leaning forward in her +chair she poured her words upon him in a torrent of anger. Her voice was +not raised, but her words cut the air, and now and again she raised her +hands in a movement of furious protest. + +She spared him nothing, dragged forward old incidents, old passages +between them that he had thought long ago forgotten, reminded him of +occasions when he had been mistaken or over-certain, accused him of +crimes that would have caused him to leave the country had there been a +vestige of truth in her words; at last, beaten for breath, gasped out: +"Sir Roderick Seddon shall know of what you accuse him. He shall deal +with you----" + +"I have nothing," Christopher answered gravely, "against Seddon--nothing +except that he should not marry Rachel!" + +"You have attacked him!" she gasped out. "He--shall--answer." + +But her rage had exhausted her. She lay back against her chair, heaving, +clutching at the arms for support. + +He summoned Dorchester, but when he approached the Duchess feebly +motioned him away. + +"I've--done--with you--never again," she murmured. + +She seemed then most desperately old. Her dress was in disorder, her +face wizened with deep lines beneath her eyes and hollows in her cheeks. + +Christopher waited while Dorchester helped her mistress into the farther +room. For some time there was silence. The room was stifling, and, +impatiently, he pulled back the heavy red curtains. + +He sat, waiting, eyeing the stupid dragons, every now and again glancing +at his watch. + +Even now the room seemed to vibrate with her voice, and he could imagine +that the French novel, fallen from her lap on to the carpet, winked at +him as much as to say: + +"Oh, we're up to her tempers, aren't we? We know what they're worth. +_We_ don't care!" + +At last Dorchester appeared. + +"Her Grace is in bed and will see you, sir," she said. + +Her face was grave and without expression. + +After another glance at his watch he passed into the bedroom. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE TIGER + + "For every Manne there lurketh + hys Wilde Beast." + + SARDUS AQUINAS (1512). + + +I + +Brun, meeting Christopher one day, had asked him to tea in his flat, and +then, remembering his interest in the Beaminster history, invited him to +bring Breton with him. + +"I haven't seen him for years. I'd like to see him again." + +Christopher had accepted this invitation, and now on a sultry afternoon +in June found himself sitting in Brun's rooms. Brun's sitting-room had a +glazed and mathematical appearance as though, from cushions to ceiling, +it had been purchased at a handsome price from a handsome warehouse. It +was not comfortable, it was very hot.... The narrow street squeezed +between Portland Square and Great Portland Street lay on its back, the +little windows of its mean houses gasping like mouths for air, the hard +sun pouring pitilessly down. + +No weather nor atmosphere ever affected Brun. His clothes as well as his +body had that definite appearance of something outside change or +disorder. He might have been, one would allow, something else at earlier +stages before this final result had been achieved (as a painting is +presented to the observer before its completion), but surely now nothing +would ever be done to him again. Surveying him, he appeared less a man +with a history, origins, destinies about him than an opinion or a +criticism. He was designed exactly by Nature for cynical observation, +and was intended to play no other part in life. + +"Well, Christopher?" said Brun. "Hot, isn't it?" + +"My word--yes. Breton's coming along presently." + +"Good. I've asked Arkwright the explorer. Nice fellow." They sat in +silence for a little. Then Brun said: + +"Interested in writers, Christopher?" + +"Not very much. Why?" + +"Just been lunching with a young novelist, Westcott. What he said +interested me. Of course, he's very young, got no humour, takes himself +dreadfully seriously, but he asked my advice--and it is as a sign of the +times over here that I mention it." + +"Go ahead." + +"He tells me that a number of young novelists are going to band +themselves into a kind of Artists' Young Liberty movement--artists, +poets, novelists, some thirty altogether--going to have a magazine, do +all kinds of things. Some of the older men will scoff. At the same +time----" + +"Well?" said Christopher. + +"They'd asked him to join. He wanted my opinion." + +"What did you say?" + +"He interested me--he was a kind of test case. It would mean that, +commercially, from the popular point of view, it would put him back for +years. Those young men will all be put down as conceited cranks. They +will tilt at the successful popular men like Lawson and the others, will +worship at the feet of the unsuccessful 'Great' men like Lester and +Cotton. The papers will hate 'em, the public will be indifferent. The +result will be that, in the end, they may do a big thing--at any rate +they'll have done a fine thing, but they'll all die on the way, I +expect." + +Brun spoke with enthusiasm unusual for him. + +"How was this a test of Westcott?" asked Christopher. + +"Well--would he go or no? He's at the kind of parting of the ways. I +believe success is coming to him, if he wants it; but he'll have to +build another wall in front of his Tiger either before the success or +after. If he joins this crowd of men, there'll be no walls for him ever +again." + +Christopher knew that when Brun had some idea that he was pleasantly +pursuing and had secured an audience nothing would stay or hinder him. + +He pushed a chair towards him. + +"What do you mean by your Tiger?" he asked. + +"My Tiger is what every man has within him--I don't mean, you know, a +nasty habit or a degrading passion or anything of necessity +vicious--only my theory is that every man is given at the outset of life +a Beast in the finest, noblest sense with whom through life he has got +to settle. It may be an Ambition, or a Passion, or a Temptation, or a +Virtue, what you will, but with that Beast he's got to live. Now it's +according to his dealings with the Beast that the man's great or no. If +he faces the Beast--and the Beast is generally something that a man +knows about himself that nobody else knows--the Beast can be used, +magnificently used. If he's afraid, pretends the Tiger isn't there, +builds up walls, hides in cities, does what you will, then he must be +prepared for a life of incessant alarm, and he may be sure that at some +moment or another the Tiger will make his spring--then there'll be a +crisis! + +"Over here in England you're hiding your Tigers all the time. That's why +you're muddled--about Art, Literature, Government, everything that +matters--and an old woman like the Duchess of Wrexe--sharp enough +herself, mind you--uses all of you. + +"No Beaminster has ever faced his or her Tiger yet, and they're down, +like knives, on everyone who does and everything that shows the Tiger's +bright eyes---- + +"But I see--oh, Lord! I see--a time coming, yes, here in England, when +the Individual, the great man, is coming through, when the Duchess will +be dead and the Beaminster driven from power and every man with his +Tiger there in front of him, faced and trained, will have his chance-- + +"More brain, more courage, no muddle--God help the day!" + +"You see things moving--everywhere?" + +"Everywhere. These fellows, Randall and the rest, are bringing their +Tigers with 'em. They're going to put them there for all the world to +see. It's only another party out against the Duchess, _she_ wants all +the Tigers hidden--only herself to know about them--then she can do her +work. She'll hate these fellows until they've made their stand and then +she'll try to adopt them in order to muzzle them the better in the end. + +"If Westcott hides his Tiger, forgets he's there, his way's plain +enough. He'll make money, the Duchess will ask him to tea. Let him join +these fellows and his Tiger may tear all his present self to pieces." + +"What about yourself, Brun?" + +"Oh, I'm nothing! I'm the one great exception. No Tiger thinks me worth +while. I merely observe, I don't feel--and you have to feel to keep your +Tiger alive." + +Brun's little lecture was over. He suddenly drew his body together, +clapped his mental hands to dismiss the whole thing and was drawing +Westcott to the door. + +"But I talk--how I talk! You bear with me, Christopher, because I must +go on, you know. It means nothing--absolutely nothing. But they will +have arrived now, so down we go. I go on in my sleep, exactly the same. +And now tea--and I will talk less because Breton talks a great deal and +so does Arkwright, and so do you...." + + +II + +Arkwright came, and after a little, Breton. But the meeting was not a +success. Arkwright had heard a good deal about Breton's reputation, and +although, on the whole, he was tolerant of any backsliding in women, he +made what he called his liking for "clean men" an excuse for much +narrow-mindedness. + +It is quite a mistake to suppose that living in solitude and danger +makes a human being tolerant. It has the precisely opposite effect. +Arkwright was more frightened of a man who was not "quite right with +society" than of any number of enraged natives. With natives one knew +where one was. Whereas with a man like this ... + +Breton, anxious to please, made the mistake of showing his anxiety. +Seeing an enemy round every corner he was a little theatrical, too +demonstrative, too foreign. Arkwright disliked his beard and the +movement of his hands. "He wouldn't have come, had he known...." + +Breton had, of course, at once perceived this man's hostility. Returning +to England had involved, as he had known that it must, a life of +battles, skirmishes, retreats, wounds, and every kind of hostility. +People did not forget and even had they desired to do so, his +relationship family history prevented Breton's oblivion. + +He was ready for discourtesy, however eager he may have been for +friendship. But what the Devil, he thought, is this fellow doing here at +all? If Brun brought him in he must have told him just whom he was to +meet, and if he came with that knowledge about him, why then should he +not behave like a gentleman? Breton's half timid advance towards +friendliness now yielded to curt hostility. + +Brun maintained his silence and only watched the two men with an +amusement just concealed. Conversation at last ceased and the heat beat, +in waves, through the open windows and the air seemed now to be +stiffened into bronze. Beyond the room all the city lay waiting for the +cool of the evening. + +Christopher liked Arkwright and Arkwright liked Christopher. + +Christopher had read one of Arkwright's books and spoke of it with +praise and also intelligence, and nothing goes to an author's heart like +intelligent appreciation from an unbiassed critic. But Breton was not to +be won over. He sat deep in his chair and replied in sulky monosyllables +whenever he was addressed. + +Christopher soon gave him up and the three men talked amongst +themselves. + +The heat of the afternoon passed and a little breeze danced into the +room, and the hard brightness of the sky changed to a pale primrose that +had still some echo of the blue in its faint colour. + +The city had uttered no sound through the heat of the day, but now +voices came up to the windows: the distant crying of papers, the call of +some man with flowers, then the bells of the Round Church began to ring +for evensong. + +Breton sat there, wrapped in sulky discontent. In his heart he was +wretched. Christopher had deserted him; these men would have nothing to +do with him. As was his nature everything about him was exaggerated. He +had come to Brun's rooms that afternoon, feeling that men had taken him +back to their citizenship again. Now he was more urgently assured of his +ostracism than before. Who were these men to give themselves these airs? +Because he had made one slip were they to constitute themselves his +judges? These Beaminster virtues again--the trail of his family at every +step, that same damnable hypocrisy, that same priggish assumption of the +right to judge. Better to die in the society of those friends of his who +had suffered as he had done, from the judgment of the world--no scorn of +sinners there, no failure in all sense of true proportion. + +Christopher got up to go. He gave Arkwright his card. "Come in and dine +one night and tell me all you're doing----" + +"Of course I'll come," Arkwright said. "Only you're much too busy----" + +"Indeed no," said Christopher. "One day next week you'll hear from +me----" + +Breton got up. "I'll come with you," he said to Christopher. + +The two men went away together. + +When they were gone Arkwright said to Brun, "Now that's the kind of man +I like----" + +"Yes," said Brun, laughing. "Better than the other fellow, eh?" + +Arkwright smiled. "More my sort, I must confess." + + +III + +Christopher and Breton did not speak until they reached Oxford Circus. +Here everything, flower-women, omnibuses, grey buildings, grimy men and +women--was drowned in purple shadow. It might be only a moment's beauty, +but now beneath the evening star, frosted silver and alone in a blue +heaven, sound advanced and receded with the quiet rhythm of water over +sand. For an instant a black figure of an omnibus stood against the blue +and held all the swell, the glow, the stir at a fixed point--then life +was once more distributed. + +Here, as they turned down Oxford Street Christopher broke silence. He +put his arm through Breton's: + +"Well, Frank? Sulks not over yet?" + +Breton broke away. "It's all very well, but I suppose I'm to pretend +that I like being insulted by any kind of fool who happens to turn up. +Good God, Chris, you'd think I was a child by the way you talk to me." + +"And so you are a child," said Christopher impatiently, "and a thankless +child too. Sometimes I wonder why I keep on bothering with you." + +Christopher was, like other Scotchmen, a curious mixture of amiability +and irascibility; his temper came from his pride and Breton had learnt, +many years ago, to fear it. In fact, of all the things in life that he +disliked doing, quarrelling with Christopher was the most agreeable. +Then there were stubbornness and tenacity that were hard indeed to deal +with. But to-day he was reckless; the heat of the afternoon and now the +beauty of the evening had both, in their different ways, contributed to +his ill-temper. He knew, even now, that afterwards he would regret every +word that he uttered, but he let his temper go. + +"I wonder that you do bother," he said. "Let me alone and let me find my +own way." + +"Don't be a fool," Christopher answered. "There's nothing in the world +for us to quarrel about, only I can't bear to see you giving such a +wrong impression of yourself to strangers--sulking there as though you +were five years old----" + +"All very well," retorted Breton; "you didn't hear the way that fellow +insulted me. I'll wring his neck if I meet him again. I'll----" + +"Now, enough of that!" Christopher's voice was stern. "You know quite +well, Frank, that you're hardly in a position to wring anyone's neck. +You remember the account I gave you of my little dispute with your +grandmother----" + +"Thank you," said Breton fiercely. "You remind me rather frequently of +the kind things you do for me." + +And all the time something in him was whispering to him, "_What_ a fool +you are to talk like this!" + +Christopher's voice now was cold: "That's hardly fair of you. I'm +turning up here----" They paused. Breton looked away from him up into +the quiet blue recesses of the side street. Christopher went on: "I only +mean that if I were you I should drop hanging on to the skirts of a +family who don't want you. I should set about and get some work to do, +cut all those rotten people you go about with, and behave decently to +strangers when you meet them. That's all. Good night." + +And Christopher was gone. + +Breton stood there, for a moment, with the tide of his misery full upon +him. Then he turned down Oxford Street and drove his way through the +crowds of people who were coming up towards the Circus. He was alone, +utterly alone in all the world. Everyone else had a home to go to, he +alone had nowhere. + +Only a few weeks ago he had come back to England, with money enough to +keep him alive and a fine burning passion of revenge. That family of his +should lament the day of his birth, that old woman should be down on her +knees, begging his mercy. Now how cold and wasted was that revenge! What +a fool was he wincing at the ill-manners of a stranger, quarrelling with +the best friend man ever had. + +How evilly could Life desert a man and kill him with loneliness. + +And then his mood changed; if Christopher and the rest intended to cast +him off, let them. There were his old friends--men and women who had +been ostracized by the world as he had been--they would know how to +treat him. + +He turned into the silence and peace of Saxton Square and there met Miss +Rand, who was also walking home. The statue was wrapped in blue mist, +the trees were fading into grey and the evening star seemed to have +taken Saxton Square under its special protection. + +"Good evening, Miss Rand." + +"Good evening, Mr. Breton." + +"Isn't it a lovely evening?" + +"Yes. But _hasn't_ it been hot?" + +Miss Rand did not look as though she could ever, under any possible +circumstances, be hot, so neat and cool was she, but she said yes it had +been. + +"Isn't it odd the way that as soon as it's fine people begin to complain +just as they do when it's wet?" + +"It gives them something to talk about--just as it's giving us something +now," said Miss Rand, laughing. + +Breton looked at her and liked her. She seemed so strong and wise and +safe. She would surely always give one the kind of sensible +encouragement that one needed. She would be a good person in whom to +confide. + +They were on the top doorstep now. + +"No. I've got a key." He let her pass him. + +They stood for a moment in the hall together. + +He spoke, as he always did, on the instant's inspiration: + +"Miss Rand?" + +"Yes." + +"I'm alone such a lot--in my evenings I mean. I wonder--might I come +down sometimes and just talk a little? You don't know how bad thinking +too much is for me, and if I might----" + +"Why, of course, Mr. Breton--whenever you like." + +Seeing her now, he thought, just now, with her sudden colour she looked +quite pretty. + +"I expect you could advise me--help me in lots of ways----" + +"If there's anything mother or I can do, Mr. Breton, you've only got to +ask--Good night----" + +The door closed behind her. + +He went up to his room, a less miserable man. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE GOLDEN CAGE + + "She gives away because she overflows. She has her own feelings, + her own standards; she doesn't keep remembering that she must be + proud."--_The Lesson of the Master._ + + +I + +Those weeks were, to Rachel, a golden time. She did not pretend to deny +or examine their golden quality--they were far, far better than she had +imagined anything could ever be, and that was enough. She had never, +very definitely, imagined to herself this "coming out," but it had been, +at any rate, behind its possible glories, a period of terror. "All those +people" was the way that, with frightened eyes, she had contemplated it. + +And now the kindness that there had been! All the London world had +surely nothing to do but to pay her compliments, to surround her with +courtesies, to flatter her every wish. Even Aunt Adela had under the +general enthusiasm, blossomed a little into good-will, even Uncle +Richard had remembered to wish her well, even the Duke had cracked +applause, and as for Uncle John! ... he was like an amiable conjurer +whose best (and also most difficult) trick had achieved an absolute +triumph. + +And behind all this there was more. May, June and the early part of July +showered such weather upon London as had surely never been showered +before, and these brilliant days dressed, for Rachel, her brilliant +success in cloth of gold and emblazoned robes. She felt the presence of +London for the first time, as the hot weather came beating up the +streets and the brilliant whites and blues and greens and reds flung +back to the burning blue their contrast and splendour. + +She felt, for the first time, her own especial London, and now the grey +cool cluster of buildings at one end of blazing Portland Place and the +dark green of the hovering park at the other end had a new meaning for +her, as though she had only just come to live here and was seeing it all +for the first time. In the streets that hung about Portland Place she +noticed little shops--little bakers and little shoemakers and little +tailors and little sweetshops--and they were all furtive and dark and +shabby. + +And these little shops led to the growth in her mind of an especial +picture of her square of London life, Portland Place white and shining +in the middle, with the Circus like a fair at one end of it, the park +like a mystery at the other end of it, and, on either side, little +secret shops and little dim squares hanging about it, and Harley Street +sinister and ominous by its side. + +Every element of Life and Death was there, the whole History of Man's +Journey Through This World to the Next. + +Behind all the joy and overflowing happiness of these weeks this sudden +setting of London about her was consciously present. + + +II + +Since that meeting with Miss Rand on the day before the ball Rachel had +often spoken to her. They met at first by accident and then Rachel had +gone to Lizzie's neat little sitting-room to ask for something and, +after that, had looked in for five minutes or so, and they had talked +very pleasantly about the hot weather and the theatres and the ways of +the world. + +Behind all the splendour there was, for Rachel, the dark shadow of +suspense. Was it going to last? What was to follow it? When would those +awkward uncertainties that had once kept her company return to her? Now +whatever else might be doubtful about Miss Rand, one thing was certain, +that she _would_ last, would remain to the end the same clean, reliable, +honest person that she was now. + +Imagine Lizzie Rand unreliable and she vanishes altogether! Rachel +welcomed this and she also admired the wonderful manner in which Miss +Rand accomplished her gigantic task. To run a house like this one and at +the end of it all to remain as composed and safe as though nothing had +been done! + +Rachel herself might carry off a difficult situation by riding +desperately at it, stringing her resources to their highest pitch, but +afterwards reaction would claim its penalty. + +The penalties were never claimed from Miss Rand. + +So, gradually, without any definite words or events, almost without +active consciousness, they became friends. + +Rachel, suddenly, on one afternoon early in July, determined to go and +pay Lizzie Rand a visit in her house. + +That house in Saxton Square had acquired a new romantic interest since +Rachel had learnt that the abandoned, abominable cousin, who defied +Grandmamma and whose name one was never to mention, lived there. Rachel +had considered this cousin more than once during these last months. She +had resented, from the first, the fact that he was to be given, by the +family, no chance of redemption. However bad he had been (and he had +apparently been very bad indeed) his opportunity should have been +offered to him. His life, she knew, had been hard, he was, like herself, +an orphan, and he hated, as she did, her grandmother. Of course, then, +he interested her. + +She did not now say to herself that if this romantic cousin had not been +staying in that house she would not have contemplated a visit to Lizzie. +The Beaminster in her had just now the upper hand, and the Beaminster +simply said that Saxton Square would be a nice place in which Uncle +John, who was, this afternoon, taking her out for a drive, might leave +her whilst he went to the club; later he could pick her up and take her +home. + +The Beaminster part of her did not acknowledge the cousin. + +Quite casually she said to Uncle John, "I want you to leave me at Miss +Rand's for half an hour this afternoon--she is helping me about some +clothes." + +Now Uncle John had during these last weeks continually congratulated +himself on the disappearance of Rachel's irritable, unsettled self. +Always lately one had been presented with her delightful young eager +self and always she had been anxious to agree with Uncle John's +proposals. The world had been going smoothly for him in other ways of +late, and no one had been disagreeable. How pleasant to keep the world +in this amiable condition and how dangerous to risk anyone's +displeasure! + +He had moreover almost (not quite) forgotten that his rascal of a nephew +was living in the same house as Miss Rand, and, even if he did remember +it, well, it was quite another part of the house, and in all probability +Miss Rand had never spoken to Frank Breton, nor so much as said good day +to him. + +Finally it was so sumptuous a day, and Rachel was clothed in so radiant +a happiness and so fluttering and billowing and chuckling a dress of +white and blue, and he himself was looking so handsome in the most +shining of top-hats, the broadest of black bow ties, the most elegant of +pepper-and-salt trousers and the whitest of white spats, that +complaining or arguing or disputing was utterly out of the question. + +"Miss Rand's, my dear? What's the address?... Right you are--" so off +they went. + +She arrived to find Miss Rand, a round chubby lady in bright pink, and a +stranger having tea together. The chubby lady was Mrs. Rand and the +stranger was Francis Breton. She had not expected that her arrival would +cause such a disturbance, nor that she herself would discover the right +and easy words so difficult to say. The little room seemed to be crowded +with furniture and tea-things, and she, quite deliberately, put off any +consideration of her cousin until the atmosphere had been allowed, a +little, to settle around them. + +Miss Rand looked at her almost sternly and was, plainly, at a loss. Mrs. +Rand was excited, and so nervous that her tea-cup rattled in her saucer +and she stayed for quite a long time with her finger in the tea under +the delusion that she was using a teaspoon. + +Mrs. Rand's absence of mind was generally due to the fact that she read +one novel a day all the year round and that her thoughts, her hopes, her +despairs were always centred in the book of the day, although when +to-morrow came she could not tell you the author nor the title nor any +of the incidents. Had she been to a play, then, for twenty-four hours +following, it was the drama that held the field. + +She spent her life in an amiable desire to remember, for the sake of her +friends, the plays and books of the past. But she was never successful. +As she said, "The attempt to keep up with the literature and drama of +the day, although praise-worthy, demands all one's time and energy." + +The Beaminster family alone of all other interests in the wide world +might be calculated to draw her out of the realms of the imagination, +and Rachel's entrance scattered all plots to the four winds. + +Rachel sat down and, for a little while, Mrs. Rand held the field. She +told them all that this visit of Miss Beaminster was the most wonderful +and unexpected thing, that it was like a novel, and that she would never +forget it. "But I always do say, Miss Beaminster, that it's the +unexpected that happens. Life's stranger than fiction is my opinion, and +I don't care who contradicts me I shall still hold it." + +At length Rachel had leisure to consider her cousin and then was, +instantly, convinced that she had met him before. She also knew that she +could not have met him before. + +In the strangest way he was connected with those early dream years +which, now, she struggled so sternly to forget. The snow, the bleak sky, +the silence, the sleigh-bells, some strange voice speaking high in air +as though from a distant summit, and all this coming to her with a +poignancy that, even now, brought the tears to her heart and filled it +to overflowing. + +As she saw his thin body, his eyes, his head and the attitude of the boy +in all his movements and gestures she knew that, for her, he belonged to +that earlier world. She knew it so certainly that, although he had not +yet spoken, she could be sure of the exact quality that his voice would +have. + +And confused with this recognition of him was the alarm that she always +felt when her early life returned to her. + +Also she was young enough to be pleased at the agitation into which her +coming had thrown him. It meant, plainly, so much to him; although he +was silent he leant forward in his chair, with his eyes fixed upon her, +waiting for his opportunity. + +Miss Rand, watching him, saw how tremendously this meeting with one of +the family excited him, and, seeing him, her heart filled with pity. +"He's so young. It is hard. He does want someone to look after him." + +Rachel's happiness had, now, returned to her. She liked them all so +much, it was all so cosy, it was so good of them to wish to see her. She +talked with Mrs. Rand about the theatre and the opera. + +"We're going to the opera to-night--the _Meistersinger_. I've heard it +in Munich twice, but never with Van Rooy, who's singing to-night. I +believe that's an experience one never forgets----" + +Mrs. Rand did not really care about opera; everything in opera happened +so slowly, except in _Carmen_, and even that was better simply as a +play. She liked musical comedy because there you could laugh, or plays +like _The Mikado_, for instance. + +She was vague as to the _Meistersinger_ and she had never heard of Van +Rooy, but she said, "I agree with you, Miss Beaminster. There's nobody +like him." + +At that Breton struck in with something about music that he had heard in +strange places abroad, and then Rachel, looking in his face for the +first time, asked him about his travels. + +As their eyes and voices met she was again overwhelmed with the vivid +consciousness of their earlier meeting. She thought, "If I were to ask +him whether he remembered that same snow and silence he would say yes--I +know he would say yes." + +Miss Rand, with eyes that were kind but very, very sharp, watched them. +She noticed the eagerness of Breton and wished that he did not seem +quite so anxious to please. "But that's because he's young," she thought +again. + +And, now that he had begun, the words poured from him. With +gesticulation that was faintly foreign, ever so little dramatic, he +unpacked his adventures. He spoke as though this were, beyond all time, +_the_ moment when he must make his effect. + +He did it well, a born teller of tales. And yet Miss Rand wished that he +had not had to do it at all, that there had been more reserve, less +drama, less volubility. + +Mrs. Rand, an older Desdemona, listened spellbound. This was as good as +getting a circulating library without paying a subscription. As she said +to her daughter afterwards: "He really was as good as those novels by +what's his name--you know who I mean--those delightful stories about +those foreign places--and the sea." + +He spoke of the first time that he had actually been conscious of the +jungle. "Of course I'd been into it dozens of times--often and often. +But there was a day--I remember as though it were yesterday--when we +went up in a boat--some river or another--That river was the most secret +and sleepy green, and the place all closed about it as though we'd gone +into a box, and they'd closed the lid. Nothing but the green river and +all the forest getting closer and closer and darker and darker, all +blacker than you can imagine, and worse still when it was lighter--a +kind of twilight--and you could see enough to make you shiver--no sound +but the animals, and the branches and the great plants and brilliant +flowers all creeping and crawling--Suddenly--all in a flash--I wanted a +lamp-post and a public house, a wet night shining on streets, the +rattle of a hansom--I was suddenly ghastly frightened, and we got deeper +and deeper into it, and human beings further and further behind, and +only the beastly monkeys and the alligators and the hideous flowers. I +can feel it still----" + +Rachel was enthralled. He called up, on every side about her, that stern +life of hers. He knew and she knew--they alone out of all the world. All +her gaiety, her happiness, her interest of the last weeks went now for +nothing beside this experience. He was not now related to the +Beaminsters--to Grandmother, to Aunt Adela, to Uncle John--but to _her_ +and to that part of her that had nothing to do with the Beaminsters at +all. The room, the commonplace furniture, the pictures of "Lodore Falls" +and "The Fighting Temeraire," the little glimpses of the square beyond +the window, these things shared in the mystery. + +Miss Rand had seen her caught and held. "_She's_ very young too," she +said to herself a little grimly and a little tenderly also--"All too +sensational to be true," she thought. "There's a little bit of unreality +in him all the way through." + +Mrs. Rand said: "What do you think of alligators, Miss Beaminster? Don't +you agree with me that they must be most unpleasant to meet? I always +dislike their sluggish ways when I see them in the Zoological Gardens." + +Then upon them all broke the little maid with a husky "Miss Beaminster's +carriage, please, mem." + +Rachel, as she said good-bye, was aware of him again as "her scandalous +cousin." He too was now awkward and embarrassed. They said good-bye +hurriedly and there was between them both a consciousness that no word +of the family or their relationship had been mentioned. + +"Well," said Mrs. Rand, when the door was closed, "no one in the world +could have been pleasanter...." + + +III + +They did not arrive at the opera that night until the beginning of the +second act. It was Lady Carloes' box and she and Uncle John and Roddy +Seddon were Rachel's companions. + +All the way home in the carriage Rachel had been silent and Lord John, +perceiving uneasily that some of the old Rachel was back again, had said +very little. + +Her mind was confused. At one moment she felt that she did not want to +see him again, that he disturbed her peace and worried her with memories +that were better forgotten. At another moment she could have returned, +then and there, to ask him questions, to know whether he felt this or +that: had he ever pictured such a place? Had he...? + +And then sharply she dismissed such thoughts. She would think of him no +more--and yet he did not look a villain. How delightful to persuade the +family to take him back. Why should she not help towards a +reconciliation? She was herself so happy now that she could not bear +that anyone should feel outcast or lonely--they were all very hard upon +him. + +It was not until she heard the voices of the apprentices that thought of +her cousin left her. As she groped her way in the dark box and heard +Lady Carloes' stuffy whisper (she had the voice of a cracknel biscuit), +"You sit there, my dear--Lord John here. That's right--I knew you'd be +late because ..." she was gloriously aware that quite close to her the +music that she loved best in all the world was transforming existence. +She touched Roddy's hand and then surrendered herself. + +She had been to Covent Garden now on four or five occasions and from the +first the shabby building with its old red and gold, its air of +belonging to any period earlier than the one it was just then amusing, +its attitude, above all, of indifference to its aspect--all this had +attracted her and won her affection. London, she discovered, was always +best when it was shabbiest and one could not praise it more highly than +by declaring, with perfect truth, that it was the shabbiest city in the +world. Now, feeling instinctively that English apprentices (she had had +already some taste of the Covent Garden chorus) would act too much or +too little, she closed her eyes. + +Now, as the music reached her, the old red and gold seemed a cage, +swinging, swinging higher and ever higher with old Lady Carloes and +Roddy Seddon and all the brilliant people in the stalls, and all the +enthusiastic people in the gallery, swinging, swinging inside it. She +could feel the lift of it, the rise and fall, and almost the clearer air +about her as it rose into the stars. + +Then there came to her the voice for which she had surely all her days +been waiting. It enwrapped her round and comforted her, consoled her for +all her sorrows, reassured her for all her fears. It filled the cage and +the air beyond the cage, it was of earth and of heaven, and of all +things good and beautiful in this world and the next. + +For the second time to-day her early years came back to her; the voice +had in it all those hours when someone's tenderness had made Life worth +living. "Life is immortal," it cried. "And I am immortal, for I am Love +and Charity, and, whatever the wise ones may tell you, I cannot die." +She felt again the space and the silence and the snow, but now with no +alarm, only utter reassurance. And the cage swung up and up and there +were now only the stars and the wind around and about them. + +Then, in an instant of time, the cage, with a crash, was upon the +ground. Across her world had cut Lady Carloes' voice--"Oh yes, and +there's Lord Crewner--no, not in that row--the one behind--next that +woman with the silver thing in her hair--four from the end----" + +And Roddy Seddon's voice--"Yes, I see him. Who's he got with him?" + +Lady Carloes again: "I can't quite see--Miss Mendle as likely as +not.... You know, old Aggie Mendle's daughter...." + +Rachel felt in that moment that murder was assuredly no crime. Her hands +shook on her lap and one of those passions, that she had not known for +many months, caught her so that she could have torn Lardy Carloes' hair +from her head had the chairs been happily arranged. + +Fortunately the interruption had been accompanied by Beckmesser's +entrance: that other voice was, for the moment, still. Then, as Sachs +caught up Beckmesser's serenade, there came again: + +"Well, of course if you can't go that week-end I dare say she'll give +you another. Only I know she's settling her dates now." + +"Yes, but it's a bore havin' to fix up such a long way ahead and you +don't know what old stumers you mayn't be boxed up with----" + +Oh! It was abominable! She had been seeing a great deal of Roddy during +these last weeks, and ever since that visit to Uncle Richard she had +been conscious of an intimacy that she had certainly not resented. + +But any favour that he may have had with her was certainly now +forfeited. His voice was again superior to Beckmesser: + +"And so of course I said that if they _would_ go to such shockin' rot I +wasn't goin' to waste my evenin's----" + +She pushed her chair back against his knees: "Beg pardon, Miss +Beaminster, afraid I jolted you----" + +"Oh! Keep quiet! Keep quiet!" + +Her whisper was so urgent, so packed with irritation that instantly +there was, in the box, the deepest of silences. + +She sat forward again, anger choking her: she could not recover any +illusion. She hated him, _hated_ him! The crowd came on with a whirl. +Then there was that last moment when the old watchman cries to the +genial moon and the silvered roofs. + +Then the curtain fell. + +Without a word, her face white, her hands still trembling, she rose to +leave the box. She passed out into the passage and found that Roddy was +by her side. + +"I say, Miss Beaminster, I am most awfully sorry, most awfully. I hadn't +any idea, really, that I was kickin' up that row. I could have hit +myself." + +She walked down the passage and he followed her. She was superb, she was +indeed, with her head up, that neck, those hands, those flashing eyes. +He had never seen anyone so fine. She ought always to be enraged. That +instant decided him. She was the woman for a man to have for his own, +someone who could look like someone at the head of your table, someone +with the right blood in her veins, someone.... + +"I could _beat_ myself," he said again. + +"How dared you----" she broke out at last. They were, by good luck, +alone in the passage. "How could you? What do you come for if you care +nothing for music at all? If you can hear a voice like that and then +talk about your own silly little affairs.... And the selfishness of it! +Of course you think of nobody but yourself!" + +"Upon my word, Miss Beaminster!" + +"No, I've no patience with you. Go to your musical comedy if you like, +but leave music like this for people who can appreciate it!" + +Oh! she was superb! Entirely superb! She ought to be like this every day +of her life! To think that he should have the chance of winning such a +prize! + +Nevertheless she would not speak to him again and they went back to the +box. She would not speak to Lady Carloes nor to her uncle. + +Then as the loveliest music in all opera flooded the building her anger +began to melt. + +He had looked so charmingly repentant and, after all, the +_Meistersinger_ was long for anyone who did not really care for +music--and then they all did talk. It was only in the gallery that one +found the proper reverence. + +Her anger cooled and then descended upon her the quintet, and she was +once again swept, in her cage, to the stars. + +Now she and all live things seemed to be opening their hearts together +to God--no shame now to speak of one's deepest and most sacred thoughts. +No fear now of God nor the Archangels nor all the long spaces of +Immortality. The cage had ascended to the highest of all the Heavens, +and there, for a moment, one might stand, worshipping, with bowed head. + +The quintet ceased and Rachel felt that she could never be angry with +anyone again. She wished to tell him so. + +At last, the revels were over, the "Prieslied" had won its praises, +Sachs had been acclaimed by his world, and they were all in the lobby, +waiting for carriages, talking, laughing, hurrying to the restaurants. + +Her face was lighted now with happiness. She touched his arm. + +"I didn't mean to be angry--like that. It was silly and rude of me. +Forgive me, please----" + +He turned, stuttering. "Forgive you!" He took her hand--"I ought to have +been shot--Yes, I'll never forgive myself. You--you----" And then he +could say no more, but suddenly, raising his hat, bolted away. + +As the door swung behind him Lady Carloes turned a perplexed face-- + +"Why! he said good night! And now I shall never find----" + +But Lord John appeared just then and all was well. + +Going back, in the dark brougham, Rachel put her head on her uncle's +shoulder and, exhausted with excitement and happiness and something more +than either of them, cried her eyes away. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +LIZZIE AND BRETON + + "What of Adam cast out of Eden? + (And O the Bower and the hour!) + Lo! with care like a shadow shaken + He kills the hard earth whence he was taken." + + DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. + + +I + +To the ordinary observer Lizzie Rand was, during that hot July, as she +had ever been. + +The servants in 104 Portland Place could detect no change, but then they +did not search for one, having long regarded Miss Rand as a piece of +machinery, symbolized by that broad shining belt of hers, happily +calculated to fit, precisely, the duties for which it was required. + +But Miss Rand herself knew that there was a sharp, accurate, shrewd +piece of machinery named Miss Rand, and a breathing, emotional, +uncertain human being called Lizzie. There had always been those two, +but since the inadequacy of her mother and sister had been confronted +with the stern necessity of making two ends meet, Miss Rand had been in +constant demand and Lizzie had only, by her occasional obtrusion, made +life complicated and disturbing. + +Miss Rand had told herself that Lizzie was now almost an anachronism, +that the emotions in life that aroused her were bad cheap emotions, and +that this was an age that demanded increasingly of women a hard +practical efficiency without sentiments or enthusiasms. + +These forcible arguments had for a time kept Lizzie in a darkened +background; it was some years since Miss Rand had been disturbed. But +now in the warm weather of 1898 Lizzie had not only reappeared, but had +leapt, an insistent, shining presence, into urgent life. Miss Rand +faced her--what had created her? A little, the weather, the beauty of +those brazen days--A little, Rachel's coming out into the world, an +adventure that had stirred the whole house into a new and sympathetic +excitement--a little, these things. But chiefly, and no pretence nor +shame could conceal the fact, did this new Lizzie owe her creation to +the appearance of Francis Breton. + +Lizzie Rand had had, from her birth, a romantic heart; she had had also +a prosaic practical exterior, and a mind as hard and clear, if +necessary, as her own most lucent typewriter. + +The romantic heart had, throughout these years, been there, and now this +romantic, scandalous, youthful, engaging unfortunate had called it out. + +She was never so warmly attracted as by someone lacking, most obviously, +in those qualities with which she herself abounded. That people should +be foolish, impetuous, careless, haphazard commended them straight to +her keeping. "Poor dears" had their instant claim upon her. Her mother +and sister were "poor dears" and she had suffered from them now during +many years. Francis Breton was most assuredly a "poor dear!" + +Here the Duchess a little flung her shadow and confused the mind. +Although Lizzie had never seen that splendid figure she was, +nevertheless, acutely conscious of her. She was conscious of her through +her own imagination, through her mother, finally through Lady Adela. + +Her imagination painted the old lady, the room, the furniture fantastic, +strangely coloured, always with dramatic effect. Her picture was never +precisely defined, but in its very vagueness lay its terrors and its +omens. + +Miss Rand, the most practical and collected of young women, could never +pass the Duchess's door without a "creep." + +Through her mother the Duchess came to her as the head of society. +Society had never troubled Lizzie's visions of Life. She had, in her +years with the Beaminsters, seen it pass before her with all its comedy +and pathos, and the figures that had been concerned in that procession +had seemed to her exactly like the figures in any other procession +except that they were dressed for their especial "subject." But oddly +enough when, through her own observation, this life, seen accurately at +first hand, amounted only to any other life, seen through the eyes of +her mother, it achieved another size. + +She knew that her mother was a foolish woman, that her mother's opinions +on life were absurd and untrue, and yet that dim, great figure that the +Duchess assumed in her mother's eyes, in some odd way impressed her. + +Lastly, and most strikingly of all, came Lady Adela's conception to her. +Lady Adela was in terror of her mother; everyone knew it, friends, +relations, servants. Lizzie herself saw it in a thousand different +ways--saw it when Lady Adela spoke of her, saw it in the way that Lady +Adela addressed Dorchester when that grim woman was interviewed by her, +saw it when Lady Adela was suddenly summoned to that room upstairs. + +Lizzie, during the hours when she was writing from Lady Adela's +dictation or working with her, found her dry, stupid, sometimes kind, +never emotional. It was to her, therefore, the most convincing proof of +the Duchess's power, this emotion, this alarm drawn from so dry a heart. + +Now the influence that the Duchess had upon Lizzie was always a confused +one. Persuasion from this source followed lines of reasoning that were +false and led to some conclusions that were muddled and untrue. + +Through such minds as her mother's and Lady Adela's no clear truth could +come, and yet it was through such minds as these that the Duchess's +influence descended upon Lizzie. + +It descended now with regard to Francis Breton. It told Lizzie that +Breton had been proved by society to be a scoundrel, that he should be +no worthy man's friend, that he belonged to that world, the world of +shadows and past misadventures, that no proper soul might, with honesty, +investigate. + +This was what the Duchess told to Lizzie and perhaps by so doing +increased her sympathy with the sinner. + + +II + +It must not be supposed that Mrs. Rand had not, at first, been unsettled +by scruples. + +The fact that Breton was, in the eyes of the Beaminster family, a +ne'er-do-well who had brought disgrace upon the family name had, for a +time, distressed her, but the romantic hope of being herself the agent +of his restoration to his grandmother, and the delightful manners of the +scoundrel when he appeared, killed her alarm. Mrs. Rand's mind was a +dark misty place except when the candles of romance were lit; when +_they_ flamed, blown by the wind though they might be, there was, around +the candlesticks at any rate, a real and even splendid blaze. + +One afternoon, towards the end of July, Mrs. Rand meeting Breton on +their doorstep was moved to ask him whether he would come in and spend +the evening with them, if he had nothing better to do. They had only a +simple little meal, and would he please not bother to dress? Breton said +that he would be delighted. + +Mrs. Rand had been, that afternoon, to a romantic comedy in which ladies +and gentlemen with French accents had made love and escaped together and +been caught together and been married together. Mrs. Rand had gone quite +alone into the pit and had returned with tears in her eyes and affection +for all the world. + +So she had asked Mr. Breton to dinner. + +After a while, however, she was a little uncertain. Daisy was away in +the country with friends. How would Lizzie then like this unexpected +visitor? Mrs. Rand was, quite frankly, frightened of Lizzie and +complained of her a good many times a week to Daisy. Lizzie was for +ever interfering with innocent pleasures; Lizzie was mean and unromantic +and unimaginative; Lizzie was thoroughly tiresome. + +The fact that Lizzie worked incessantly for her mother and her sister +never occurred to Mrs. Rand at all. + +Lizzie objected to all innocent amusement and she would, in all +likelihood, object now. + +However, when Mrs. Rand with a fearful mind said, "Oh, Lizzie dear, I've +had such a delightful afternoon. I went to _Love and the King_ and +it was too charming--you ought to go, really--and Mr. Breton's coming to +dinner to-night," Lizzie only smiled a little and asked whether there +was food enough. Lizzie was _so_ strange.... + +Alone in her bedroom Lizzie wondered at her excitement. She looked at +her trim, neat figure in the glass, with the hair so gravely brushed, +with her collar and her cuffs, with her compact businesslike air: what +had she to do with excitement because a young man was coming to dinner? +"It must be because I'm tired--this heat," she said to the mirror. And +the mirror replied, "You know that you are glad because your sister +Daisy is away." + +And to that she had no answer. + +When he arrived he was grave and seemed sad and tired, she thought. +Dinner was a serious affair and Mrs. Rand, who disliked people when they +refused to respond to her moods, wished, at first, that she had not +asked him, and felt sure that there was much truth in what people said +about his wickedness. + +Then, when dinner was nearly over, he brightened up and told stories and +was entertaining. Mrs. Rand noticed that he drank much claret, but this +was, after all, a compliment to her housekeeping. By the end of dinner +Mrs. Rand almost loved him and wished that Daisy had been here to +entertain him. + +Of course it must be dull for a man with only a plain cut-and-dried girl +like Lizzie for company. + +Lizzie, meanwhile, knew that he was waiting for an opportunity of +speech. She had read an appeal in his eyes when he had first entered the +room, and now she sat there, curiously, ironically amused at her own +agitation. "Lizzie Rand," she said to herself, "you're only, after all, +the kind of fool that you despise other people for being. What are you +after in this _galere_?" + +Nevertheless even now, in retrospect, how arid and sterile seemed all +those other active useful days. One moment's little grain of sentiment +and a life's hard work goes for nothing in comparison. + +After dinner, when the lamp burnt brightly and the furniture seemed to +be less anxious to fill every possible space and the windows were opened +into the square with its stars and grey shadows, the room seemed, of a +sudden, comfortable, and Mrs. Rand, sitting in an arm-chair, with a +novel on her lap and spectacles on her nose, was almost cosy. She had +left, before going to her matinee, _Just a Heroine_ at one of its most +thrilling crises, and Lizzie knew that the talk with Breton depended for +its very existence on the relative strength of the play and the novel. +If _Love and the King_ were the more powerful, then would Mrs. Rand make +a discursive third. But no, for a moment there was a pause, then, +indecisively, Mrs. Rand took up her book. For a while she talked to +Breton over its pages, then the light of excitement stole into her eyes, +her soul was netted by the snarer, Breton was forgotten as though he had +never been. + +Their chairs were by the open window and a very little breeze came and +played around them. In the square there was that sense of some imminent +occurrence, a breathless suggestion of suspense, that a hot evening +sometimes carries with it. The stars blazed in a purple sky and a moon +was full rounded, a plate of gold; beneath such splendour the square was +cool and dim. + +"You mustn't think mother rude," Lizzie said with a little smile. "If +she once gets deep into a book nothing can tear her from it." + +He said something, but she could see that he was not thinking of Mrs. +Rand. It was always in the evening, she thought, when uncertain colours +and shadows filled the air, that he looked his best. He touched, now, as +he had touched on that day of their first meeting, a note of something +fine and strange--someone, very young and perhaps very foolish and +impetuous, but someone armoured in courage and set apart for some great +purpose. + +He sat back in his chair, flinging, every now and again, little restless +glances beyond the window, pulling sometimes at his beard, answering her +absent-mindedly. Then suddenly he began, fiercely, looking away from +her-- + +"Miss Rand, I've got an apology to make to you----" + +His voice was so low that she could only catch the words by leaning +forward--"To me?" + +"Yes--I've been wanting to speak all these weeks. It seemed right enough +before, but since I've known you I've felt ashamed of it--as though I'd +done something wrong." + +"What is it, Mr. Breton?" Her clear grave eyes encouraged him. + +"Why--I came to this house, took my rooms, simply because I knew that +you were here----" + +"That I was here?" + +"Yes. I was looking about in this part of the world for rooms. I wanted +to be--near Portland Place, you know. I came here and old Mrs. Tweed +talked a lot and then, after a time, I said something--about my +grandmother. And then she told me that someone who lived here did +secretarial work for my aunt----" + +He stopped abruptly. + +"Well?" said Lizzie, laughing. "All this is not very terrible." + +"Then, you see, I determined to stay. I was full of absurd ideas just +at the time, thought that I was going to take some great revenge--I was +quite melodramatic. And so I thought that I'd use you, get to know you +and then, through you--do something or another." + +Lizzie eyed him with merriment. "Upon my word, what were you going to +make me do? Carry bombs into your aunt's bedroom or set fire to the +Portland Place house? Tell me, I should like to know----" + +"Ah," he said, "it's all very well for you to laugh. It's very kind of +you to take it that way, but lots of women wouldn't have liked it. +They'd have thought it another of the things I'm always accused of +doing, I suppose." + +"_No_," said Lizzie gravely, "it was all perfectly natural. I +understand. I should have done just the same kind of thing, I expect, if +I'd been in your place." + +The fierceness of his voice showed her that he had been brooding for +weeks, and that life was, just now, harder than he could endure. + +"You can trust me a great deal farther than that, Mr. Breton," she said. + +"The other night," he began, "you said that I might talk to you. I've +been pretty lonely lately--and it would help me if----" + +"Anything you like," she assured him. + +"Besides, there's more than that," he went on. "You've heard--of course +you must have heard all kinds of things against me. You're in the +enemy's camp and I don't suppose they measure their words. I don't know +why you've been so decent to me as you have after what you must have +heard----" + +"Don't worry your head about that," she said. "We all have our enemies." + +"No, but now that we're friends I'd like you to know my side of it all. +I don't want to make myself out a hero or blacken all the other people, +but there _is_ something to be said for me--there _is_--there _is_----" + +He muttered these last words with the deepest intensity. He seemed to +fling them through the window into the square, as though he were +standing out there, on his defence, before all those listening lighted +windows. + +"I've been a fool--a thousand times. I've done silly things often and +once or twice bad, rotten things, but all these others--these virtuous +people who are so ready to judge me, have they been any better?" + +"My father was a scoundrel, although I loved him and would love him now +if he came back--but he was just as bad as they make 'em and there's no +use in denying it. He'd tell you so himself if he were here. He broke my +poor mother's heart and killed her. I don't remember her--I was no age +at all when she died--but I've got an old picture of her, kept it always +with me; she must have been rather like my cousin Rachel, who was here +the other day----" + +_Lizzie_ watched his face. There had left him now all that hint of +insincerity, of exaggeration that she had noticed when he had talked +before. She knew that he was telling her now absolutely the truth as he +saw it. + +"She died and after that I was taken about Europe with my father. We +lived in almost every capital in Europe--Berlin, Paris, Rome, Vienna, +everywhere. Sometimes we were rich, sometimes poor. Sometimes we knew +the very best people, sometimes the very worst. Sometimes I'd go to +school for a little, then I'd suddenly be taken away. My father was +splendid to me then; the best-looking man you ever saw, tall, broad, +carried himself magnificently--the finest man in Europe. I only knew, +bit by bit, the things that he used to do. It was cards most of the +time, and he taught me to play, of course, as he taught me to do +everything else. + +"When I was eighteen my eyes were opened--I tried to leave him--But I +loved him and I verily believe that I was the only human being in the +world that he cared for. Anyway, he died of fever and general +dissipation when I had just come of age, and I came home to England +with a little money and great hopes of putting myself right with the +world." + +As he had talked to her he had gathered confidence; her silence was, in +some way to him, reassuring and comforting. Some people have the gift of +listening without words so warmly, with such eloquence that they +reassure and console as no speech could ever do. This was Lizzie's gift, +and Breton, depending, more than most human beings, upon the protection +of his fellows, gathered courage. + +"My father had always taught me to hate my grandmother. He painted her +to me as I have since found her--remorseless, eaten up with pride, +cruel. I came home to England, meaning to lead a new life, to be +decent--as I'd always wanted to be. + +"Well, they wouldn't have me, not one of them. They pretended to at +first; and my Uncle John at least was sincere, I think, and was kind for +a time, but was afraid of my grandmother as they all were. +Christopher--you know him of course--was a real friend to me. He'd stood +up for my father before and he stood up for me now. But what was the +use? I was wild when I saw that my grandmother was against me and was +going to do her best to ruin me. I just didn't care then--what was the +good of it all? Other people encouraged me. The set in London that hated +my people would have done something with me, but I wouldn't be held by +anyone. + +"I'm not excusing myself," he said quietly, looking away from the window +and suddenly taking his judgment from her eyes. + +"I know you're not," she said, smiling back to him. + +"Cards finished me. I'd always loved gambling--I love it still--my +father had given me a good education in it. There were plenty of fellows +in town to take one on and--Oh! it's all such an old story now, not +worth digging up. But there was a house and a table and a young fool who +lost all he possessed and--well, did for himself. It had all been +square as far as I was concerned, but somebody had to be a scapegoat and +two or three of us were named. It was hushed up for the sake of the +young fellow's people, but everyone knew. Of course they all said, as +far as I was concerned, 'Like father like son,' and I think I minded +that more than anything----" + +"Oh! I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Lizzie said. + +"I give you my word of honour that it had all been straight as far as I +was concerned--gambling just as anyone might. That's what made me so +mad, to think of the rest of them--all so virtuous and good--and then +going off to Monte Carlo and losing or winning their little bit--just as +I'd done. + +"I tried to brazen it out for a bit, but it was no good. Christopher +still stuck by me--otherwise it was--well, the Under Ten, you +know----" + +"The Under Ten?" + +"Yes--all the men and women who've done something--once--done one of the +things that you mustn't do. It mayn't have been very bad, not half so +bad as the things--the cruel, mean things--that most people do every day +of their lives, but, once it's there, you're down, you're under. There's +a regular colony of them here in London; their life's amusing. There +they are, hanging on here, keeping up some pretence of gaiety, some kind +of decency, waiting, hoping that the day will come when they'll be taken +back again, when everything will be forgotten. They pretend, bravely +enough, not to mind their snubs, not to notice the kind people, once +their friends, who cut them now. Every now and again they make a spring +like fish to the top of the water, see the sun, hope that the light and +air are to be theirs again, after all--and then back they are pushed, +down into the dark, their element now, they are told. Oh! there's comedy +there, Miss Rand, if you care to look for it." + +She said nothing; the fierce bitterness in his voice had made him seem +older suddenly, as though, in this portion of his journey, be had spent +many, many years. + +"I must cut it short--you'll have had enough of this. I couldn't stand +it. I left London and went abroad. After that, what didn't I do? I was +everywhere, I did everything. Sometimes I was straight, sometimes I +wasn't. I was always bitter, wild with fury when I thought of that old +woman--of her complacency, sitting there and striking down all the poor +devils that had been less fortunate than she. All those years abroad I +nourished that anger and, at last, when I thought that I'd been abroad +long enough, that people would have forgotten, perhaps, and forgiven, I +came back. I came back to be revenged on my grandmother and to +re-establish myself. I'd got some money, enough for a little annuity, and +I was careful now--I wasn't going to make any mistakes this time." He +laughed bitterly. "One doesn't learn much with age. What a fool I was! +I've got the reputation I had before, whether I'm good or bad. It would +all be hopeless--utterly hopeless--if it weren't for one thing----" + +She looked up, and as she glanced at him, could feel the furious beating +of her heart. + +"I'd go back at once--I've almost gone back already--not abroad, that +never again for long--but back to my friends, the unfortunates--" He +laughed. "They're anxious to have me. They'll welcome me. I can have my +cards and the rest then, with no one to object or to lecture--and I'll +be done for quite nicely, completely done for." + +Then he pulled himself together, squared his shoulders. "But one thing +keeps me," he said. "Something's happened in the last few weeks--I've +met somebody----" + +"Yes," she said almost in a whisper. + +"Somebody who's made it worth while for me to fight on a bit." She could +feel his agitation: his voice, although he tried very hard to control +it, was shaking. Then he laughed, raised his voice and caught and held +her eyes with his. + +"But there, Miss Rand. I've talked a fearful lot, only I wanted to tell +you--I had to tell you. And now--if you feel--that you'd rather not +know me, you've only got to say so." + +She laughed a little unsteadily. + +"Thank you for taking me into your confidence. You shall never regret +it. I'm glad you're going to hold on, and, after all, we're all doing +that more or less." + +"It's done me a world of good talking like this. It's what I've been +wanting for months." + +She quieted her emotion. Looking out into the stars she knew that she +believed every word that he had said. She thought that she valued Truth +above every other quality; the directness that there was in Truth; its +honesty and clarity. He might not always be honest with her, but she +would never forget that he had, on this night, at least, spoken no +falsehood. + +Life--her work, her surroundings, Portland Place, her home--this was +full of falsehood and deceit and muddle. + +Here, this evening, at last, was honesty. + +They said no more, but sat there silently and listened to the echo of +dance music from some house. + +Mrs. Rand, whom their conversation had lured into oblivion of them, was +roused now by their silence. + +She looked up. "It's quite splendid," she said, "you must read it, +Lizzie. The part about the Riviera is lovely." Then, slowly remembering, +"Really, Mr. Breton, I'm afraid you must consider me very rude." + +He came towards her, assuring her that his evening had been delightful. + +Lizzie was happy, happier than she could ever remember to have been +before. She felt her cheeks burn. She leant out of the window to cool +them. She flung back, over her shoulder: + +"By the way, Mr. Breton--a piece of gossip. Your cousin is to marry Sir +Roderick Seddon!" + +She could not see him. He said nothing. Mrs. Rand said: + +"Really, Lizzie! How interesting! How long's that been announced?" + +"Oh! it isn't announced. I don't believe that he's even asked her, but +all the house knows it. It's settled. I believe she likes him immensely +and, of course, the Duchess is devoted to him." + +Anything would do to talk about. What did it matter? Only that she +should keep on talking so that they should not see how happy she +was--how happy! + +He said good night, rather sharply; his voice was constrained as though +he too were keeping in his emotion. + +After he had gone Mrs. Rand said, "I don't like him, my dear. I can't +help it--you may laugh at me--but my impressions are always right. He +hardly spoke to me all the evening." + +"Why, mother, you were reading. How could he?" + +"That's all very well, but I don't like him. And I believe he's in love +with his cousin. He went quite white when you spoke about the +engagement." + +"Mother--how absurd you are. He's only seen her once----" + +"Well, my dear, that's a book you ought to read; really, I haven't +enjoyed anything so much for weeks. I simply----" + +Up in her bedroom Lizzie flung wide her window and laughed at the golden +moon. Then she lay, for hours, staring at the pale light that it flung +upon her ceiling. + +Oh! what a fool she was! But she was happy, happy, happy. And he needed +someone to look after him--he did, indeed! + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +HER GRACE'S DAY + + +I + +The Duchess had suffered, during the last five or six years, from +sleeplessness, and throughout these hot days and nights of June and July +sleep almost deserted her. Grimly she gave it no quarter, allowing to no +one that she was sleeping badly, pretending even to Christopher that all +was well. + +Nevertheless those long dark hours began to tell upon her. She had known +many nights sleepless through pain, certain nights sleepless through +anxiety, but they, terrible though they had been, had not worn so stern +a look as these long black spaces of time when all rest and comfort +seemed to be drawn from her by some mysterious hand. + +To herself now she admitted that she dreaded that moment when Dorchester +left her; she began to do what she had never in her life done before, to +fall asleep during the daytime. Small mercy to anyone who might attract +any attention to those little naps. + +She fell asleep often towards six or seven and, therefore, without any +comment, Dorchester, seeing her fatigue, left her to sleep until late in +the morning. She had not for many years left her room before midday, but +she had been awake with her correspondence and the papers by half-past +seven at the latest. Now it was often eleven before she awoke. + +She found that she did not awake with the energy and freshness that she +had always known before. About her there always hovered a great cloud of +fatigue--something not quite present, but threatening at any moment to +descend. + +On a certain morning late in July she awoke after two or three hours' +restless sleep. As she woke she was conscious that those hours had not +removed from her that threatening cloud: she heard a clock strike +eleven. Dorchester was drawing back the curtains and from behind the +blinds there leapt upon her a blazing, torrid day. + +Her bedroom carried on the touch of fantasy that her other room had +shown; she was lying in a red lacquer Japanese bed that mounted up +behind her like a throne. Her wall-paper was an embossed dull gold and +the chairs were carved Indian, of black ebony. + +Lying in bed she appeared very old and ugly; the sharp nose was +exceedingly prominent and her white hair scattered about the pillow gave +her face the colour of dried parchment. + +Dorchester brought her her chocolate and her letters and _The Times_ and +the _Morning Post_. + +"Another terribly hot day, your Grace." + +"Yes--I suppose so." As she took her letters she felt, for the first +time in her life, that it would perhaps be better to lie in bed for the +rest of her life and conduct the world from there. + +She put the letters down and stared at the day-- + +"Draw the curtains again, Dorchester, and kindly ask Lady Adela if she +will be so good as to come and see me in a quarter of an hour's time." + +When Dorchester had gone she lay back and closed her eyes and dozed +again, whilst the chocolate grew cold and the births and deaths and +marriages grew aged and stale. She did not care, she did not want to see +her daughter ... she did not want to see anyone, nor was there anything +now in the world worth her energy or trouble. Her body, being now at +ease, was called back to days, brighter days, days filled with thrilling +events and thrilling people, days when the world was a world and not a +dried-up cinder. Those were men ... those were women ... and then, +suddenly, she was conscious first that her daughter was speaking and +then that her daughter was a tiresome fool. + +She sat up a little and her nightdress fell back showing a neck bony, +crinkled and yellow. + +"I said a quarter of an hour," she snapped. + +"It is a quarter of an hour, mother," said Lady Adela. + +Lady Adela hated and dreaded these morning interviews. In the first +place she disliked the decorations of her mother's bedroom, thought them +almost indecent, and could never be comfortable in such surroundings. +She was also aware, by long experience, that her mother was always at +her worst at this hour in the morning and many were the storms of temper +that that absurd bed and those unpleasant black chairs had witnessed. +Thirdly she knew that she herself looked her worst and was her weakest +amongst these eccentricities and shadowed by this dim light. + +She waited now whilst her mother fumbled her letters. + +"There's your chocolate, mother," she said at last. "It'll be cold." + +The Duchess was looking at her letters, but was absorbing only a little +of their contents. She was summoning all her will to her aid; she wanted +to order the blind to be pulled down, to command her daughter to avoid +her presence for at least a week, to scatter her correspondence to the +four corners of the earth, and to see none of it again; at the same time +she was driving into her brain the fact that before Adela, of all people +in the world, she must be alert and wise and wonderful; Adela, the +ugliest and most foolish of living women, must see no weakness. + +"Shall I read your letters to you, mother?" + +She did not answer; slowly, steadily at last, her will was flooding her +brain. She could feel the warmth and the colour and the strength of it +pervading again her body. The day did not now appear of so appalling a +heat and the weight of the things to be done was less heavy upon her. + +Lady Adela, meanwhile, watching her mother was struck once again by that +chill dismay that had alarmed her first on that May evening, after the +visit to the picture gallery. In that half-light her mother did seem +very, very old and very, very feeble. Lady Adela had a dreadful +temptation to say in a brusque sharp voice, "What do you let your +chocolate get cold like that for? Why don't you get someone to read your +letters sensibly to you instead of groping through them like that?" and +at the mere horror of such a thought a shudder shook her and her heart +began wildly to beat. Let once such words as those cross her lips and an +edifice, a wonderful, towering temple raised by submissions and subduals +and self-denials, would tumble to the ground. + +For some moments the struggle in Lady Adela's breast was sharp, then by +a tense dominion of her will she produced once again for herself the +Ceremonial, the Terror, the agitated, humble Submission. + +"Julia Massiter," the Duchess said, "has asked Rachel for the last +week-end in July--She'll go of course----" + +"Yes," said Lady Adela. + +"Roddy Seddon is going----" + +"Yes." + +"Roddy is going to marry Rachel. He's coming to see me this afternoon." + +Lady Adela was silent. + +"A very suitable business. I'd intended it for a long time." Then, after +a pause-- + +"You may tell Dorchester I will dress now." + +Lady Adela, conscious, as she left the room, of the relief of her +dismissal, joyfully yielded that relief as witness-- + +The Terror was still there, and she was glad. + + +II + +Very different, however, at three in the afternoon. Now she sat in her +high black chair waiting for Roddy Seddon. Very difficult now to imagine +that early discourage of the morning. Magnificent now with her black +dress and flashing eyes and white hair, waiting for Roddy Seddon. + +This that she had long planned was at length to come to pass. Roddy +Seddon was to be united to the Beaminster family, never again to be +separated from it. + +Of Rachel she thought not at all. She had never liked Rachel; indeed it +was a more positive feeling than that. Alone of all the family was +Rachel still in rebellion; even the Duke, although he was so often +abroad or in the country (he hated London), was submissive enough when +he was with them. But Rachel the old woman knew that she had not +touched. + +Frightened--yes. The girl hated that evening half-hour and would give a +great deal to avoid it, but the terror that she showed did not bring her +any closer to her grandmother's power; she stood outside and away. + +The Duchess had attempted to influence the girl's brain, to catch some +trait, some preference, some dislike, that she could hold and use. + +Still Rachel's soul was beyond her grasp, beyond even her guessing at. +But she knew Roddy Seddon--she knew Roddy Seddon as no one knew him. And +Roddy Seddon knew her. + +Even when he was a boy he had known her as no one else knew her. He had +seen through all her embroideries and disguises, had known where she was +theatrical and why she was so, had discovered her plots and prides, her +defeats and victories--and together they two, Pagan to the very bone of +them, had laughed at a credulous, superstitious world. + +The London that knew Roddy Seddon thought him a country bumpkin with +dissipated tastes and an amiable heart. But she knew him better than +that. He was not clever--no. He was amazingly innocent of books, he had +no intellectual attainments whatever--yet had he received any kind of +education, she knew that he might have had one of the finest brains in +the country. + +He had preferred dogs and horses and the simple enjoyments of his +sensations. + +Bowing to the outward rules and laws of the modern world he was less +modern than anyone she had ever known. + +Pagan--root and branch Pagan. In his simplicities, in his complexities, +in his moralities and immoralities, in his kindnesses and +cruelties--Pagan. + +When they were together it was astonishing the number of trappings that +they were able to discard. They were Pagan together. + +But Rachel? Rachel? + +Well, Rachel did not matter. It would be a rather good sight to see +Rachel suffer, to watch her proud spirit up against something that she +could not understand. + +And meanwhile the Beaminster family was strengthened by a great addition +and the campaign against this new generation, that refused to be led, +that wished to lead, that thought itself so very, very brilliant, should +go victoriously forward.... + +"Sir Roderick Seddon, your Grace." + +As she looked at the healthy and red-faced Roddy sitting opposite to +her, for an instant, some sharp warning, some foreordained consciousness +of trouble to come, bade her pause. She knew that a word from her, now, +would be enough to prevent the match. He would not prosecute it were she +against it. After all, ought Roddy to marry anybody? Could a girl, as +ignorant of the world as Rachel, put up any fight against Roddy's simple +complexities? + +What, after all, did Roddy think of the girl? Did he imagine that he was +in love with her? Did he know her, understand her? + +Then, looking at him, the affection that she had for him--the only +affection that she had for anyone in the world--swept over her. This +marriage would bind him to her, would give her another ally before the +world--yes, it should go on. + +She smiled at him. + +"Well, Roddy, have you no news for me, now?" + +He had been silent, gazing before him, his brows puckered. + +Now he smiled back at her. + +"Well, there's been the usual doin's the last week or two. I've been +dancin' every night till I'm tired. 'Bout time for the country agen----" + +"Have you been down to Seddon at all?" + +"Yes. Two nights last week--all dried up--Place wants me a bit oftener +down there----" + +"What's this I hear about young Olive Ormond marrying Besset Crewe's +daughter?" + +"So they say--can't imagine it myself. The girl's about eighty-four and +a half and he's the most awful kid. Saw them at the opera the other +night----" + +"What about Scotland this summer, Roddy? Are you going?" + +"Don't think so. Depends----" + +Then there was silence. The little conversation had been as stiff as it +was possible a conversation could be. The China dragons must have +wondered--never before so constrained a dialogue between these two! + +Now another pause, then suddenly Roddy, his hands clutching one another, +his face redder than ever-- + +"I want--I wonder--dash it--have I your leave to ask your granddaughter +to marry me?" + +She laughed. + +"Really, my dear Roddy, you've been very long about it--coming out with +it, I mean. Didn't you know and didn't I know that that's what you came +for to-day?" + +"Well then, may I?" + +She paused and watched his anxiety. Between both of them there hung, +now, the recollection of so many things--conversations and deeds and +thoughts known to both of them, so many, many things that no others in +all the world could know. She waited for his eyes, caught them and held +them. + +"Are you in love with her?" + +"Yes--that is--she's splendid----" + +"You haven't known her very long and you're a little impulsive, ain't +you, Roddy, about these things?" + +"No--I don't know her now. But we've seen a lot of one another these +last months--a fearful lot. She's--oh! hang it! I never can say +things--but she's a brick." + +"Do you think she'll accept you?" + +"How can any feller tell? I think she likes me--she's odd----" + +"Yes--she is--very. She's a mixture--she's very young--and she won't +understand you." + +His eyes were suddenly troubled and, as she saw that trouble, she was +alarmed. He really _did_ care.... + +"Yes, I know--I don't understand myself. I'm wild sometimes--I wish I +weren't----" + +"Marriage is going to make you a model character, Roddy. Of course I'm +glad--but it won't be easy, you know. And she won't be easy." + +"I want her though. I've never thought of marriage before. I do want +her." + +"My dear Roddy, you speak as though she were a sheep or a dog. It's only +her first season. Don't you think you'd better wait a little?" + +"No. I want her now." + +"Well, you're definite enough--" She paused and then, in a voice that +had, in spite of her, real emotion, "You have my consent. You've got +_my_ blessing." + +He rose and came clumsily towards her. + +"You don't know--I'm no use at words, but I'm dam' grateful--Rippin' of +you!" + +For a second he touched her dried, withered hand--how cold it was! and +in this hot weather, too. + +"You'll ask her at Julia Massiter's next week?" + +"Expect so--I say you are----" + +Then he sat down again. The room was relieved of an immense burden; once +more they were at ease together. + +"The other night--" he said, bending forward and chuckling ever so +little. + + +III + +Lady Carloes, Agnes Lady Farnet, and old Mrs. Brunning were coming to +play bridge with her. The ceremonial was ever the same! They arrived at +half-past nine and at half-past eleven supper for four was served in the +Duchess's little green room, behind her bedroom (a little room like a +box with a green wall-paper, a card-table and silver candlesticks). They +played, sometimes, until three or four o'clock in the morning; the +Duchess played an exceedingly good game and Mrs. Brunning (a bony little +woman like a plucked chicken) was the best bridge player in London. The +other two were moderate, but made mistakes which allowed the Duchess the +free use of her most caustic wit and satire. + +Lord John came just before dinner as he always did for a few minutes +every evening. He stood there, fat and smiling and amiable and, as +always, a little nervous. + +"Well, John?" + +She liked John the best of her children, although he was, of course, the +most fearful fool, but she liked his big broad face and he was always +clean and healthy; moreover, she could use him more easily than any of +them. + +"Bridge to-night, mother, isn't it?" + +"Yes. Not so hot this evening. Just give me that book. Turn the lamp up +a little--no--not that one. The de Goncourt book. Yes. Thank you." + +"Anything I can get for you, mother? Anyone I can send to you?" + +He was thinking, as he smiled down at her, "She's old to-night--old and +tired. This hot weather...." + +She looked up at him before she settled herself-- + +"Roddy Seddon came this afternoon----" + +"Yes. I know." + +Suddenly his heart began to beat. He had known, during all these last +weeks, of what the common talk had been. He knew, too, what his +conscience had told him, and he knew, too, how perpetually he had +silenced that same conscience. + +"He asked me whether he had my permission to propose to Rachel----" + +"Yes." + +"Of course I gave it him. I thought it most suitable in every way." + +Now was Lord John's moment. He knew, even as it descended upon him, what +was the right to do. He must protest--Roddy Seddon was not the right man +to marry Rachel, Rachel who was to him more than anyone in the world-- + +He must protest-- + +And then with that impulse went the old warning that because his mother +seemed to him older and feebler to-night than he had ever known her, +therefore if he spoke now, it would involve far more than the immediate +dispute. There was a sudden impulse in him to risk discomfort, to risk a +scene, to break, perhaps, in the new assertion of his authority, all the +old domination, to smash a tradition to pieces. + +He glanced at his mother. She met his eyes. He knew that she was daring +him to speak. After all to-morrow would be a better time--she was tired +now--he would speak then. His eyes fell, and after a pause and a word +about some indifferent matter, he said good night and went. + + +IV + +Once, in some early hour of the morning when the candles were burning +low, the thought of Rachel came to her. + +Even as she noticed that her hand shone magnificently with hearts she +was conscious that the girl stood opposite to her, there against the +green wall, straight and fierce, all black and white, looking at her. + +Christopher? John?... + +For a second her brain was clouded. Might she not have attempted some +relationship with the girl? Given her some counsel and a little +kindness? She must have been lonely there in that great house without a +friend. She was going now into a very perilous business. + +She pushed the weakness from her. Her eyes were again upon the cards. + +"Hearts," she said. The odd trick this game and it was her rubber. The +dying flame rose in the silver sconces and the four old heads bobbed, +wildly, fantastically, upon the wall. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +DEFIANCE OF THE TIGER--I + + +I + +Rachel sat in the train with Aunt Adela and Uncle John: they were on +their way to Trunton St. Perth, Lord Massiter's country house. It was a +July day softened with cool airs and watered colours; trees and fields +were mingled with sky and cloud; through the counties there was the echo +of running streams, only against an earth fading into sky and a sky +bending and embracing earth, sharp, with hard edges, the walls and +towers that man had piled together showed their outlines cut as with a +sword. + +Over all the country in the pale blue of the afternoon sky a great moon +was burning and the corn ran in fine abundance to the summit of the +hills. + +Rachel, as the train plunged with her into the heart of Sussex, was +gazing happily through the window, dreaming, almost dozing, feeling in +every part of her a warm and grateful content. Opposite to her Aunt +Adela, gaunt and with the expression that she always wore in trains as +of one whose person and property were in danger, at any instant, of +total destruction, read a life of a recently deceased general whose +widow she knew. Uncle John, with three illustrated papers, was +interested in photographs of people with one leg in the air and their +mouths wide open; every now and again he would say (to nobody in +particular), "There's old Reggie Cutler with that foreign woman--_you_ +know"--or "Fancy Shorty Monmouth being at Cowes after all this year--you +know we heard----" + +Rachel had been having a wonderful time--that was the great fact that +ran, up and down, through her dozing thoughts. Yes, a wonderful time. It +was surely, now, a century ago, that strange period when she had +dreaded, so terribly, her plunge. + +That day, after her visit to the Bond Street gallery, when it had all +seemed simply more than she could possibly encounter, those talks with +May Eversley (who, by the way, had just announced herself as engaged to +a middle-aged baronet) when the world had frowned down from a vast, +incredible height upon a miserably terrified midget. Why! the absurdity +of it! It had all been as easy, simply as easy as though she had been +plunged in the very heart of it all her life. + +Followed there swiftly upon that the knowledge that Roddy Seddon was to +be, for this same week-end, at Lady Massiter's. Rachel did not pretend +that, ever since that _Meistersinger_ night at the opera she had not +known of his attentions to her--impossible to avoid them had she wished, +impossible to pretend ignorance of the meaning that his inarticulate +sentences had, of late, conveyed, impossible to mistake the laughing +hints and suggestions of May and the others. + +She did not know what answer she would give did he ask her to marry him. +At that concrete suggestion her doze left her and, sitting up, staring +out at the wonderful day into whose heart muffled lights were now +creeping, she asked herself what, indeed, was her real thought of him. + +He was to her as were Uncle John and Dr. Christopher--safe, kind, +simple. He appealed to everything in her that longed for life to be +clear, comfortable, without danger. She loved his happiness in all +out-of-door things--horses and dogs and fields and his little place in +Sussex. Ever since that visit to Uncle Richard's fans she had suspected +him of other appreciations and enthusiasms, perhaps she might in time +encourage those hidden things in him. + +Above all did she find him true, straight, honest. Lies, little +mannerisms, disguises, these were not in him, he was as clear to her as +a mirror, she would trust him beyond anyone she knew. + +He did not touch in any part of him that other secret, wild, unreal +life of hers, and indeed that was, in him, the most reassuring thing of +all. + +The Rachel who was in rebellion, to whom everything of her London life, +everything Beaminster, was hateful, whose sudden memories and instincts, +whose swift alarms and fore-warnings were so shattering to every +clinging security that life might offer--this Rachel knew nothing of +Roddy Seddon. + +He was there to take her away from that, to drive it all into darkness, +to reassure her against its return, and marriage with him would mean +release, security, best of all freedom from her grandmother who knew, so +well, that life in her and loved to play with that knowledge. Her colour +rose and her eyes shone as she thought of what this so early escape from +the Portland Place house would mean to her. Already, in her first +season, to be free of it all--to be free of humbug and deception--Oh! +for that would she not surrender everything in the world? + +Roddy, as she pictured him, with his clean life, his love of nature, his +kindliness, seemed, just then, the safest refuge that would ever be +offered to her. + +And at that, without reason, she saw before her her cousin Francis +Breton. Several times she had met him since that first occasion at +Lizzie Rand's. Once again at Lizzie's and twice in Regent's Park when +she had been walking with May. + +Yes--that was all. Thinking of it now the meetings appeared to her +almost infinite. Between each actual encounter intimacy seemed to leap +in its progress, and although, on at least two of them, he had only +walked with her for the shortest period, yet, always with them, she was +conscious of the number of things that, between them, did not need to be +said--knowledge that they shared. + +In all this there was, with her, a confusion of motives and sensations +that, at present, refused to be disentangled. For one thing there was, +in all of this, a furtiveness, a secrecy, that she loathed. Against +that was the persuasion that it would be the finest thing in the world +for her to bring him back into the Beaminster fold, not, of course, that +he should remain there (he was far too strong and adventurous for that), +but that, accepted there, he could use it as a springing-off board for +success and fortune. Let her once, as the situation now was, say a word +to Uncle John or the others, and that of course was the end.... + +She knew, quite definitely, that now she wished that she had never met +him. + +He had been, during these weeks, the only influence that had drawn that +other Rachel to the light. It was always that other Rachel that met +him--someone alarming, rebellious, conscious of unhappiness, and +apprehensive, above everything, that in some hidden manner she was being +untrue to her real self. + +At such moments it was as though she had blinded some force within her, +muffled it, stifled it, because her way through the world was easier +with it so muffled, so stifled. + +At some future time, what if there should leap out upon her that muffled +figure, bursting its bonds, refusing any longer to be silenced, +proclaiming the world no easy, comfortable place, but a battle, a +fierce, unresting war? + +When she thought of Breton it was as though she knew herself for a +coward, as though he had threatened to expose her for one, and as though +(and this was the worst of all) something in her was eager that he +should-- + +Against this there was the peace, the security that Roddy could offer +her.... + +Beaminster security, perhaps--nevertheless.... + +They were at Trunton St. Perth. The little station glittered in the +evening air. It was all suddenly thrilling. Who would be there? What +might not happen before Monday? + + +II + +In the high beautiful hall where they all stood about and had tea she +could see who they were. There was a girl whom she had met on several +occasions this season, Nita Raseley, there was a large florid cheerful +person who was, she discovered, Maurice Garden, the well-known and +popular novelist, there was his wife, there was a thin intellectual +cousin of Lady Massiter's, Miss Rawson, old and plain enough for her +cleverness to have turned to acidity, Roddy Seddon and, of course, Lord +and Lady Massiter. + +Lord Massiter was large and florid like the novelist, and when they +stood together by the fireplace foreign customs and languages were +suddenly absurd, so English was the atmosphere. Lady Massiter was also +large, but she had the kind and warm placidity that makes some women the +type of all maternity. She would be, Rachel felt, a sure resource in all +time of trouble and she would also be entirely unsatisfactory as an +intimate personal friend. She would, like philanthropists and clergymen, +love people by the mass, never by the individual. + +Nita Raseley was pink and white, with large blue eyes that confided in +everyone they looked at. Her laugh was a little shrill, her clothes very +beautiful, and men liked her. + +So there they all were. + +She had said good day to Roddy and then had moved away from him, +governed by some self-consciousness and the conviction that Nita +Raseley's blue eyes were upon her. + +It was all very cheerful and very English as they stood talking there, +and the doors beyond the hall showed through their dark frames green +lawns and terraces soaked in evening light. It was all very, very +comfortable. + +As she dressed for dinner Rachel had her windows open, so hot was the +night, and she could watch the evening star that shone with a wonderful +brilliance above a dark little wood that crowned a rise beyond the +gardens. She had a maid who was very young indeed; this was her first +place, but she had, during the three months, learnt with great quickness +and had attached herself to her mistress with the most burning devotion. +She was a silent, unusual girl and kept herself apart from the rest of +the servants. + +Rachel as she sat before her dressing-table could see in that mirror the +dark reflection of the twilit garden. + +"It's a lovely place, Lucy----" + +"Yes, Miss Rachel." + +"Are you glad to get away from London?" + +"It has been hot there these last weeks." + +Rachel met in the glass the girl's black eyes. They were searching +Rachel's face. + +"Lucy, would you rather live in London or in the country?" + +"I don't mind, Miss Rachel." Then after a little pause: "I hope I've +give satisfaction these last weeks?" + +"Why, yes, of course." + +"Then I hope, miss, that you'll allow me to stay with you whether--in +London or the country." + +The colour mounted to Rachel's cheeks. + +"I hope there'll be no need for any change," she said. + +She found when she came down to the drawing-room that Monty Carfax had +arrived. Monty Carfax was the chief of the young men who were, just at +that time, entertaining London dinner-tables. About half a dozen of +God's creatures, under thirty and perfectly dressed, with faces like +tombstones and the laugh of the peacock, went from house to house in +London and mocked at the world. + +They belonged, as the mediaeval jesters belonged, each to his own court, +and Monty Carfax, certainly the cleverest of them, was attached to the +Beaminster Court and served the Duchess by faith, if not by sight. + +Rachel hated him and always, when she found herself next to him, wrapped +herself in her old farouche manner and behaved like an awkward +schoolgirl. + +She was terribly disappointed at discovering that he was going to take +her into dinner to-night; he knew that she disliked him and felt it a +compliment that a raw creature fresh from the schoolroom should fail to +appreciate him; on this occasion he devoted himself to the elderly +Massiter cousin on his other side--throughout dinner they happily +undressed the world and found it sawdust. + +Rachel meanwhile found Maurice Garden her other companion. He genially +enjoyed his dinner and talked in a loud voice and prepared the answers +that he always gave to ladies who asked him when he wrote, whether he +thought of his plots or his characters first, and "she did hope he +wouldn't mind her saying that of all his books the one----" + +He frankly liked these questions and was taken by surprise when Rachel +said: + +"I've never read any of your novels, Mr. Garden, so I won't pretend----" + +He asked her what she did read. + +"Have you ever read anything by an author called Peter Westcott?" + +"Westcott? Westcott?... Let me see ... Westcott?... Well now--One of the +young men, isn't he?" + +"Yes. He wrote a book called _Reuben Hallard_." + +"Ah yes. I remember about _Reuben Hallard_--had quite a little success +as a first book. He's one of your high-brow young men, all for Art and +the rest of it. We all begin like that, Miss Beaminster. I was like that +myself once----" + +She looked at him coolly. + +"Why did you give it up?" + +"Simply didn't pay, you know--not a penny in it. And why should there +be? People don't want to know what a young ass thinks about life if he +can't tell a story. All young men think the same--green leaves, moons +and stars and lots of symbols, you know--all good enough if they don't +expect people to pay for it." + +"I think _Reuben Hallard's_ a fine book," she said, "and so are some of +the others. After all, everyone doesn't want only a plot in a book." + +He looked at her with patronizing kindness. "Well, you see if your Mr. +Westcott doesn't change. Every writer wants an audience whatever he may +pretend, and the best way to get a audience is to give the audience what +it wants. It needs unusual courage to sit on a packing-case year after +year and shave in a broken looking-glass----" + +She looked round the table. Everyone was happy. The butler was fat and +had the face of a Roman emperor, the food was very, very good, Nita +Raseley and Roddy laughed and laughed and laughed-- + +Suddenly Rachel's heart jumped in her body. Oh! she was glad; glad that +Roddy cared for her and would look after her, because otherwise she +didn't know what violence she might suddenly commit, what desperations +she might not engage upon, what rebels and outlaws she would not +support-- + +What Outlaws! And then, looking beyond the thickly curtained windows, +she could fancy that she could see one gravely standing out there on the +lawn, standing with his one arm and his pointed beard and his eyes +appealing to be let in. + +Then there was an ice that was so good that Peter Westcott and Francis +Breton seemed more outcast than ever. + + +III + +After dinner, when the men had come into the drawing-room, they all went +out into the gardens. It was such a night of stars as Rachel had never +seen, so dense an army that all earth was conscious of them; the sky was +sheeted silver, here fading into their clouded tracery, there, at fairy +points drawing the dark woods and fields up to its splendour with lines +of fire. The world throbbed with stars, was restless under the glory of +them--God walked in all gardens that night. + +At first Nita Raseley, Monty Carfax, Rachel and Roddy went together, +then, turning up a little path into the little wood that rose above the +garden, Rachel and Roddy were alone. + +They found the trunk of a tree and sat down--Behind them the trees were +thin enough to show the stars, below them in a dusk lit by that +glimmering lustre that starlight flings--a glow that would be flame were +it not dimmed by distance immeasurable--they could see the lawns and +hedges of the garden and across the dark now and again some white figure +showed for an instant and was gone. The house behind the shadows rose +sharp and black. + +Roddy looked big and solid sitting there. Rachel sat, even now uncertain +that she did not see Francis Breton in front of her, looking down, as +she did, into the shadowy garden. + +"I hope," she said abruptly, "that you don't like Monty Carfax." + +"I've never thought about him," he said. "He's certainly no pal of +mine--why?" + +"Because I hate him," she said fiercely. "What right has he got to +_exist_ on a night like this?" + +"He's always supposed to be a very clever feller," Roddy said slowly. +"But I think him a silly sort of ass--knows nothin' about dogs or +horses, can't play any game, only talks clever to women----" + +"I can't bear that sort of man and I don't like Mr. Garden either. He's +so fat and he loves his food." + +"So do I," said Roddy quite simply. "I love it too. It was a jolly good +dinner to-night." + +She said nothing and then, when he had waited a little, he said +anxiously: + +"I say, Miss Beaminster, we've been such jolly good friends--all these +weeks. And yet--sometimes--I'm afraid you think me the most awful +fool----" + +She laughed. "I think you are about some things, but then--so am I about +a good many things--most of your things----" + +"Look here, Miss Beaminster--I wish you'd help me about things I'm an +ass in. You can, you know--I'd be most awfully glad." + +"What," she said, turning round and facing him, "are the things you +really care about?" + +"The things? ... care about?" + +"Yes--really----" + +"Well! Oh! animals and bein' out in the open and shootin' and ridin' and +fishin'--any old exercise--and comin' up to town for a buck every now +and again, and then goin' back and seein' no one, and my old place +and--oh! I don't know," he ended. + +"You wouldn't tell anyone a lie, would you, about things you liked and +didn't like?" + +"It wouldn't be much use if I did," he said, laughing. "They'd find me +out in a minute----" + +"No, but would you? If you were with a number of people who thought art +the thing to care about and knew nothing about dogs and horses, would +you say you cared about art more than anything?" + +"No," he said slowly. "No--but sometimes, you see, pictures and music +and such do please me--like anything--I can't put into words, but I +might suddenly be in any old mood--for pictures, or your uncle's fans, +or dogs or the Empire or these jolly old stars--Why, there, you see I +just let it go on--the mood, I mean, till it's over----" Then he added +with a great sigh, "But I am a dash fool at explainin'----" + +"But I know you wouldn't be like Mr. Garden or Mr. Carfax--just +pretending not to like the thing because it's the thing not to. Or like +Aunt Adela, who picks up a phrase about a book or picture from some +clever man and then uses it everywhere." + +"I should never remember it--a phrase or anythin'--I never can remember +what a feller says----" + +"Oh! I know you'd always be honest about these things. I feel you +would--about everything. It's all these lies that are so impossible: I +think I've come to feel now after this first season that the only thing +that matters is being straight. It is the only thing--if a person just +gives you what they've got--what _they've_ got, not what someone else is +supposed to have. May Eversley used to say that people's minds are like +soup--thick or clear--but they're only thick because they let them get +thick with other people's opinions--you don't mind all this?" she said, +suddenly pausing, afraid lest he should be bored. + +"It's most awfully interestin'," he said from the bottom of his heart. + +"There are some men and women--I've met one or two--who're just made up +of Truth. You know it the minute you're with them. And they'll have +pluck too, of course--Courage goes with it. Our family," she ended, "are +of course the most terrible liars that have ever been--ever----" + +"Oh! I say----" he began, protesting. + +"Oh! but yes--they run everything on it. My uncle Richard ran through +Parliament beautifully because he never said what he meant. And Aunt +Adela--_and_ Uncle John, although he's a dear. But then my grandmother +brought them up to it. My grandmother would have about three clever +people and then muddle all the rest so that the three clever ones can +have everything in their hands----" + +"Look here," he broke in, "I'm most awfully fond of your +grandmother--we're tremendous pals----" + +"You may be--I hate her. Oh! I don't hate her with melodrama, I don't +want to strangle her or beat her face or burn her, but I'm frightened of +her and she's always making me do things I'm ashamed of. That's the best +reason for hating anyone there is." + +"But she's such a sportsman. One of the old kind. One----." + +"Oh! I know all that you can say. I've heard it so many times. But +she's all wrong. There isn't any good in her. She's just remorseless and +selfish and stubborn. She thinks she ran the world once and she wants to +do it still." + +"That's all rather fine, _I_ think," said Roddy. "I agree with her a +bit. I think most people have _got_ to be run--they just can't run +themselves, so you have to put things into them." + +"Well, that's just where we differ," she said sharply. "It isn't so. +That's where all the muddle comes in. If everyone were just himself +without anything _borrowed_--Oh! the brave world it'd be----" + +Then she laughed. "But I'm all wrong myself, you know. I'm as muddled as +anyone. I've got all the true, real me there, but all the Beaminster +part has slurred it over. But I've got a horrid fear that Truth gets +tired of waiting too long. One day, when you're not expecting it, it +comes up and says--'Now you choose--your only chance. _Are_ you going to +use me or not? If not, I'm going'--How awful if one didn't realize the +moment was there, and missed it." + +She was laughing, but in her heart that other woman in her was stirring. +For a startled, trembling second the wood seemed to flame, the gardens +to blaze with the challenge: + +"Are you, for the sake of the comfort and safety of life, playing false? +Which way are you going?" + +She burst into laughter, she caught Roddy by the arm. "Oh! I've talked +such nonsense--It's getting cold--we've got to go in. Don't think I talk +like that generally, Sir Roderick, because I don't--I----" + +She was nervous, frightened. The stars were so many and it was so dark +and Roddy no longer seemed a protection. + +"I know it's late--Look here, I'm going to run--Race me----" + +She tore for her very life out of the little wood, felt him pounding +behind her, seized, with a gasp of relief, the lights and the voices-- + +She knew, with joy, that Roddy was closing the door behind her and that +the garden and the stars and the wood were shut into silence. + +For a little while, in the drawing-room, she talked excitedly, laughed a +great deal, even at Monty Carfax's jokes. + +She knew that they were all thinking that she was pleased because she +had been with Roddy. She did not care what their thoughts were. + +At last in her room she cried to Lucy--"Pull the curtains +tight--Tighter--Tighter--Those stars--they'll get through anything." + +When at last Lucy was gone she lit her candle and lay there, hearing the +clocks strike the hours, wondering when the day would come. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +DEFIANCE OF THE TIGER--II + + +I + +Roddy, dozing after a night of glorious sleep, lay on his back and swung +happily to and fro. + +The footman who was valeting him had pulled up the blind and drawn aside +the curtains, and the garden came to him, not as on last evening, +weighed with its canopy of stars, but now asserting its own happiness +and colour and freshness. + +The man said: "The bathroom is the last door down the passage on your +right, sir. Breakfast is at half-past nine. It has just gone eight. What +clothes, sir?" + +Roddy stared at him and smiled. After a little time, the man enquired +again: "Which suit will you wear this morning, sir?" + +"Dark blue." Roddy, still happily floating somewhere near the +ceiling--floating with delicious lightness--"Dark blue--Dark blue--Dark +blue----" + +For a little while the man, a strange vague shape, pulled out drawers +and closed them and walked about the floor, like Agag, delicately. +Roddy, from the ceiling watched him and resented the fact that every +sharp click of a drawer pulled him nearer to the carpet. + +The man's final shutting of the bedroom door plumped Roddy into his bed, +wide awake. + +"Damn him! What a wonderful day!" + +He lay back and watched how waves of light danced on the walls. A +fountain splashed in the gardens and the long mirror on the right of the +bed had in it the corner of the green lawn and the cool grey stones of +an old wall. + +Roddy lay on his back and allowed his sensations to run up and down his +body. It was for moments such as this that his life was intended. He +lived, deliberately and without any selfishness in the matter, for the +emotions that the good old god Pan might choose to provide for him. + +He did not know Pan by name except as a silly fancy dress that Monty +Carfax had once worn at a fancy-dress dance and as Someone alluded to +every now and again, vaguely, in the papers, but even though he did not +call him by name he, nevertheless, paid, without question, his daily +homage. + +When, as on this beautiful morning, one had only to lie down and be +instantly conscious of a thousand things--sheep moving slowly across +hills, cattle browing in deep pools, those Downs that he loved rising, +slowly, like aged men, to greet a new day--then one questioned nothing, +one argued nothing, one needed no words, one was happy from the crown of +one's head to the toes of one's feet. + +On this especial morning these delights were connected with the fact +that, during the day, he intended to propose marriage to Rachel +Beaminster. He thought of her, now, as she had looked last night, +sitting in that wood, in a pale blue dress, with the stars behind her, +staring, so seriously, down into the garden. She had been very beautiful +last night, and it had been a splendid moment--not more splendid than +other moments that he had had, but splendid enough to remember. + +He was always prepared for the necessity of the short duration of his +sensations. He had discovered, when he was very young, that nothing +lasted and that the things that lasted the shortest time were generally +the best things, and therefore he had, quite unconsciously, trained +himself to store his memory with splendid moments; now, although he had +no memory at all for any sort of facts or books or histories, he could +recall precisely, in all their forms and colours, scenes, persons, +adventures that had, at any time, thrilled him. + +He could remember days; once when, as a little boy, he had been +overtaken by night on the Downs and had sheltered in a deserted house, +black and evil, that had, he afterwards discovered, been, in the +eighteenth century, a private mad-house; once when the sea had been +green and purple, the sky black, and he had discovered a star-fish for +the first time (very young on that occasion); once when his horse had +run away with him and the danger had been exceeded by the glorious speed +through the air ... many, many others, all to be counted by him to their +very least detail, and now, of some of them, Rachel Beaminster was the +central figure. + +He had had relations of many kinds with many different women and never +until now had he supposed, for an instant, that these relations would be +permanent. Even now, although he was intending to marry Rachel +Beaminster, he was not so foolish as to imagine that the freshness and +novelty of the feeling that he now had for her would last more than a +very short time. + +Quite deliberately he treasured up in his mind a thousand pictures of +her, as he had seen her during the last two months, so that when the +time came for seeing her no longer in that way, he would have his +memories: there was the time of her first ball, all excitement and +happiness, the day at her uncle's when she had looked at him over the +top of the fans, the night at the opera when she had been so angry with +him, last night-- + +She had, through all this time, remained elusive. He did not know her, +could not reconcile one inconsistency with another--but he thought that +she cared about him and would marry him. + +He had always known that he must one day marry. That necessity was, in +no way, connected with the emotional side of him, it rather had its +relationship with the common sense of him, the part that believed in the +Beaminsters and all their glory. + +He must marry because Seddon Court must have a mistress, because he +himself must have children, because he would like to have someone there +to be kind to. That need in him for bestowing kindness upon someone was +always most urgent, and all sorts of animals and all sorts of persons +had shared it--now one person would have it all. He could not bear to +hurt anyone or anything, and the crises of his life were provided by +those occasions when, in the delight of one of his emotional moments, +hurting somebody was involved--there was always then a conflict. + +He knew that it was just here that the Duchess failed to understand him. +She liked hurting people and expected him to be amused when she told him +little stories about her having done so. He had now a kind of dim +feeling that it was because the Duchess hoped that he was going to hurt +Rachel that she had prosecuted so strenuously his marriage. + +He trusted with all his heart that he would never hurt Rachel, he +intended always to be very, very kind to her; it was indeed a thousand +pities that the present quality of his attitude to her must, like all +attitudes, eventually change. + +But he was always--he was sure of this--going to be good to her and give +her everything that the mistress of Seddon Court should have. + +At the same time, vaguely, he wished that the old Duchess had had +nothing to do with this; sometimes he wondered whether the side in him +that found pleasure in her was really natural to him. + +Whenever he thought of her, she, in some way, confused his judgment and +made life difficult. + +She was doing that now.... + + +II + +When he came down to breakfast he found that he was the last. He sat +next to Nita Raseley and was conscious, after a little time, that she +was behaving with a certain reserve. He had known her in the kind of way +that he knew many people in his own set in London, pleasantly, +indifferently, without curiosity. She had, however, attracted him +sometimes by the impression that she gave him that she was too young to +know many men, but, however long she lived, would never find anyone as +splendid as he: she had certainly never been reserved before. Finally he +realized that she expected to hear of his engagement to Rachel +Beaminster at any moment. "Well, so she will," he thought, smiling to +himself. Meanwhile he avoided Rachel quite deliberately. + +He was now self-conscious about her and did not wish to be with her +until he could ask her to marry him. No more uncertainty was possible. +He felt, not frightened, but excited, just as he would feel were he +about to ride a dangerous horse for the first time. + +He seized, with relief, upon the proposal of church; he wanted the +morning to pass; his prayer was that she would not walk to church with +him, because he had now nothing to say to her except the one thing. When +he heard that she was staying behind and walking with Nita Raseley he +was surprised at his own sense of release. + +Lady Adela was kind to him this morning in a sort of motherly way and +apparently seized on his going to church as an omen of his future +married happiness. + +"They're all waiting to hear," he said to himself. + +They were to walk across the park to the little village church, and when +they set out he was conscious that Lord John, like a large and amiable +bird, was hovering about him: finally, Lord John, nervous apparently, +most certainly embarrassed, settled upon him. + +"Going to church, aren't you, Roddy?" + +"Yes, Beaminster." + +"Well, let's strike off together, shall we?" + +Roddy liked Lord John best of the Beaminster brothers; the Duke he could +not endure and Lord Richard was so superior, but Johnny Beaminster was +as amiable as an Easter egg and fond of race meetings and pretty women, +and not too dam' clever--in fact, really, not clever at all. + +But Johnny Beaminster embarrassed was another matter and Roddy found +soon that this embarrassment led to his own confusion. + +Lord John flung out little remarks and little whistles because of the +heat and little comments upon the crops. He obviously had something that +he very much wanted to say--"Of course," thought Roddy, "this is +something to do with Rachel--he's very fond of Rachel." + +Although Johnny Beaminster had not, in strict accuracy, himself the +reputation of the whitest of Puritans, yet Roddy wondered whether +perhaps he were not now worrying over some of Roddy's past history, as +rumoured in London society. + +"Doesn't want his girl to be handed over to a reg'lar Black Sheep, +shouldn't wonder," thought Roddy, and this led him to rather indignant +consideration of the confusion of the Beaminster mind and its muddled +moralities. + +The walk to the church was not very long, but it became, towards the +close of it, quite awful in its agitation. + +"Dam' hot," said Lord John. + +"Very," said Roddy. + +"Wouldn't wonder if this weather broke soon----" + +"Quite likely." + +"Makes you hot walking to church this hour of the morning." + +"Yes--don't it? Farmers will be wantin' rain pretty badly. Down at my +little place they tell me it's dried up like anythin'----" + +"Reg'lar Turkish bath----" + +"Well, the church ought to be cool----" + +"You never know with these churches----" + +Roddy thought "He's afraid of his old mother. Doesn't want me to marry +Rachel, but he's afraid of his old mother." + +"Massiter's getting fat----" This was Lord John's contribution. + +"Yes--so's that novelist feller----" + +"Oh! Garden! Yes--ever read anything of his?" + +"Never a line. Never read novels." + +"Not bad--good tales, you know." + +"He's probably," Roddy thought, "had a row with the old lady about +me----" + +Then, strangely enough, the notion hit him--"Wish it was he wanted me to +marry Rachel and the Duchess didn't--Wish she didn't, by Gad." + +As they entered the church Roddy might have seen, had he been gifted in +psychology, that there was in Lord John's face the look of a man who had +fought a battle with his dark angel and been, alas, defeated. + + +III + +After luncheon Roddy said: + +"Miss Beaminster, come for a walk?" + +"A little way," she said, looking at him with her eyes in that straight +direct way that she had. + +"She must know," said Roddy to himself, "that I'm going to do it now. +They all know. It's awful!" + +Some of the others had gathered together under a great oak that shaded +the central lawn, and now as he climbed the hill with his capture he +felt that from beneath that tree many eyes watched them. + +They did not go very far. At the top of the hill, above the little wood +and the gardens and the house, there was a grassy hollow, and under this +grassy hollow a great field of wheat, a sheet of red-gold with sudden +waves and ripples in it as though some hand were shaking it, ran down to +the valley. + +"Let's stop here," Rachel said. "I was out all this morning with Nita +Raseley and it's too hot for any exertion whatever." + +A tree shaded them and they sat down and watched corn. + +"What sort of a girl do you think she is--Nita Raseley, I mean?" asked +Rachel. + +"Oh! I don't know--the ordinary kind of girl--why?" + +"She seems to want to know me. Says that she hasn't many friends. Is +that true? I thought she had heaps----" + +"You never can tell with girls. You're all so uncertain about one +another--devoted one moment and enemies the next." + +"Are we?" said Rachel slowly. "I don't think I'm like that--Oh! how hot +it is!" She lay back against the grass with her arms behind her head. + +"Do you like me?" Roddy said suddenly. + +"I?... You!" + +She slowly sat up and he saw at once that she knew now what he was going +to say. At that moment, sitting there, staring at him, with her breasts +moving a little beneath her white dress and her hands pressing flatly +against the grass, in her agitation and the look in her eyes of some +suddenly evoked personality that he did not know at all she was more +elusive to him than she had ever been-- + +She was frightened--and also glad--but the change in her from the girl +he had known all the summer was so startling that he felt that he was +about to propose to someone he had never seen before. + +"Do I like you?" she repeated slowly, and her lips parted in a smile. + +"Yes," he said, looking at her hands that seemed to belong to the earth +into which they were pressing--"Because I want you to marry me----" + +The moment of her surprise had come before--now she only said very +quietly-- + +"Why--what do you know about me?" + +"I know--enough--to ask you," he said, stumbling over his words. He was +now afraid that, after all, she intended to refuse him, and the terror +of this made his heart stop. No words would come. He stared at her with +all the fright in his eyes. + +"Roddy" (she had never called him that before), "do you care----" + +Then she stopped. + +She began again. "I don't want to talk nonsense. I want to say exactly +what I feel. I suppose most girls would want to be free a little longer, +would want to have a good time another two or three seasons--but I +don't--I hate being free--I want somebody to keep me, to prevent my +doing silly things, to look after me ... and ... I'd rather you did +it--than anybody else...." Then she went on quickly--"But it is more +than that. I do like you most awfully, only I suppose I'm not the kind +of girl to be frantically excited, to be wild about it all. I'm not +that. I do like you--better than any other man I know--Is that enough?" + +"I think--we can be most awfully good pals--always," he said. + +"Oh!" she cried suddenly, putting her hand on his and looking straight +into his face. "That's what I want--that, that--If that's it, and you +think we can, why then, I'd rather marry you, Roddy dear, than anyone in +the world." + +"Then it's settled," he said. But he did not take her hand or touch her. +They sat for quite a long time, looking at the rippling corn and the +house, that was like a white boat sailing on the green far below them. + +They said no word. + +Then, without speaking, they got up from the grass and walked down the +path to the little wood. But when they came to the place where they had +been the night before he caught her to him so furiously that his own +body was bent back, and he kissed her again and again and again. + + + + +BOOK II + +RACHEL + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE POOL AND THE SNOW + + "For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow. + And trains of sombre men, past tale of number, + Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go: + But even for them awhile no cares encumber + Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken, + The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber + At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the charm + they have broken." + + ROBERT BRIDGES. + + +I + +In the early days of the December of that year, 1898, the first snow +fell. + +Francis Breton, standing at his window high up in the Saxton Square +house, watched the first flakes, as they came, lingering, from the heavy +brooding sky; as he watched a great tide of unhappiness and restlessness +and discontent swept over him. His was a temperament that could be +raised to heaven and dashed to hell in a second of time; life never +showed him its true colours and his sensitive suspicion to the signs and +omens of the gods gave him radiant confidence and utter despair when +only a patient quiescence had been intended. During the last three +months he had risen and fallen and risen again, as the impulse to do +something magnificent somewhere interchanged with the impulse to do +something desperate--meanwhile nothing was done and, standing now +staring at the snow, he realized it. + +He had never, in all his days, known how to moderate. If he might not be +the hero of society then must he be the famous outcast, in one fashion +or another London must ring with his name. + +And yet now here had he been in London since the end of April and +nothing had occurred, no steps, beyond that first letter to his +grandmother, had he taken. He had not even responded to the advances +made to him by his old associates, he had seen no one save Christopher, +Brun once or twice, the Rands and his cousin Rachel. + +Throughout this time he had done what he had never done before, he had +waited. For what? + +A little perhaps he had expected that the family would take some step. +Looking back now he knew that the shadow of his grandmother had been +over it all. He had always seen her when he had contemplated any action, +seen her, and, deny it as he might, feared her. She confused his mind; +he had never been very readily clear as to reasons and instincts--he had +never paused for a period long enough to allow clear thinking, but now, +through all these weeks, he had been conscious that that same clear +thinking would have come to him had not his grandmother clouded his +mind. He felt her as one feels, in a dream, some power that prevents our +movement, holds us fascinated--so now he was held. + +The other great force persuading him to inaction was Rachel Beaminster, +now Rachel Seddon. + +Long before his return to England the thought of this cousin of his had +often come to him. He would speculate about her. She, like himself, was +by birth half a rebel, she _must_ be--She _must_ be. He had sometimes +thought that he would write to her, and then he had felt that that would +not be fair. Behind all his dreams and romances he always saw some +destiny whose colours were woven simply for him, Francis Breton, and +this confidence in an especial personally constructed God had been +responsible for his wildest and most foolish mistakes. + +Often had he seen this especial God bringing his cousin and himself +together. Always he had known that, in some way, they two were to be +chosen to work out, together, vengeance and destruction against all the +Beaminsters. When, therefore, that meeting in the Rands' drawing-room +had taken place he had accepted it all. She was even more wonderful +than he had expected, but he had known, instantly, that she was his +companion, his chosen, his fellow-traveller; between them he had +realized a claim, implied on some common knowledge or experience, at the +first moment of their meeting. + +From the age of ten, when he had been petted by one of his father's +mistresses, his life had been entangled with women; some he had loved, +others he had been in love with, others again had _loved him_. + +He did not know now whether he were in love with Rachel or no--he only +knew that the whole current of his life was changed from the moment that +he met her and that, until the end of it, she now would be intermingled +with all his history. + +At first so sure had he been of the workings of fate in this matter that +he had been content (for the first time in all his days) to wait with +his hands folded. During this period all thought of action against the +Beaminsters on the one hand or a relapse into the company of the friends +of his earlier London days on the other, had been out of the question. +This certainty of Rachel's future alliance with himself had made such +things impossibly absurd. + +Then had come the announcement of her engagement to Seddon. For a moment +the shock had been terrific. He had suddenly seen the face of his +especial God and it was blind and stupid and dead.... + +Then swiftly upon that had come thought of his grandmother. This was, of +course, her doing--Rachel was too young to know--She would discover her +mistake: the engagement would be broken off. + +During this time he had met Rachel on several occasions, and although +the meetings had been very brief, yet always he had felt that same +unacknowledged, secret intimacy. After every meeting his confidence had +risen, once again, to the skies. + +Then had come the news of her marriage. + +From that moment he had known no peace. At first he had wildly fancied +that this had happened because he had not come to her and more plainly +declared himself; his picture of her idea of him was confused with all +the dramatic untruth of _his_ idea of her; then, interchanging with +that, had come moods when he had seen things more plainly as they were +and had told himself that all relations between herself and him had been +invented by himself, that any kindness that she had shown him had been +kindness sprung from pity. + +During the early months of the autumn Rachel and her husband were +abroad, and during this time, Breton told himself that he was waiting +for her return before taking any action. Then a certain Mrs. Pont, a +lady whose beauty had been increased but her reputation lessened by +several scandals and a tiresomely querulous Mr. Pont, had suggested to +Francis Breton a continuation of certain earlier relationships. + +He knew himself well enough to be sure that one evening in Mrs. Pont's +company would put an end to his struggles, so weak was he in his own +knowledge that the only possible evading of a conflict was by the denial +of the enemy's very existence. + +He denied Mrs. Pont and, throughout those dark gloomy autumn weeks, +clinging to Christopher and Lizzie Rand, waited to hear of Rachel's +return. + +Although he would confess it to no man alive, he longed now, with an +aching heart, for some sort of reconciliation with the family. He would +have astonished them with his humility had they given him any sign or +signal. He fancied that Lord John or even the Duke might come.... Once +admitted to his proper rank again and what a citizen he would be! Vanish +for ever Mrs. Pont and her tribe and all that dark underworld that +waited, like some sluggish but confident monster, for his inevitable +descent. Wild phantasmic plans crossed his brain every hour of every +day--nothing came of it all; only when at last it was announced that +Sir Roderick and Lady Seddon had returned to England he discovered that +he had nothing to do, nothing to say, no step to take. + +That return had been at the end of October; from then until the end of +November he waited, expecting that she would write to him; still, by +this anticipation, were Mrs. Pont and Mrs. Pont's world kept at bay. + +No word came. Driven now to take some step that would shatter this +silence, he wrote to her a long letter about nothing very much, only +something that would bring him a line from her. + +For ten days now he had waited and there had come no word. As these +first flakes of snow softly, relentlessly, fell past his window the +nebulous cloud of all the uncertainties, disappointments, rebellions, of +this pointless wasted thing that men called Life crystallized into +form--"I'm no good--Life, like this, it's impossible--I'm no good +against it--I'd better climb down...." + +And here the irony of it was that he'd never climbed _up_. + +The awful moments in Life are those that threaten us by their suspension +of all action. "Just feel what's piling up for you out of all this +silence," they seem to say. Breton's trouble now was that he did not +know in what direction to move. His relation to Rachel was so nebulous +that it could scarcely be called a relation at all. + +He only knew that she alone was the person for whom now life was worth +combating. He had told her in his letter that she could help him, and +the absence of an answer spoke now, in this threatening silence, with +mighty reverberating voice. "She doesn't care." + +Well then, who else is there? Almost he could have fancied that his +grandmother, there in the Portland Place house, was withdrawing from him +all the supports in which he trusted. + +Now the snow, falling ever more swiftly, ever more stealthily, seemed to +be with him in the room, stifling, choking, blinding. + +He felt that if he could not find company of some kind he would go mad, +and so, leaving the storm and the silence behind him in his room, he +went to find Lizzie Rand. + + +II + +Lizzie Rand did not conceal from herself now that she loved him. So long +had her emotional life been waiting there, undesired, that now it could +be kept by her utterly apart from her daily habit, but it became a +flame, a fire, that lighted with its splendid warmth and colour the +whole of her accustomed world. She indulged it now without restraint, +through the long dark autumn she had it treasured there; she did not, as +things then were, ask for more than this splendid knowledge that there +was now someone upon whom she loved to spend her care. She had not loved +to spend it upon her mother and sister, but that had been a duty defined +and necessary. Now everything that she could do for Breton was more fuel +to fling to her flame. That further question as to whether he might care +for her she kept just in sight, but nevertheless not definite enough to +risk the absolute challenge. + +At least, now, as the weeks passed, he sought her company more and more. +She helped him, she cheered and comforted him, enough for her present +need. + +Even, beyond it all, could she survey herself humorously. This the first +love affair of her life made her smile at her capture and defeat. + +"Well, I'm just like the rest--And oh! I'm glad, I'm glad that I am." + +Finally she knew that there was still a step that might be taken, +between them, at any moment. He had, she knew, something to tell her. +Again and again lately he had been about to speak and then had caught +the impulse back. + +This too she would not examine too closely, but from the moment that he +should demand from her definite concrete assistance, from that moment +she would be to him what she knew no one now living could claim to be. + +Breton was glad when the little maid told him that Mrs. Rand was out, +but that Miss Lizzie was at home. He saw her in the warm cosy room, +sitting before the fire with her toes on the fender and her skirts +pulled up, drying her shoes. + +She looked up and smiled at him and told him to sit down, but did not +move from her position. + +"Mother's out at a matinee with Daisy. I got away early this afternoon. +Do you hate snow, Mr. Breton?" + +"I hate it to-day. I've got the dumps. I had to find someone to talk to +or I'd have gone screaming into the street----" + +"Couldn't find anyone better, so took me--thank you for the compliment. +But I like the snow. Your pool's more like a pool now than ever, Mr. +Breton." + +He went across to the window and stood there looking at the little +square now white with the gaunt trees rising black from the heart of it +and the grey houses that hemmed it in. Over it the snow, yellow and grey +and then delicately white, swirled and tossed. + +He came back and sat down beside her and wondered at her neat comfort +and air of calm control of all her emotions and desires. + +She, looking at him, saw that he was ill. Dark lines beneath his eyes, +his cheeks pale and an air of picturesque melancholy that made her want +first to laugh at him and then mother him. + +"I know what's the matter with you," she said, nodding her head. + +"What?" + +"Something to do. That's what you want." She turned towards him, looking +at him with a little smile and yet with grave seriousness in her eyes. +"Oh! Mr. Breton, why don't you? What is the use of sitting here month +after month, doing nothing, just waiting for something to +happen--something that can't happen unless you make it? Things don't +fall into people's mouths just because they sit with them open." + +He coloured. "Everybody's always scolding me," he said. +"Christopher--you--everybody. Nobody understands--how difficult...." + +He broke off. So intangible were his difficulties that no words would +define them, and yet, God knew, they were real enough. + +"I know--" she said, nodding her head. "It's the thought of them all at +Portland Place that's holding you back. You began by fancying that you +wanted to cut their throats, and you still wouldn't mind slaughtering +them if only they in their turn would do something definite. It's their +doing _nothing_ that just holds you up. But really as long as your +grandmother's alive I'm afraid that it's no good thinking of them. When +she's dead--and she _can't_ live for ever--anything may happen. +Meanwhile why not show them what you _can_ do?" + +"But what _can_ I do?" he answered her fiercely. "I've never been +brought up to do anything--except what I oughtn't--There's my arm and +one thing and another--Besides, there's more than that in it, Miss Rand. +It's the fact that--well, that there's nobody that cares that's--so +freezing. If only somebody minded----" + +As he spoke Rachel rose, beautifully, wonderfully, before him. There, as +she had been on that first day when she had had tea there, bending +forward, listening, her dark wondering eyes on his face. + +Lizzie at the sound of the appeal in his voice had felt her heart +expand, beat, so that her body seemed to hold, suddenly, some great +possession that hurt her by its force and urgency. + +But she answered almost sharply: + +"Nonsense, Mr. Breton. Excuse me, but I've no patience with that kind of +thing. People are meant to stand alone, not to go leaning about for +other people's support. You're cursed with too much imagination, Mr. +Breton, and you remember too clearly everything that's happened before. +Begin now, as though you were born yesterday, and startle the family by +your energy----" + +"Now you're laughing at me," he said hotly. "I dare say I deserve it, +but I don't feel as though I could stand--very much of it from anyone +to-day----" + +Then he was astonished by the sudden softness of her voice. "No, no, +please," she said; "I understand so well. But indeed you have got +friends who believe in you. Dr. Christopher, myself, if you'll count me, +and lots more. You'll win everyone in time if you're not impatient and +don't despair. Don't think of your grandmother too much. The mere fact +of your not seeing her makes you imagine her as something portentous and +dreadful, and she weighs you down, but she isn't really anything at all. +She can't stop one's energies if one's determined to let them go. +Please, please don't think I'm laughing. I only want to help----" + +"I know you do," he answered warmly, "I owe you more than I can say. All +these last weeks you and Christopher have been the two people who've +held the world together for me. But there's more than you know, Miss +Rand. There's----" + +He bent towards her. She knew that the confidence was at last to be +hers. It needed her strongest control to prevent the trembling of her +hands. His eyes were alight, his whole body eloquent. At the thought of +what he might be about to tell her the room turned before her. + +Voices in the little hall. Then the door opened and in came Mrs. Rand +and Daisy. They had been to the play--_Such_ nonsense. One of these new, +serious plays with long, long conversations--Mrs. Rand wanted tea. Daisy +wanted admiration. + +Between Lizzie and Breton the precious cup had fallen, smashed to the +tiniest atoms. + +Meanwhile aimless conversation was more than he, in his present mood, +could endure. + +He made some excuse and, scarcely knowing what he did, found his hat and +coat and went out into the square. + + +III + +There had come to him one of those agonies of loneliness that no +argument, no reasoning can destroy. + +The absence of any letter from Rachel seemed to show that she had +abandoned him. In all this vast thickly peopled world there was now no +one to whom his presence or absence, his fortunes or disasters mattered. +The snowstorm gathered him into its folds; the snow fell against his +mouth, his eyes, and before him, behind him, around him there was a +world deserted of man, houses blind and without life. + +The snow might fall now to the end of time. It would creep up and up, +falling from the heavens, rising from the earth, swallowing all +creation--the end of the world. + +He pressed into the park and there under the trees stretching like +gallows against the throttling sky temptation to give it all up, to go +under and have done with it all, leapt, hot and fierce, upon him. Mrs. +Pont and the others were waiting for him. They would be good to him. The +Upper World would not hear nor see nor think of his disasters, and +slowly, with the others, life would recede, he would crumble and decay +and cease to care, and death would come soon enough. + +Then the wind smote his face and tore at his coat: the snow died away, +beyond the black bare trees a very faint yellow bar threaded the thick +grey--promise that the storm was at an end. + +Suddenly with the cessation of the storm the long field of white seemed +good and restful, and beyond the park the houses showed light in their +windows. + +The yellow spread through the sky, and stars, very slowly, came and the +wind died away. + +Courage filled him. Rachel might never come or write or care, but he +would make the thought of her the one true thing in his heart, and with +that he would do battle so long as he could. + +Christopher and Miss Rand ... he thought of them as he trudged his way +home--and when he saw the white silence of Saxton Square and the golden +sky breaking above its peace and quiet he thought that, for a time +longer, he would keep his place and hold his own. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +A LITTLE HOUSE + + "Each in the crypt would cry, + 'But one freezes here! and why? + 'When a heart, as chill, + 'At my own would thrill + Back to life, and its fires out-fly? + 'Heart, shall we live or die? + The rest ... settle by-and-by!'" + + ROBERT BROWNING. + + +I + +Rachel at Seddon Court watched, from her window, that first fallen snow. + +Seddon Court is about three miles from the town of Lewes and lies, +tucked and cornered, under the very brow of the Downs. It is a grey +little house, old and stalwart, with a courtyard and two towers. The +towers are Norman; the rest of the house is Tudor. + +Beyond the actual building there are gardens that run to the very foot +of the Downs, with only a patch and an old stone wall intervening. Above +the house, day and night, year after year, the Downs are bending; +everything, beneath their steady solemn gaze, is small and restless; as +the colours are flung by the sun across their green sprawling limbs the +house, at their feet, catches their reflected smile and, when the sun is +gone and the winds blow, cowers beneath their frown; everything in that +house is conscious of their presence. + +Rachel had been at Seddon Court for a month and now, at the window of +her writing-room, looking across the garden, up into their dark shadows, +she wondered at their indifference and monotony. Anyone who had known +her before her marriage would be struck instantly, on seeing her now, by +a change in her. + +Her whole attitude to the world, during her first season in London, had +been an attitude of wonder, of expectation, of the uncertainty that +comes from expectation. + +With that expectation were also alarm, distrust, and it was only when +some sudden incident or person called happiness into her face that that +distrust vanished. + +Now she was older, that hesitation and awkwardness were gone, but with +their departure had vanished, too, much of her honesty. Her dark eyes +were as sincere as they had ever been, but to anyone who had known her +before her attitude now was assumed. Nothing might catch her unprepared, +but what experiences were they that had taught her the need for armour? + +Sitting in her room looking on to a lawn that would soon be white and to +Downs obscured already by the thick tumbling snow, she knew that she was +unhappy, disappointed, even alarmed. Suddenly to-day the uneasiness that +had been gathering before her throughout the last weeks assumed, on this +afternoon, the definite tangibility of a challenge. + +"What's the matter--with me, with everything?... What's happened?" + +Her room, dark green and white, had no pictures, but a long low +book-case with grave handsome books, an edition of someone in red with +white paper labels and another edition of someone else in dark blue and +another in gold and brown, an old French gilt mirror, square, with a +reflection of the garden and the foot of the Downs in it, an old Queen +Anne rosewood writing-table, some Queen Anne chairs, a gate-legged +table--a very cool, quiet room. + +At her feet with his head resting on her shoe there lay a dog. This dog +about a fortnight ago she had found in a field near the house with a +kettle tied on to his tail, and his body a confused catastrophe of mud +and blood. + +She had carried him home; it had needed some courage to introduce him +into the household, for Roddy possessed many dogs all of the finest +breeds, and this was a mongrel who defied description. He was very +short and shaggy and stumpy. He was much too large for a Yorkshire +terrier and yet that was undoubtedly his derivation. There was something +of a sheep-dog in him and something of a Skye; his hair fell all over +his face and, when you could see them, his eyes were brown. His nose was +like a wet blackberry and his ears were long and full of emotion; when +he ran his short tail, on which the hairs were arranged like branches on +a Christmas tree, stuck up into the air and he resembled a rabbit. + +In the confusion of the moment Rachel had called him Jacob, because she +thought that Jacob was, in the Bible, the "hairy one".... After all, you +_could_ not call a dog Esau. + +Yes, to retain him had needed courage. Thinking of Roddy's attitude to +the dog brought so many other attendant thoughts in its train. Roddy in +his devotion to animals (and oh! he _was_ devoted), had no room for +those that were not of the aristocracy. + +Concerning dogs who were mongrels he was kind but thought them much +better dead. Unkind he would never be, but the way in which he ignored +Jacob was worse than any unkindness. + +Jacob, sensitive perhaps from early suffering, knew this and avoided +Roddy, ran out of the room when he came into it, showed in every way +that he must not expect to rank with the other dogs. + +Very characteristic this attitude of Roddy, but very characteristic, +too, the affection that Jacob was now receiving from his mistress. There +was something that Jacob drew from Rachel that none of the fine, noble +dogs of the house was able to secure.... Why?... What, again, was the +matter? Why was Rachel unhappy? + +Rachel was unhappy, and the answer came quite clearly to her as the room +was darkened by the great storm of snow now falling over the Downs and +the garden, because marriage with Roddy had not lessened in any way that +uneasy disquiet that had stirred, without pause, beneath her life +before her marriage; that uneasiness had, indeed, during the last three +months, increased.... + +Was this her fault or Roddy's? + +Attacked now by a scrutiny that refused dismissal she delivered herself +up to the investigation of these months of her married life. + +She knew that she had only once been happy since her marriage--that was +on the first evening, when, the noise and clamour of the London wedding +having died away, she had walked with Roddy in the peace of the Massiter +garden (Lady Massiter had lent her house for the first weeks of the +honeymoon), had felt his arm about her, had believed that there had +really come to her that comfort and safety for which she longed. + +After that there had followed a fortnight of great unreality--the +strangest excitement, the most adventurous wonders, but a wonder and +excitement that were from herself, the real Rachel Beaminster, most +absolutely removed. It was as though she had watched closely but +detached the experiences of some other girl. Roddy had, during those +times, been a most ardent and passionate lover; she had tried to respond +and had hidden, as best she could, her failure. + +Then, suddenly, with the time of their going abroad, passion had left +him; it had left him as swiftly as the passing of wind over a hill. It +was there--it was gone. + +But he remained the perfect husband. His kindness, his charm, his +simplicity, his affection for her--an affection that could never for an +instant be doubted--these things had delighted her. He was now the +friend, the strong reliant companion that she had wanted him to be. +During those first weeks in Italy and Greece happiness might have come +to her had she not been stirred by her remembrance of the earlier weeks. +The passion that had been in him, although it had not touched her, now +in retrospect lit fires for her imagination. Instantly back to her had +come the whole disquiet and unrest. The things that Roddy called from +her now, she suddenly discovered with a great shrinking alarm, were all +the Beaminster things. All the true emotions, qualities, traditions that +made up her secret life were roused in her by their own inherent +vitality, never by his evocation of them. _He_ was Beaminster--Roddy was +Beaminster. With his kindness and courtesy his eyes saw the world with +the eyes of his ancestors, his tongue spoke the language that had in it +no sincerity, his heart wished for all the ceremonies and lies that the +Beaminster had believed in since the beginning of time. + +But her discovery did not lead her much further. She had, in her heart +of hearts, always known that Roddy was a Beaminster. Why then had she +married him? She had married him because she had been untrue to herself, +because she had herself encouraged the Beaminster blood in her to blind +her eyes, because she had desired deceit rather than truth, because she +had wanted the comfort that the man could give her rather than the man +himself, because she had muffled and stifled and silenced that Power in +her--the Power that made her restless and unquiet; the Power that was as +hostile to the Beaminster faith as heaven is to hell-- + +And yet this vehemence of explanation did not altogether explain Roddy. +Roddy was not _simply_ a Beaminster like Uncle John or Uncle Richard or +Aunt Adela. There was an elemental direct emotion in Roddy that was +exactly opposed to Beaminster conventionality. + +These two elements in him puzzled and even frightened her. His attitude +during that first fortnight of their marriage she saw, again and again, +in lesser degrees during their time abroad. She had seen him so +primitive in his joy and excitement over places and people and +moments--colour, food, storms, towns, passers-by, anything--that she had +been astounded by the force of it. Emotions swept over him and were +gone, but, whilst they were there, she knew that she counted to him for +nothing. Strangest of ironies that when he was least a Beaminster, then +was she farthest from him--strangest of ironies that her link with him +should be the Beaminster in him. + +She was frightened of his primitive passions. She had in her the +instinct that one day they would touch his relationship to her and that +that contact would rouse in her the full tide of the unhappiness of +which she was now so conscious, and that then ... what might not +happen?... + +And yet behind it all she felt a strange, almost pathetic satisfaction +because he, after all, had in him, just as she had, his two natures at +war. There at least they found some common link; her eagerness to find +some link was evidence enough of the affection she had for him. + +After their return to England the wilder nature in him had extended and +broadened. Everything to do with Seddon Court drew it out of him; his +passion for the place was wonderful to witness. Every stone of the +little grey building was a jewel in his eyes; the servants, the cattle, +the horses, the dogs, the flowers, the villagers, even the townspeople +of Lewes drew sentiment from him. + +"My old place," he would say, cuddling it to himself; he was never +"sloppy" about it, but direct and simple and straightforward. It was +obviously _the_ great emotion above all other emotions. + +He was most anxious that Rachel should share this with him, and during +her first weeks there she thought that she would do so. Then the +disquiet in her spread to the place. The house spread itself out before +her now as the lure that had from the beginning tempted her. + +"It was for this place and quiet that you were false to yourself----" + +Roddy felt that she did not share his enthusiasm, and their difficulty +over this was exactly their difficulty over everything else; simply that +Roddy was the least eloquent person in the world. He could explain +nothing whatever of the vague unhappiness or dissatisfaction at his +heart. Rachel _could_ have explained a great many things, but Roddy, she +felt, would only look at her in his kind puzzled way and wonder why she +couldn't take things as they were. + +Perhaps during these last weeks he had himself felt that all was not +well. Rachel thought that sometimes now through, all his kindness she +detected a floating, wistful speculation on his part as to whether she +were happy. + +He _wanted_ her to be happy--most tremendously he wanted it--and did she +explain to him that she was not happy because she was, now, for ever +attended by a sense of her own disloyalty to all that was best in her, +he would have suggested a doctor or have made her a present. + +Had she been some stranger and had the case been presented to him he +would have probably dismissed it by saying that "having made her bed she +must lie on it." "After all, she married the feller--Well then, that's +_her_ look-out." + +So, perhaps, if this had been simply her trouble she would have done her +bravest best to endeavour. + +But there was more behind it all--far, far more. + +She saw her marriage to Roddy, her struggling for self-respect, her +present morbid introspection as a stage in what was now developing into +a duel between herself and her grandmother. + +Her grandmother had planned this marriage. Her grandmother was +determined to destroy the honesty and truth in her and had chosen a +Beaminster for her agent and now waited happy for the death of Rachel's +soul. + +But Rachel's soul should not so readily die! During all these weeks the +thought of her grandmother had been continually with her. How she hated +her, and with what fervour did Rachel return that hatred! + +There was no melodrama in this hatred. When she had been a very little +girl Rachel had somehow believed that her grandmother had been very +cruel to her mother and father--She had hated her for that. Then she had +seen that her grandmother disliked her and wished to tease her--so she +had hated her for that also. + +Her older amplification of this into principles and instincts had not +altered the original vehemence of the passion, it had only given it +grown-up reasons for its existence. + +And so, thinking of her grandmother, she thought also of Francis Breton. + +Some weeks ago she had received a letter from him and that letter was +now lying in the desk of her writing-table. + +She had thought that her marriage would have snapped her interest in her +cousin because it would have broken that hostility with her grandmother +upon which her relationship with her cousin so largely depended. But now +when she saw that marriage had only intensified her hostility to the +Duchess, so therefore it had intensified her perception of Breton. His +letter had aroused in her, just as contact with him aroused in her, +everything in her that now, for her own peace of mind, she should keep +at bay. His letter had amounted to this: + +"You are a rebel as I am a rebel. We have said very little, but you have +recognized in me the things that I have recognized in you. You have +escaped through marriage, but for me there is no escape, and if you +would, for the sake of those things that we have in common, keep me from +going utterly under, then you must help me--as only you can." + +He did not say this nor anything at all like this. He only, very +quietly, congratulated her on her marriage, hoped that she would be very +happy, said that London was a little desolate and difficult, hoped that +she would not think more harshly of him than she could help, and, at the +very end, told her that meeting her made him feel that he was not +entirely abandoned by everybody. + +It was the letter of a weak man and she knew it, but it was the letter +of a man who was weak exactly in the places where she also failed. And +this, more than anything else, moved her. + +They two alone, it seemed, were struggling to keep their feet in a world +that did not need them. It had been, through these months, Rachel's +sharpest unhappiness, the consciousness that Roddy and indeed everything +at Seddon Court could get on so very well without her. + +Nobody in London needed her--nobody here needed her. If you accepted the +Beaminster doctrine, then no wife would demand more from a husband than +Roddy gave Rachel--but was this not simply another proof that Rachel had +made a Beaminster marriage? + +Rachel had been flung straight from the schoolroom into marriage and the +sensitive agonizing cry of a child to be loved by somebody--the cry that +had always been so urgent in her--was urgent still. + +It was exactly this comfortable sense of being a help that Roddy had not +given her. Now this letter gave it to her. + +But if this letter was an appeal, just as the mongrel Jacob, now at her +feet, was an appeal, on the part of someone wounded and outcast, to her +pity, so also was it an invitation to rebellion. + +It was also a temptation to deceit and, did she answer the letter, she +encouraged Breton to write again; she opened up not only a new +relationship to him, but also a new relationship to all the forces that +were most hostile to Roddy and her married happiness. May Eversley had +once said to her: "Sit down and see, without any exaggeration or false +colouring, what you've got. Take away, ruthlessly, anything that you +imagine that you've got but haven't. Take away ruthlessly everything +that you imagine that you would like to have but are not confident of +securing--See what's happened to you in the past--Take away ruthlessly +any sentimental repentances or sloppy regrets, but learn quite +resolutely from your ugly mistakes." + +Long ago she had written this down--now was the first necessity for +applying it. + +The doctrine of Truth--Truth to Oneself, the one thing that mattered. +She knew that the pursuit of Truth was to her, and to every rebel +against the Beaminsters, the restive Tiger. In marrying Roddy she had +been untrue to herself. In writing to Breton she would be true to +herself but untrue to Roddy. She was fond of Roddy although she did not +love him, nor did he, really, love her. The anxiety on both their parts +to avoid hurting one another was proof enough of that, she thought. + +There then was the whole situation. As she felt Jacob's warm head +against her foot a great agitation of loneliness and dismay and +helplessness swept over her. + +Tears were in her throat and eyes--Then with a strong disdain she pushed +it all from her. She was growing morbid, losing her sense of humour and +proportion. Here in the house there was Nita Raseley staying; in the +country there were people to be called upon, to be invited, to be +interested in, there was Roddy, a perfect husband. + +She strangled that other Rachel, there in her room. "Now you're dead," +she felt, and seemed to fling a lifeless, crumpled figure out into the +snow-- + +She looked at herself in the glass. + +"You're not Rachel Beaminster now--you're Rachel Seddon. Act accordingly +and don't whine--" She washed her face and brushed her hair, and combed +Jacob's hair out of his eyes, and then, determined to be sensible and +cheerful and civilized, went down to tea. + + +II + +The room called the Library was the pleasantest room in the house; an +old, long, low-ceilinged room with windows that stretched from floor to +ceiling, with a large stone open fireplace and book-cases running from +end to end and old sporting prints above them. + +Before the great fireplace the tea was waiting and there also was Nita +Raseley, very charming and fresh and pink in the face and golden in the +hair. It was strange that Nita Raseley should have been their first +guest since their marriage, because Rachel, most certainly, did not like +her; but, after that meeting at the Massiters' the girl had flung a +passionate and incoherent correspondence upon Rachel and had ended by +practically inviting herself. + +Roddy liked her; Rachel knew that--so perhaps after all it had been a +good thing to have her there. Rachel's dislike of her was founded on a +complete distrust. "She's all wrong and insincere and beastly. I'll +never have her here again...." And yet, really, Miss Raseley had behaved +herself, had been most quiet and decorous and _most_ affectionate. + +The electric light was delicately shaded, the curtains were drawn, +outside was the storm, here cosiness and shining comfort. + +"Oh! _darling_ Rachel--I _am_ so glad you've come--I do so want +tea----" + +"Where's Roddy?" + +"Just come in--He'll be here in a minute----" + +Rachel came over to the fire and was busy over the tea-table. + +"Well, Nita, what have you been at all the afternoon?" + +"Oh! that silly old book. Rachel, how _could_ you tell me----" + +"What book?" + +"Oh! _you_ know--you lent it me. Something like drinking--_you_ know. By +that man Westcott--_such_ a silly name." + +"_The Vines!_--Didn't you like it?" + +"Like it! My dear Rachel, why, they go on for pages about each other's +feelings and nothing happens and I'm sure it's most unwholesome. They're +all so unhappy and always hating one another. I like books to be +cheerful and about people one knows--don't you?" + +"Well, Nita dear, it's a good thing we don't all like the same things, +isn't it? Sugar?" + +"Yes, dear, you know--lots--Darling, have you got a headache? You _do_ +look rotten--you _do_ really." + +Rachel knew that she must keep an especial guard to-day: she was +irritable, out of sorts. She would have liked immensely to send Nita to +have her tea in the nursery, were there one. + +"No, I'm all right. But I wanted to get out and this storm stopped me." + +"You do look dicky! Oh! what do you think! Roddy's taking us over to +Hawes to-morrow to lunch if the weather's anything like decent. He's +just fixed it up--sent a wire----" + +"To-morrow? But _I_ can't.... He knows. I've got Miss Crale coming +here----" + +"Only old Miss Crale? Put her off----" + +"I can't possibly--I've put her off once before. She wants to talk about +her Soldiers' Institute place--" Then Rachel added more slowly, "But +Roddy knew----" + +"Oh! he said you'd got some silly old engagement, but he _knew_ you'd +put it off!" + +"He knows I can't. He was talking about it this morning. He knew +how----" Then she stopped. She was not going to show Nita Raseley that +she minded anything. + +But Roddy had always said that they would go over together to Hawes--one +of the loveliest old places in the world--He had always promised.... + +She knew perfectly well what had occurred. Nita had caught Roddy and +clung on to him and persuaded him--Roddy was such a boy--But she was +hurt and she despised herself for it. + +"Oh," she said, laughing. "That's all right. You two must just go over +together--that's all! I'll go another time----" + +"Well, you see, Roddy _did_ send a wire and the Rockingtons would _hate_ +being put off at the last moment.... Oh! You beastly dog! He's been +licking my shoe, Rachel. Really he oughtn't to, ought he? So funny of +you, Rachel, when he's _such_ a mongrel and Roddy's got such lovely +darlings--Of course Jacob's a dear, but he _is_ rather absurd to look +at----" + +Jacob glanced at her, shook his ears and then, hearing a step that he +knew, retired, instantly, under a sofa in a far corner of the room. + +Roddy came in and stood for a moment laughing across at them. He was in +an old tweed suit with a soft collar and his face was brick-red; looking +at him as he stood there, the absolute type of health and strength and +cleanly vigour, Rachel wondered why she felt irritable. She certainly +was out of sorts. + +"Hullo, you two," Roddy said, "you do look cosy! Talkin' secrets, or +will you put up with a man?" + +"Oh! _Roddy_," said Nita Raseley, "why, of _course_. Rachel's only just +come down, hasn't been any time for secrets. Come and get warm." + +Room was made for him. Rachel smiled at him as she gave him his tea. +"Well, Roddy, what have _you_ been doing? I've been trying to write +letters and Nita's been abusing a novel I lent her. I hope you've been +better employed----" + +"I've been botherin' around with Nugent over those two horses he bought +last week. And--oh! I say, Rachel, you'll come over to Hawes to-morrow, +won't you?" + +"You know I can't. I've got Miss Crale coming to luncheon----" + +"Oh, I say! Put her off----" + +"Can't--I've put her off before and she doesn't deserve to be badly +treated----" + +"Oh! dash it! But I've gone and wired. The Rockingtons won't like my +changin'----" + +"Well, don't change--you and Nita go over----" + +"No, but you know we'd always arranged to go over together. You see, I +felt sure you'd put old Miss Crale on to another day. _She_ won't +mind----" + +"No, Roddy, thank you. That's not fair on her. It can't be helped. You +go over with Nita." + +Then there occurred between them one of those little situations that +were now so frequent. Rachel was hurt, but was determined to show +nothing; Roddy knew that she was hurt, but was quite unable to improve +relations, partly because he had no words, partly because "a feller +looks such a fool tryin' to explain," partly because there was in him a +quality of sullen obstinacy that was mingled, most strangely, with his +kindness and sentiment. + +He was absolutely ready to fling Nita and the Rockingtons into limbo, +but he was quite unable to set about such a business. + +Moreover now there was Nita Raseley--It was at this moment that Jacob, +having fought in the dark recesses of the sofa between his dislike of +Roddy and his love of tea, declared for his stomach and walked slowly, +and with the dignity required by the presence of an enemy, across the +room. + +"Hullo! there's the mongrel--" Roddy endeavoured to cover earlier +awkwardness by easy laughter, but the laughter was not easy and his +attempt to pat Jacob was frustrated by a sidling movement on the dog's +part. + +Then Nita Raseley laughed. + +Roddy now thought that women were damnable, that his wife had no right +to drag a mongrel like that about with her, that he'd show them if they +laughed at him, and that if Rachel couldn't come to-morrow, why then, +she must just lump it--The last thought of all was that Rachel was +always finding a grievance in something. + +He waited a little while, talked in a stiff and unnatural fashion and +then went. + +"This weather _is_ very trying, dear, isn't it?" said Nita. "If I were +you I really would go and lie down. You do look _so_ seedy!" + +"I think I will," said Rachel. + +As she went slowly upstairs to her room she knew that she would answer +Francis Breton's letter. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +FIRST SEQUEL TO DEFIANCE + + "He began to love her so soon, as he perceived that she was + passing out of his control." + + JANE AUSTEN. + + +I + +Next morning Rachel wrote the following letter to Francis Breton: + + "DEAR MR. BRETON, + + It was good of you to write to me and I must apologize for + allowing your letter to remain so long unanswered, but, on my + return from abroad, there were naturally a great many things to + do and a great many people to see. + + My husband and I enjoyed our time abroad immensely: it was my + first visit to Greece and Italy and I loved every bit of + it--Athens is to me more wonderful than now, here so snugly in + England, seems possible; Florence and Rome very beautiful of + course but spoilt, don't you think, by tourists and the modern + Italian who has learnt American habits-- + + How is London? I've not yet had a good look at it since I came + back, but we shall be coming up soon, I expect, and have taken + a flat in Elliston Square, between Portland Place and Byranston + Square. + + Your letter sounds a little dismal; it is kind of you to say + that I can help you, but, indeed, if writing to me helps do so. + It is only fair to say that at present my husband shares the + family point of view and, so long as that is so, I cannot ask + you to come and see me, but I hope that soon he will see the + whole affair more sensibly. + + Yours very sincerely, + + RACHEL SEDDON." + +She was not proud of this letter when she read it. She whose impulse was +for truth seemed to be flung, at every turn, into direct dishonesty. No, +she would not seize on the excuse of some vague tyrannical fate. + +She was herself her own agent in this affair and she bitterly, from her +heart, condemned herself ... and yet, strangely, this letter to Breton +seemed, in obedience to some inward impulse, her most honest action +since her marriage. + +Yet why did she not go to Roddy now and say to him that she had written +to Breton and was determined to act as his friend? + +Roddy would forbid any further relationship; she knew that. And then?... + +No, she could not see beyond-- + +She banished the letter from her mind, saw the two of them off to Hawes, +and entertained Miss Crale to luncheon. Miss Crale was a broad and +shapeless old maid with huge boots, a bass voice and a moustache. She +was behind most of the charitable affairs in the county, was popular +everywhere, and the most energetic character Rachel had ever met-- + +Rachel liked her and she liked Rachel, and after she had departed, +breathless and red-faced, on some further visit concerned with some +further charity, Rachel felt braced and invigorated and happier than she +had been for many weeks. + +It was a day of frosted blue and the sun flashed fire on to the great +field of snow that stretched from sky to sky. The Downs lay humped +against the blue and the whole world was frozen into silence. + +The only sounds were the soft stir the snow, falling from branches or +walls, made and the sharp cries of some children playing in a field near +at hand. + +When Miss Crale had gone Rachel went off for a walk. Jacob was with her. +She struck up the winding path on to the Downs. The snow was hard and +yielded a pleasant friendly crunch beneath her feet. Shadows that were +dark and yet were filled with colour lay across the snow; beneath her a +white valley against which trees and buildings seemed little wooden toys +and, in the far distance, hills rising, cut, with their iridescent glow, +the blue sky. + +No clouds; no movement; no sound: and soon the sun would be golden and +then hard and red, and then across all the snow pink shadows would creep +and the evening stars would burn-- + +In the heart of the snow, a valley between the shoulders of the Downs, a +black clump of trees clustered; she could see, now, Seddon Court like a +grey box at her feet, very tiny and breathing rest and peace. + +Some of her trouble slipped from her under this clear sky and in this +sharp air; from these quiet hills she saw all her introspection as an +evil thing, morbid, cowardly; from here it seemed to her that her +trouble with Roddy had been because he did not know what introspection +meant and could not understand the appeals that she made to him. + +But was it not unfair that men should have so many things that could +take the place of love? For Roddy there were a thousand emotions to give +meaning to life: for Rachel all experience seemed to come to her only +through people and her relations with people. + +Soon the valley and the little toy houses were behind her and she had +only the white rise and fall of the hill on every side. Dropped into a +hollow was a little dark deserted house with bare trees about it; +otherwise there was no dwelling-place to be seen. + +This absence of human life suddenly drew up before her, as sharply and +with as living an actuality as though some mirage had cast it +there--London-- + +Three months in the country had flung the London that she knew into a +vivid perspective that was quite novel to her. By the London that she +knew she did not mean the London of parties and theatre, the London of +Nita and her kind, but rather the actual London of the streets and +squares and fountain and parks and dusty plane trees and tinkling +organ-grinders. + +She felt now quite a thrill of excitement to think that, in another week +or two, she would be back in it all and would see all the lamps coming +out and the jingling cabs and the heavy lumbering omnibuses, and that +she would hear again the sharp crying of the newspaper boys and the +ringing of church bells and the thud of the horses down the Row and the +hum of voices above the orchestra during the intervals of some play. + +She thought of Portland Place and the park and the Round Church and the +little shops and Oxford Circus and the buses tumbling down Regent Street +into Piccadilly and then tumbling down again into Pall Mall. From +Portland Place she seemed to look down over the whole of London and to +see it like a jewel, with its glow dazzling the night sky-- + +She knew now that although she hated her grandmother she did not hate +the Portland Place house and she was glad that Roddy had taken a flat +near there. No other part of London would ever be quite the same to her +as that was: it would always be home to her more than any other place in +the world, with its space and air and sense of life crowding around it. + +And, as she walked, she was fired with the desire to have some real +active share in the London life; not in the sham life of pleasure and +entertainment, but to be working, as all kinds of men must be working, +with London behind them, influencing them, sometimes depressing them, +sometimes exalting them, always moving within them. + +That was a fine ambition to work towards a greater London, a greater, +finer, truer world, and whether you were politician or artist or +journalist or merchant or novelist or clerk or philanthropist, still by +your working honestly you would deserve your place in that company. + +If she could have some share in such things, then her miserable doubts +and forebodings would vanish in a vision too bright and glorious to +contain them-- + +As she walked her face glowed and her body moved as though it could +continue thus, swinging through the clear air, for all time. + +She determined that on this very evening she would tell Roddy about +Breton. Whatever might be the result life in the future should be clear +of Beaminster confusions. She would even ask Roddy to help her about +Breton, to influence, perhaps, her grandmother with regard to him-- + +Then, in a few days, Nita Raseley would be gone, and, afterwards, she +would discipline all her wit and energy towards establishing a fine +relationship with Roddy. + +Something had, throughout all these months, been wrong; she would +discover where that wrong lay--She would curb her own impatience, would +fling herself into his interests, would learn the things that Roddy +wanted from her and give them to him-- + +Then, as the sun sank lower and the yellow shadows crept up the sky, she +felt desolate and lonely. Vigour left her--She had descended now into +the valley and had come to the deserted house with the stark frowning +trees. This place, she had heard, had in the eighteenth century been a +private mad-house, and now behind its darkened windows she could have +fancied shapes and down the wind the echo of voices. + +She fought with all her might against a great tide of loneliness that +was now sweeping up about her. There had always been so many people +around her and yet she had always been lonely. Even May and Dr. +Christopher had not helped her there. She had a sense now of all the +people in all the world who were waiting for the other people who could +understand them; they were always missing one another, so near +sometimes, sometimes touching, and then, after all, going through life +alone. + +Those were the people with feelings and emotions--and as for the people +without them, of what use was life to _them_? + +Either way, except for the fortunate way, Life was a futile business. + +Then, climbing up from that sinister little valley and seeing that the +sky had turned to violet and that the evening star was there burning as +she had known that it would, she laughed at her morbidity. + +She shook herself free from it, thought once more of the things that she +would do with Roddy, thought of London and the fun that she would have +there, thought of Christopher and Uncle John and even Aunt Adela; then, +as she turned down the little crooked path towards the house, she +thought again of her cousin; she would work without ceasing to bring him +back into the family. + +That, at any rate, was work upon which she might commence on her return +to London, and as she clicked the little wicket-gate, a side-entrance to +the garden, behind her, she was almost happy again. + +The dusk was deepening into darkness, the moon had not yet risen above +the hill. She had entered the garden on the further side of the house +and passed through a long laurel path, her feet silenced by the snow. + +Jacob had stayed, some way behind. She could see the white lawn and +beyond it the lighted house; she was about to step out of the dark +shadow of the laurels when she found, just in front of her, almost +touching her, hidden by the black depth of the trees, two figures. + +She was upon them with a startled cry. A man had his arms about a woman; +bending back a little he had pulled her forward against him and was +kissing her so fiercely that her hands were buried deep in his coat to +steady herself. + +Rachel knew them instantly; they were her husband and Nita Raseley-- + +She stepped past them on to the lawn and at that instant they were +conscious of her-- + +Then she walked swiftly into the house. + + +II + +She went up to her bedroom. No thought came to her, her mind was blank, +but she noticed little things, put some of the silver things on her +dressing-table in order, pulled her blind a little lower, moved to the +fire and pushed the logs into a blaze. She sat there for a long, long +time. + +When the dressing-bell echoed through the rooms she was still sitting +there, thinking nothing-- + +Her maid came to her; she told her the dress that she would wear and +after a while sat staring into her mirror whilst her hair was brushed. + +Lucy said, "The snow's begun again, my lady. Coming down fast----" + +Then some absence of light in her mistress's eyes frightened her and she +said no more. + +Someone knocked on the door: a note for her ladyship. Rachel read it: + + "It was all a horrible, _horrible_ mistake. Darling Rachel, you + _know_ it was only fun--just nothing at all. Shall I come and + explain? If you'd rather not see me just now say so and I shall + _quite_ understand. I've been so upset that I think I won't + come down to dinner, if it isn't _too_ much bother having just + a little sent up to me. It was all _such_ a silly mistake, as + you'll see when we've explained. + + Your loving + + NITA." + +When she came to "we" Rachel coloured a little. Then she said, "Lucy, +bring me the local railway-guide. In my writing-room." + +Lucy brought it to her. Then she wrote: + + "DEAR NITA, + + No explanations necessary. There is a good train up to town + from Hawes at 9.30 to-morrow morning. + + Yours, + + RACHEL SEDDON." + +"I want this taken to Miss Raseley, Lucy--now. She's not very well, so +ask Haddon to see that dinner is sent up to her room, please." + +Then she finished dressing and went down to Roddy. + + +III + +He had perhaps expected that she would not come down, but there was no +opportunity given them for speech because the butler announcing dinner +followed her into the library. They went in. + +He sat opposite her, looking ashamed, with his eyes lowered, and the red +coming and going in his sunburned cheeks. + +They talked for the sake of the servants, and she asked him whether +Hawes had been as lovely as ever and whether Lady Rockington's nerves +were better, and how their youngest boy (delicate from his birth) was +now. + +Whilst she spoke her brain was turning, turning like a wheel; could she +only, for five minutes, think clearly, then might much after disaster be +avoided. She knew that in the conversation that was to come Roddy would +follow her lead and that it would be she who would be responsible for +all consequences. + +She knew that and yet she could not force her brain to be clear nor +foresee what the end of it all was to be. + +The dessert and the wine came at last and she went-- + +"I'll be in the library, Roddy," she said. + +He gave her a quarter of an hour, and in that pause, with the house +quite silent all about her and the fire crackling and the lights softly +shining, she strove to discipline her mind. + +She had known as soon as she had seen them there that the most awful +element in it was that this had in no way altered the earlier case--it +merely precipitated a crisis and demanded a definition. Nothing could +have proved to her that she had never loved Roddy so much as her own +feeling at this crisis towards him. Therein lay her own sin. + +It was simply now of the future that she must think. The awful chasm +that might divide them after this night, were not their words most +carefully ordered, shook her with fear; peril to herself, for she could +stand aside and see herself quite clearly: and she knew that if to-night +she and he were to say things that they could neither of them afterwards +forget, then, for herself, and from her deep need of love and affection, +there was temptation awaiting her that no disguise could cover. + +Then, as more clearly she figured the scene in the garden, patience +seemed difficult to command. + +She hated Nita Raseley--that was no matter--but she despised Roddy, and +were he once to-night to see that contempt she knew that his after +remembrance of it would divide them more completely than anything else +could do. + +When he came in she had still no clearer idea of what she intended to +say, or how she wished things to go. She was sitting in an arm-chair by +the fire with her hands shielding her face, and he sat down opposite her +and stared at her and cleared his throat and wished that she would take +her hands down and then finally plunged: + +"Rachel--I don't know--I can't--hang it all, what _can_ I say? I've been +a beastly cad and I'd cut my right hand off to have prevented it +happening----" + +She took her hand down and turned towards him-- + +"Let's cut all the recrimination part, Roddy," she said. "It was very +unfortunate--that was all. It was rather beastly of you, and as for +Nita----" + +Here he broke in--"No, I say, you mustn't say anythin' about her. She +wasn't a little bit to blame--It just----" + +"Well, we'll leave Nita. She isn't of any importance, anyway. The point +is that things have been wrong for months between us, and as we haven't +been married very long that's a pity. This has just brought things to a +head, that's all----" + +"No," said Roddy firmly. "No, Rachel, that ain't fair to Nita. I know it +isn't nice, but I must put that out fair and square--fair and square to +Nita. + +"We'd had a jolly old drive to Hawes--rippin' day, cold as anythin', +with the horse just spankin' along, and then the Rockingtons were jolly +and the lunch was jolly and back we came. We looked about the house for +you and heard you were still out walkin', so we just strolled about the +garden a bit and then--Well, anyway, Nita simply had nothin' to do with +it. It was so rippin' and jolly after the drive and all, that I just +kissed her. All in a second I just felt I had to ... beastly weak of +me," he finally added in a contemplative tone. + +"Well, that disposes of Nita," said Rachel. "Don't let's mention her +again. Meanwhile what sort of life am I going to have if 'things' are +going to sweep over you like this continually? Besides, it's rather +early days, isn't it? We haven't been married half a year yet." + +"No," said Roddy slowly, "no, we haven't and it's simply beastly. I'm a +perfect swine. When I married you the one thing I meant to do was to be +just as kind to you as I jolly well could be, and give you a perfectly +rippin' time, and here I am hurtin' you like anything----" + +She moved impatiently. "Never mind that, Roddy. You _have_ been very +kind and I'm sure you'd have given anything for me not to have come into +the garden just when I did, so as to have avoided hurting me. But what I +do know is that you're not straight with me. You know I told you before +we were married that the one thing that mattered was Truth--truth to +oneself and truth to everyone else--Well, we haven't been straight with +one another for a single instant. You've done any number of things that +would be wrong to you if I knew about them, but wouldn't be in the least +wrong if I didn't." + +"Of course," said Roddy, "no feller tells his wife everything--that +would be absurd. I think things are worse if people know about 'em whom +it hurts to know--_much_ worse." + +She was suddenly confronted now with a Roddy whose assurance and +confidence in his own personality startled her. Because he had never +been gifted with words and liked to be in the company of dogs and horses +she had fancied that he had no ideas about anything. + +Rachel was a great deal younger than she knew and a great deal more +contemptuous of the other half world than her experience of it +justified. Strangely enough this confidence on Roddy's part angered her +more than anything else could have done. + +"The fact is that since our marriage we've never got to know each other +in the least. We talk and go to places together and you give me things +and I give you things--and that's all. I don't know you and now, after +to-day, I can't trust you----" + +He coloured a little at that, but said nothing. + +She went on, rather fast and her breath coming between her words: "But +I'm not going to be so silly as to make a scene because I saw you +kissing Nita Raseley. She's simply not worth thinking about,--but you +ought to be straighter to me all the way round. If you've wanted to be +kind to me as you say, then you might have taken me more into your +life----" + +"Well," said Roddy slowly, "if you'd managed to love me a bit, Rachel, +things might be different." + +This answer was so utterly unexpected that it took her like a blow. That +Roddy should attack _her_ when he had, only a few hours before, been +discovered so abominably! + +"What do you mean, Roddy?" she stammered angrily. "Love you? But----" + +"Yes," he persisted doggedly, "I know when you accepted me you said you +didn't and I know that I hadn't any right to expect it, but I believe if +you hadn't thought me such a silly ass and hadn't looked all the time as +though you were just indulgin' my silly fancies until somethin' more +sensible had come along, things might have been different. I'm the sort +of feller," Roddy said, choosing his words carefully, "that you could +have made anythin' out of, Rachel. I'm weak in some ways--most men +are--and when a thing comes dancin' along lookin' ever so temptin', why, +then I generally have to go after it. But you could have kept me, +Rachel, more than anyone I've ever known----" + +She was not touched nor moved, only angered that he, so obviously in the +wrong, should attempt justification. + +"Yes," she said hotly. "And I suppose in another moment you'll be +telling me that it's silly of me to be angry at what I saw this +afternoon?" + +He thought it out a moment, then answered: "No, it was perfectly natural +of course--only I don't think you ought to mind much. If you really +cared, you wouldn't. It don't matter _really_ so much what I do if I +still like you best. Moments don't count--it's what goes on all the time +that matters. Why, I might kiss a hundred women and still you'd be the +only woman who mattered to me. I've never cared for one so long before," +he added simply. + +Then as she said nothing he went on: "I've never been sort of +educated--never cared enough for anyone to give things up. I would have +given things up for you if you'd wanted me to, but you didn't +really----" + +"Aren't we a little off the point, Roddy?" she flung back. "The point is +how are we going to get along all the years and years we've got in front +of us? What are we going to do?" + +"Everybody's just the same," said Roddy quietly. "It takes a lot of +years before married people settle down. We can't expect to be any +different----" + +But although he spoke so quietly he watched her, hoping for some +yielding on her part; in an instant, had she come to him, she would have +seen a Roddy whom she had never seen before and from that moment onwards +would have had a power over him that nothing could have shaken. + +So delicately hung the balance between them. But she was filled with a +sense of her own wrongs, her loneliness, the injustice of it all. At +that moment all affection for Roddy had left her, she would only have +been glad if she had known that she was never to see him again. His slow +voice, his way of thinking out his sentences, his thick clumsy hands and +his red face, everything came to her now as a continuation of the chains +that she had worn all her days. + +She got up and confronted him-- + +"Yes," she said fiercely, "that's exactly it. Life is to be like +everyone else. We're to say the things, do the things that our +neighbours say and do. Because your friends at Brooks's kiss their +wives' friends, therefore you are to do so. Because the men you know +never say what they mean and lie about everything they do, therefore you +do the same. Oh! I know! Haven't I heard it all my life? Haven't my +precious family lived on lies? You've caught it all from my delightful +grandmother! I congratulate you!" + +"What if I have?" he said. "She's a friend of mine, Rachel. She's been +dashed good to me--You're not to say a word against her." + +"I hate her," Rachel cried passionately. "All my life she's been over +me--for years she's been my enemy. If she stands for everything that you +believe, then it isn't any wonder that we have nothing in common, that +you should be proud of this afternoon, that--that----" + +She was biting her lips to keep back the tears. Over his face had crept +a sulky obstinate look that might have told her, had she seen it, that +she was driving him very far. + +"She's fine," he said. "She's made England what it is. You're all for +ideas, Rachel, and for Truth and lots of things, but you're difficult to +live with." + +"Very well, Roddy. Thank you. Now we know how we stand. I at least owe +Nita a debt for having cleared up the situation. If you find it +difficult with me I can at least return the compliment--and I have at +any rate this added advantage, that I speak the truth." + +As he looked at her across the room he saw in her that same figure that +he'd seen once just before proposing to her--someone foreign, +unknown--He felt as though he were quarrelling with a stranger.... + +She turned and went. + +For a long while he stood gazing into the fire, his hands in his +pockets. How had it all happened? Why had they let it come to that kind +of quarrel when they might so easily have prevented it? + +And she, crying bitterly in her room, asked herself the same question. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +RACHEL--AND CHRISTOPHER AND RODDY + + +I + +Christopher had snatched his first holiday for two years and was abroad +during the January of 1899 when the Seddons were in town. + +February, March and April they spent at Seddon Court, and it was not +therefore until early in May that Christopher saw Rachel. + +She had dreaded with an almost fantastic alarm this meeting. No other +human being knew her so honestly and accurately as did Christopher, and +the change in her that he would at once discern would, when she caught +the reflection of it in his eyes, mark definitely the sinister country +into which these last months had carried her. + +It had seemed as though some malign spirit had been determined to make +the most of that quarrel that Nita Raseley had provoked. + +Both Roddy and Rachel hated scenes--upon that, at least, they were +agreed--and from their determination never to have another arose a +deliberate avoidance of any plain speaking. Rachel, longing for honesty, +found herself caught in a thousand deceits--Roddy, avoiding any kind of +analysis, found that everything that he provided in conversation seemed +to lead to danger. + +He was now always ill at ease in Rachel's company; he had stood on that +fatal evening, more strongly for the Beaminster interest than he had +intended, but from his very determination to maintain his new +independence, he produced the Duchess for Rachel's benefit at every turn +of the road. + +Roddy knew that the Duchess feared that Rachel would lead him from her +side and that she received with rejoicing every sign on his part of +irritation against Rachel. She had wanted him to marry her granddaughter +because that bound him more closely to her, but she had not, perhaps, +been prepared for the probable effect of Rachel's character upon him. + +The Duchess therefore made, throughout these months, a third member of +their company. Roddy, finding Rachel's society a growing embarrassment, +spent more and more of his time with his animals and his tenants and +labourers. But all this time he was conscious, in a dumb way, of +unhappiness and a puzzled dismay, so that his very affection for Rachel +produced in him a growing irritation that it should be so needlessly +thwarted. Things were all wrong and his resentment of his own failure to +right them reacted, without his will, upon the very person whom he +wished to propitiate. + +For Rachel these months were baffling in their hideous discomfort. Her +affection for Roddy was there, but it was swallowed by her desperate +efforts to analyse a situation that was, in definite outline, no +situation at all. + +As Roddy withdrew, her loneliness wrapped her round, and in every day +that added to her distance from Roddy she saw the active and malignant +agency of her grandmother. She was intelligent enough to be aware that +in this constant vision of the Duchess she was outstepping the +probabilities; but her early years and the precipitation with which she +had been shot out of them into an atmosphere that unexpectedly resembled +their own earlier surroundings seemed to point to some diabolical +agency. + +"Oh! when I get free of this," had been her earlier cry, and now the +foreboding that she was never to be free of it until she died terrified +her with its possibility. Imagine her brought up in a stuffy house with +windows tightly closed, in full vision of a high road, imagine her +promised the freedom of the road at a future time; imagine her +liberated, at last, rushing into the new life and finding that, after +all, the walls of the house were still about her, and about her now for +ever. + +Her one reserve during the early months of the year at Seddon had been +her letters to Francis Breton. His letters to her had been a series of +self-revelation; he had restrained himself in so far as appealing to her +simply on the score of their relationship and his enmity to the head of +the house. She had replied revealing her sympathy, hinting at rebellion +on her own side and feeling, after the writing of every letter, a hatred +of her own deceit, a curiously heightened sense of affection for Roddy, +above all a conviction that impulses were, of their own agency, working +to some climax that she could not, or would not, control. + +The foreign blood in her, the English blood in him, baffled their +advances toward one another. Everything that Rachel did now seemed to +Roddy so close to melodrama that it was best to use silence for his +weapon. All Roddy's actions were to Rachel further illustrations of +Beaminster muddle and second-rate personality. + +Had Roddy called out of Rachel the great depth of passion and reality +that she inherited from her mother her own love of him would have solved +everything--but that he could not call from her, nor ever would. + +For Rachel, she saw in him now a possibility of perpetual infidelity, +and at every suspicion of it her disgust both at herself and him grew +because that possibility did not move her more. + +They came up to London at the beginning of May and hid, very +successfully from the world, the widening breach. + +To Rachel, it was sheer terror to discover the thrill that the adjacence +of Elliston Square to Saxton Square gave her. In this one +self-revelation there was enough to present her with night after night +of sleepless misery. She visited the Duchess and found that her presence +was continually demanded. Every visit was a battle. + +"Show me how you are treating him, whether he cares for you. Have you +found him out? Tell me everything----" + +"I will tell you nothing. I will come here day after day and you shall +gather nothing from me. I have escaped you." + +"Indeed you have not escaped me. My power over you is only now +beginning----" + +No word between them but the most civil. There was no trace in the old +woman now of her earlier irony--no sign in Rachel of irritation or +rebellion. + +But the girl knew that war was declared, that her only ally was one in +whose alliance lay, for her, the very heart of danger. + +All these things she might hide from the world--from Christopher she +knew that she could hide nothing. + + +II + +It was on an early afternoon in May that Christopher had tea with +Rachel. He had waited for his visit with very real anxiety; the letters +that he had had from her had been unsatisfactory, not because they were +actively expressive of unhappiness, but because there was an effort in +every word of them--Rachel had never found it difficult to write to him +before. + +He was also uneasy because he had been against this marriage from the +beginning. He did, as he said to the Duchess, know Rachel better than +anyone else knew her; he knew her from his love for her, and also from +that scientific study that he applied in his profession. And he had +found, too, in her, as he had found in Breton, some strain of fierce +helplessness, as of an animal caught in a trap, that especially moved +his interest and affection-- + +Was Rachel's marriage a disaster? If so she had certainly managed to +conceal it, for even the Duchess did not know--of that he was sure. + +If Rachel were indeed unhappy would she come to him as she used to come +to him? + +What change had marriage wrought in her? + +It was one of those May days when the weather is hot before London is +ready. It was a day of tension; buildings, streets quivered beneath a +sun in whose gaze there was no kindliness nor comfort. Christopher drove +from Eaton Square, where, for some hours he had been engaged in +preventing an old man from dying, when both the old man himself and all +his friends and relations were convinced that death was the best thing +for him-- + +Sloane Street ran like white steel before his eyes, not dimly veiled as +he had so often seen it; Park Lane offered houses that stared with +haughty faces upon a world that would, they knew, do anything for +money-- + +Elliston Square itself was white and sterile; the town was, on this +afternoon, irritated, sinister ... feet ached upon its pavements and +hearts were suddenly clutched with foreboding. + +As he ascended in the lift to her flat he knew that, did he find that +this marriage was, truly, a misadventure for Rachel, then, until his +death, he would reproach himself for some weak inaction, some hesitation +when first he had heard that it was to be. + +He _had_ protested, but now he felt that he should have done more. + +Soon he had his answer to all his questions. + +He saw at once that Rachel was no longer the impulsive, nervous girl +whom he had always known. She was a girl no longer. + +Her eyes greeted him now steadily, she seemed taller and her body was in +perfect control--very tall and slim and dark, her cheeks pale but +shadowed a little with the shadow deepening beneath her eyes. Her mouth, +that had always been too large, had had before a delightful quality of +uncertainty, so that smiles and frowns and alarms, distress and +happiness all hovered near. It was now grave and composed. + +Her limbs had always moved unsteadily and with the awkward lack of +control of a child, now there was no kind of impulse, every movement was +considered, and that was the first thing that Christopher saw, that +nothing that Rachel now did or said was spontaneous. + +There was less in her now to remind him of her foreign blood. + +The flat was comfortable, but more commonplace than it would have been +had it been Rachel's only. + +He kissed her, as he had always done, and he fancied that she clung for +a moment to him, as her hands went up to his coat. + +He settled his big loose body and looked across at her. + +Christopher was no subtle analyser of other people's emotions. His own +feelings were never complicated and he expected life to run on plain and +simple lines of likes and dislikes, sorrow, anger, love and hatred. If +someone of whom he was fond made a direct appeal to him his simple +remedies were often wonderfully useful--he was no fool and he had been +brought, during a great number of years, into the most direct relations +with men and women, but, if that direct appeal was not made, then he was +frightened and baffled. + +He was frightened of Rachel now; he knew instantly that instead of +appealing she would defend herself from him.... Some mysterious +conviction seemed to forebode that he would not be able to help her. He +was, essentially, of those who, believing in goodness and virtue and the +glorious Millennium, are contented, quite simply, with that belief and +might, if they stated those simplicities, irritate the scoffers. But he +was saved because he made statements on the rarest occasions and lived +his life instead. + +Here, however, was a crisis in his relations with Rachel that no +platitudes could satisfy. Did he not touch her now he might never touch +her again. + +In a situation that was beyond him he was always hopelessly +self-conscious. His love for Rachel was so tremendous a thing in him +that a statement of it should surely have been the simplest thing in +the world. But he saw in her eyes that to challenge her with--"My dear, +you know how I love you. Tell me what's the matter," would frighten her +to absolute silence. "I'm going to tell you nothing," she seemed to say +to him, "unless you move me in spite of myself. But, if I don't tell you +now I shall never tell you." + +"Well, my dear," he said, smiling at her, "how are you after all this +time?" + +"I'm all right," she answered, smiling back at him. "It is good to see +you again. Tell me all about your holiday." + +"Tell me about yours first." + +"Oh! There isn't very much to tell. I enjoyed it all enormously, of +course." + +"What did you enjoy most?" + +"Oh! some of the smaller towns--Rapallo, for instance.--Oh! yes, and +Bologna was fascinating." + +"Not Rome and Florence?" + +"In a way. But there were too many tourists. Rome one's got to stay in, +I'm sure. That first view was disappointing." + +"And how did Roddy--if I may call him Roddy--enjoy it?" + +"Immensely, I think. He liked the country better than the towns though." + +"You saw lots of pictures?" + +"Heaps. Roddy enjoyed them enormously. I'd no idea he knew so much about +them. Oh! it was all lovely, and such colours, such light--London seems +like a cellar, even in June." + +There followed then a pause that swelled and swelled between them until +it resembled some dreadful monster, horribly stationed there to separate +them. + +Christopher looked at Rachel, but she refused to meet his eyes. + +"I've lost her. I shall never see her again!" he thought with despair. +Two years ago he would have gone to her, put his arms around her, +kissed her and drawn from her at once her trouble. + +He could not do that now. + +"Your turn, Dr. Chris dear. Tell me about your holidays." + +"Oh, mine don't count. I went to Brittany first, then up to St. Andrews +with another man to play golf." + +"You're looking splendidly well and you're thinner. What was Brittany +like?" + +"Delightful. Have you ever been there?" + +"Never. I must get Roddy to take me. Just suit him, I should think." + +To Christopher's intense relief tea was brought. He came to the table +and then, for an instant, he did catch her eyes, saw tears in them, and +behind the tears some appeal to him to help her. Her hand was shaking. + +"How silly of me to spill your tea. I'm so sorry. Let me pour it +back...." + +"Rachel----" he began, but a servant entered with something and he +waited. When they were alone again, standing over her as though he were +afraid that she would escape him, he plunged. + +"Rachel dear. We're talking as though we'd never met before. You've +never been shy with me like this. If marriage is going to make a +stranger of you, I shall break young Seddon's neck----" + +"No," she said in a voice that was between laughter and tears. "Of +course, Dr. Chris. Things are just the same between us, only, +only--well, I'm married and--one thing and another, you know." + +He caught both her hands. + +"You're perfectly happy?" + +She met his eyes. + +"Perfectly." + +"Happier than you've ever been in your life?" + +She dropped her eyes. + +"Happier than I've ever been in my life." + +"And you'll come to me just the same if there's any kind of trouble?" + +"Of course." + +"You promise?" + +"I promise." + +They talked then, for a little time, of other things. But he was not +satisfied. Rachel's soul, caught away in alarm, was still beyond his +grasp. + +At last, feeling that the moments were precious and that Roddy might at +any instant appear, he sat down on the sofa beside her. + +"Rachel dear. Something's worrying you. You won't tell me?" + +"Nothing's worrying----" + +"Ah, but I know--well, if you won't you won't--but if you knew how much +I loved you you'd feel that you were cruel not to let me help you." + +"_Dear_ Dr. Chris--but there is _nothing_." + +But her eyes were full of tears. + +"Look here," he said. "Perhaps you'll feel later on you can talk to me. +Just come straight away if you do feel that." + +He went on. "Don't be frightened, my dear, if there are a whole heap of +new emotions, new instincts, stirred in you by marriage. Just take them +all as they come. It's all progress, you know. Don't be frightened of +anything. Just take the animal by the head and look at it." + +That led him to speak about Brun's Tiger. He explained it--the force in +people, the way they either grappled with the creature, and at last +trained it to help them with their work in the world, or ignored it, +silenced it, allowed it at last to die, and so, cosy and lazily +comfortable, passed to their day's end, but had, nevertheless, missed +the whole purpose of life. + +He enlarged on that and showed the connection of the individual Tiger +with the welfare of the world, so that everyone who denied his Tiger +added to his world's muddle and confusion, and at last there would come +an inevitable crisis when war would spring up between those who had +grappled with their Tiger and those who had not. + +"One knows one's own Tiger--absolutely of oneself one knows it and has, +of oneself, the choice whether to grapple or not--at least that's what I +gathered he meant--I know it struck me at the time." + +"Oh," she said, with a sigh that quivered through her whole body. "It's +so _easy_ to talk.... But it's true what he says. I know it." + +At last Christopher got up to go. He did not know whether he had done +any good; he felt that he was a miserable failure, and he had a +foreboding that one day he would be ashamed indeed that he had not +helped her. + +"Do something," a voice seemed to tell him. "You'll regret ... all your +life you'll regret." + +He turned and held again her hands in his.... "Rachel--dear--tell +me----" + +Her hands were chill and lifeless. Her voice caught. "Oh! Dr. Chris!..." +Then she suddenly stepped back from him-- + +"_It's_ all right.... I'm all right. Come again soon, Dr. Chris +dear--come soon." + +He left her and found his way into the hot, breathless street. + +After he had gone Rachel sat, staring beyond the room out on to the +white walls of the houses and the green branches of the trees in the +square. + +Roddy came in. + +All the afternoon he had been thinking about her; at one moment he was +furious with the discomfort that life was now becoming to him, at +another moment he was imagining little plans that would sweep all the +discomfort away. + +All this spring they had been miserable together. Now was beginning a +time that was always jolly in London and yet he could not enjoy a moment +of it. Did she dislike him instead of liking him, or did he like her +instead of loving her, it would all be so easy--just the same as any +other couple. + +Ever since that silly Nita incident there had been this restraint, and +yet how could that be the cause? + +Rachel had made nothing of it; it was because it had meant so little to +her that he had chafed so at the remembrance of it. + +She was fond of him--he knew that--she was miserably unhappy. + +He loved her--and he was miserably unhappy. + +Damn this weather. + +He looked at her, wondered what would happen did he cross over and +suddenly kiss her, knew that he would see her struggle to be kind, to +give him what he wanted, knew that that would hurt most damnably, and +that he would be in a bad temper for the rest of the evening and would +wonder why-- + +So, with a muttered word he went out and up to his dressing-room, had a +bath, and then lay reading with serious brows _The Winning Post_ until +his man told him that it was time to dress. + +Slowly and with the absorbed care that he always gave to these +preparations he made himself ready for the Beaminster dinner. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +LIZZIE'S JOURNEY--I + + "So thy great gift, upon misprision growing, + Comes home again, on better judgment making; + Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter + In sleep a king; but waking no such matter." + + WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. + + +I + +During this year Lizzie Rand was glad that she had so much to do. As she +had never until now given the romance in her an opportunity for freedom, +so had she never before realized the amazing invasion upon life that +that same romance might threaten. + +Indeed by the early summer months of 1899 "threaten" was no longer an +honest definition, for, now this same Romance had invaded, had +conquered, had confronted the very citadels of Lizzie's heart, citadels +never surveyed nor challenged at any time before. + +Nevertheless, even now, Portland Place noticed no change in Miss Rand. +Norris, Mrs. Newton, Dorchester would still, had they been challenged, +have protested that Miss Rand had no conception of the softer, more +sentimental side of life; she was there for discipline and order--Norris +had been known to be led a fearful dance by young women "time and +again"--Mrs. Newton had passionately adored the late Mr. Newton until a +sudden chill had carried him to St. Agnes, Bare Street Cemetery, whither +Mrs. Newton, every Sunday, did still make her stately pilgrimage--even +Dorchester had once, it was said, paid grim attentions to a soldier who +had, unhappily, found in some fluffy young woman a more hopeful comfort. + +Here, above and below stairs, passion had marked its victims ... Miss +Rand only could have felt no touch of it. + +She sometimes wondered at herself that she could so calmly and +dispassionately separate the one life from the other. Never, within that +neat stern room at Portland Place, was there a shudder or sudden +invading thrill at some flashing recollection or imagination. To her +work every nerve, every energy was given. Now, indeed, more than ever +before in her experience of it did 104 Portland Place demand her +presence. Increasingly throughout these months of 1899 was the solemn +heavy air unsettled. + +Lizzie, to whom all impression came with sharpening acuteness, had seen +in the appearance, success and marriage of Rachel Beaminster the +disturbing elements at work--"Things will never be the same here +again"--she had said to herself. + +It was, of course, through Lady Adela that Lizzie studied the house. The +Duchess she never saw, but it was Lady Adela's attitude, before and +after those interviews with her mother, that told their story. Lady +Adela had never until now appeared an interesting figure to Lizzie, but +now forth, from the dry sterile husk of her, a life, pathetic, +struggling against heritages of dumb years, tried to come. + +Lady Adela was unhappy; the very foundations of her existence threatened +to dismay her, at any moment, by their insecurity. Within her the +Beaminster tradition urged, before Lizzie Rand at any rate, the +maintenance of dignity and indifference, but the novelty to her of all +this disturbance brought with it a hapless inability to deal with it, +and again and again little exclamations, little surprised wonders at +what the world could be coming to, little confused clutchings at +anything that offered stability, showed Lizzie that trouble was on every +side of her. Then through the house rumour began to twist its way--Her +Grace was not so well--"The Old Lady was breaking up" (this, in the +close security of shuttered rooms below stairs). + +No one could say whence these whispers gathered. Dorchester would admit +nothing. Her own position in the servants' hall was that of a lofty +uncompromising female Jove, and she knew well enough that her supremacy +over Norris and Mrs. Newton depended on her mistress's supremacy over +the world in general. Not for her then to admit ill health. + +"Indeed no--Her Grace has been better of late than for years past." + +But Norris and Mrs. Newton were not to be taken in. They were truly +proud now of their alliance with the Beaminster family royal, but, +supposing Her Grace were to leave this world to rule in a better one +("Here to-day, gone to-morrow 'igh or low," as Norris remarked), why, +then "Le Roi est mort--Vive le Roi," and the Crown might, in the +meanwhile, have passed elsewhere. + +"You mark my words," Mrs. Newton said to Norris, "'er Grace will go, old +Victorier will go, and where'll the Beaminster crowd be then, I ask you? +Times are movin' too quick. I wouldn't give a toss for your Birth and +Debrett and all in another twenty years." + +To Lizzie also there came other signs of the times. She noticed that now +the relations and friends of the family gathered more frequently +together than ever before within her memory. The Duke, Lord Richard were +continually in the house, and the adherents, Lady Carloes, Lord Crewner, +the Massiters and all the others, called, dined, came to tea. + +Throughout it all there was no expression of any change in the family +policy. To Lizzie Lady Adela admitted nothing, only there were occasions +when, almost against her will, she asked for advice, was uncertain a +little, vague a little, even appealing a little. + +Here Lizzie was exactly right, assisted and yet admitted no need for +assistance. Her tact was perfect. + +Lizzie had also Lady Seddon to besiege her attention. + +To her considerable surprise Rachel had written to her three times +during this year. On each occasion there had been some definite reason +for writing, but behind the reason there had been some implied +friendliness and Lizzie had, in her turn, sent answers that were more +than businesslike replies. + +Lizzie had seen Rachel several times in January and at each meeting her +impression of Rachel's unhappiness had grown. + +"There've been three of you," Lizzie said to herself. "There was the +girl in the schoolroom, and a fierce awkward difficult creature she was. +There was the girl in her first season, and a delightful, joyful, +radiant creature she was. And now--well, there's a girl married, fierce +again, suffering again--above all, afraid of herself." + +In May Rachel asked Lizzie to go and see her, and Lizzie went. That +meeting was in no way personal: Rachel seemed less friendly than she had +been on that day, a year ago, when she had been to Lizzie's, but behind +all that outward stiffness the appeal was there. + +"She wants me to help her," thought Lizzie. "She's too proud now to ask +me: the time will come though." + +All this was connected, she knew, with the fortunes of the house. +Through Lord John, Lord Richard, the Duke, Lady Adela, Dorchester, +Norris, Mrs. Newton the spirit of uneasiness was abroad. + +The Duchess, during these months, more than ever before, was present in +every room and passage of the house-- + +The shadow of some coming event hovered. + + +II + +Over Lizzie's other life, also, the Duchess hovered. Were any disaster +to snatch Her Grace from the domination of this world into a +comparatively humble position in the next, Lizzie did not doubt that the +Beaminsters would once more take Francis Breton into their ranks. It was +the Duchess who held the gate against him. + +The romantic side of her did not hold complete dominion. She knew that +were Francis Breton once more accepted by the family, his distance from +her would be greatly increased. Were he, on the other hand, to marry +her whilst he was yet an exile, then had she no fear of after +consequences. She could hold her own with anyone. + +She had now very little doubt that he loved her. She had seen, during +the last year, the flame of some passion burning in his eyes, +increasingly he depended upon her and found opportunities for being with +her. There was no other woman whom he saw, of that she was convinced. + +Often he had been about to tell her some secret and then had refrained; +she thought that he was waiting until he could be quite assured that she +loved him, and she had fancied that since that day in last December when +the first snow had fallen and they had had that little talk together he +had been much happier, as though he were now convinced of her love for +him. + +The spring passed and still his confession did not come. With the early +summer he seemed to be once more unhappy and unsettled, and throughout +May she scarcely saw him. + +Then in July he asked her whether she would dine with him and go to the +theatre. He had two dress circle tickets for _Mrs. Lemiter's Decision_. + +Something told her that on this evening he would speak to her. + +As she dressed her fingers trembled so that buttons and hooks and laces +were of terrible difficulty. In the glass she saw her cheeks flaming; +she wished she were taller, not so sturdy. The lines of her face, she +thought, were all so set as though they knew well for what purpose they +were there. "Business _we're_ here for ..." they seemed to say. + +For once she envied her sister's fair rounded fluffiness. Her black +evening dress was fashionable, almost smart, but just a little stern: +she fastened some dark red carnations into her waist and hung around her +throat a chain of tiny pearls, her only piece of jewellery. Her hair was +restrained and disciplined--she could not extract from it any waves or +soft indulgencies. + +At the end, staring at her reflection, she let herself go. + +"He's seen me all this time as I am. How silly to try to alter things!" +Her face glowed, the pearls and carnations seemed to smile encouragement +to her. + +What possibilities had this new, this wonderful Lizzie Rand! What a life +might be hers! What a happy, fortunate woman she was! + +God, how grateful she was! + +Mrs. Rand saw them off in a four-wheeler with an air of reluctance. It +always hurt her that anyone should go to the theatre without her. + +Of course Lizzie was old enough by now to look after herself, but at the +same time this Mr. Breton was no safe character and it would have been +altogether "nicer" if Lizzie had suggested her company-- + +Lizzie had not suggested it; with a shiver Mrs. Rand resigned herself to +an evening made hideous by a vision of a world crowded with theatres +through whose portals gay audiences were pouring-- + +"Of course it's selfish of her," she said again and again to +Daisy--"Selfish is the only word." + +Meanwhile the cab was, for Lizzie, a chariot of happiness. He looked +splendid to-night, more romantic than he had ever been, with his pointed +beard, his armless sleeve buttoned across on to his coat, his top-hat +shining, his clothes fitting so perfectly. Poor though he was, he always +stood up as smart as anyone, the Duke or Lord John were no smarter. + +Did he realize, she wondered, that the edge of his hand touched the silk +of her dress? Did he notice the absurd way that the pearls jumped up and +down on her throat? Did he feel the little shiver of happiness that ran +through her body and out at her toes and fingers? + +The chariot was dark, but beyond it there were piled lighted buildings; +before these ran streets that flung dark figures, here one by one, now +in throngs, against the glittering colour. + +She could not believe that anyone there by the lumbering cab could show +happiness that could equal hers. + +Had she been coldly surveying, from the careful distance of an outside +observer, these emotions in some other woman she would have demanded her +reasons for such expectation of happiness, but it was her very +inexperience of any other such affair in her life that allowed her now +to rest assured. As he touched her hand to help her into the restaurant +she was sure, by the beating of her heart, that she could not be +deceived. + +The restaurant was in Pall Mall, and as she went in she noticed the +string of faithful people waiting round the corner of Her Majesty's +Theatre; she was glad that there were so many others enjoying themselves +to-night. + +They sat at a little round table on a balcony and below them other happy +people were laughing and talking--Flowers, lights, women not so +beautiful that they disheartened one, and, from the open windows, a +whir, a rattle, a shout, a cry, a bell, a hurdy-gurdy, a laugh--Oh! the +world was turning to-night! + +There was a beautiful dinner, but she was far too happy to eat much. He +seemed to understand. They both talked a little, but it was, it +appeared, implied between them that their real conversation should be +postponed. + +She was, to herself, an utterly new Lizzie Rand to-night, inarticulate, +uncertain, confused. + +"What's this the papers say about South Africa?" + +"Yes, it looks as though there were going to be trouble there. But you +can trust Milner--a strong man----" + +"Yes, I suppose so--but it seems a pity that this Conference that they +hoped so much from has all fallen through, doesn't it? They do seem +obstinate people." + +"Well, they are. I was out in Pretoria in '95--obstinate as mules. But +there won't be much trouble--a troop or two of our fellows have only got +to show their faces----" + +"Yes, of course. Isn't that a pretty woman down there? There to the +right--with the black hair and the diamonds--tall--" + +But tall women with black hair and Boers in South Africa were merely +points to catch hold, and, for an instant, the thrill of the contact and +the anticipation and the glorious vision of the wonderful future. + +Him all this time she closely observed. He was not entirely at his ease, +when she had been in public with him before she had noticed it, his +glance at every new-comer, his conscious summoning of control lest it +should be someone whom he had once known, someone who might now, +perhaps, not know him. + +It made him in her eyes all the younger, all the more happily demanding +her protection; how terribly she loved him she had never, she thought, +realized until this moment. + +The Haymarket Theatre, where _Mrs. Lemiter's Decision_ had been given to +a grateful world for nearly two hundred nights, was next door. + +In a moment they were there and the band was playing and the lights were +up, and then the band was not playing and the lights were down, and she +was instantly conscious of the places where his body touched hers and of +his hand lying white upon his knee. + +She, Lizzie Rand, most perfect of private secretaries, most sedate and +composed of women, found it all that her self-control could secure that +she should not then and there have touched that hand with her own. + +It was not really a good play. There was a lady, Mrs. Lemiter, who had +once done what she should not have done. There were a number of ladies +and gentlemen, placed round her by the author, in order that she should, +for the benefit of as many audiences as possible, confess what she _had_ +done. + +During the first and second acts Mrs. Lemiter made little dashes towards +escape and the author (naturally omniscient) always placed someone in +front of her just in time and there were cries of "Not this way, my good +woman." At the end of the third act, Mrs. Lemiter, thoroughly bored and +exasperated, turned on them all and, for a good twenty minutes, told +them what she thought of them. + +During the fourth act they all assured her that they liked her very much +and that, as it was now eleven o'clock and she'd lost her temper so +successfully that the house would certainly be filled for many months to +come, they'd all better have tea or dinner, whilst a young couple, who +had throughout the play loved one another and quarrelled, made it up +again. + +When the play was at an end Lizzie did not know what it had been about. +She took his hand and when he was about to hail a cab stopped him. + +"Let's walk," she said, "it's such a lovely night." + +He eagerly agreed and they started. + + +III + +She knew that her moment had come; he knew too--she could tell that +because all the way up the Haymarket he said nothing. + +Piccadilly Circus was a screaming confusion. A music-hall invited you to +come and hear "Harry and Clare, drawing-room entertainers." Lights--red +and green and gold--flashed and advised drinks and hair-oil and tobacco. +Ladies, highly coloured and a little dishevelled; stared haughtily but +inquisitively about them, boys shouted newspapers and dived under horses +and appeared, miraculously delivered from the wheels of omnibuses. + +It was a rushing, whirling confusion and through it his arm led her, +happier in his secure guard than in anything else under heaven. + +Regent Street was quiet and softly coloured above the maelstrom into +which it flowed. He suddenly began: + +"I've got something I want to tell you--something I've wanted to tell +you for a long time. You must have seen----" + +Her voice coming to her as though it were a stranger's, said, "Yes." At +the same time, looking about her, almost unconsciously, she registered +her memory of the place and the hour--the shelving street, rising with +its lamps reflected, before them, a bank of dark cloud that had suddenly +appeared and hung, sinister against the night sky, behind the white +houses, a slip of a silver moon surveying this same cloud with anxiety +because it knew that soon its darkness would engulf it. + +"I've wanted to tell you," he began again, "this long time. It's needed +courage, and things during this last year have rather taken my courage +away from me." + +"You needn't be afraid," she said with a little laugh. "You ought to +know by this time that you can tell me anything, Mr. Breton." + +"Yes, I do know," he said earnestly. "Of course I know. What you've been +to me all this last year--I simply can't think how I'd have kept up if +it hadn't been for you." + +"Oh, please," she said. + +"No, but it's true. Even with you it's been a bit of a fight." + +He paused. She saw that the black cloud had already swallowed up the +moon and that a few raindrops were beginning to fall. + +He went on: "You must have seen that all this time something's been +helping me. I've never spoken to you, but you've known----" + +The moment had come. Her heart had surely stopped its beat and she was +glad, in her happiness, of the rain that was now falling more swiftly. + +"I don't know--" he stammered a little. "It's so difficult. It's come to +this, that I must speak to somebody and you're the only person, the only +person. But even with one's best friends--one knows them so +slightly--after all, perhaps, you'll think it very wrong----" + +At that word it was as though a great hammer had, of a sudden, hit her +heart and slain it. The street, shining with the rain, rose ever so +little and bent towards her. + +"Wrong?" she said, looking up at him. + +"Yes. I don't know about your standards--you've been always so kind to +me and put up with my faults and so I've been encouraged----" + +Her relief should have awaked the gods of Olympus with its triumph. + +"I've meant everything I've ever said----" + +"Yes, I'm sure you have and that's why I think you'll understand. As I +say, I've got to tell someone or I'll burst. It's just this--it's my +cousin Rachel--Lady Seddon. Ever since we first met in your room she's +been my whole world. Nothing else has mattered. It's she that's kept me +all these months from going under. She's my life, my whole existence now +and in the world to come, if there is one. Oh! Thank God!" he cried. +"I've told someone at last. If you don't approve I can't help it. I know +you'll keep my secret and, after all, it's nothing very terrible. I'm +content to go on like this, just seeing her sometimes, writing to her +sometimes. Now you know, Miss Rand, what's been my secret all this time. +I've felt it's been between us and that's why I had to tell you. We'll +be twice the friends that we were now that I've told you. And I must, I +_must_ have someone to talk to about her sometimes. It's been killing +me, getting along without it." + +Now that he had begun words poured from him. He did not know that it was +raining; he saw only Rachel with her white face and dark hair. + +Lizzie pulled her wrap about her; she was very cold and the rain was +coming fast. + +He was suddenly conscious of this. + +"I say, what a brute I am! It's pouring!" He called a passing hansom and +they climbed into it. + +He was aware that she had said nothing. + +"There!" he said, "you wish I hadn't told you. I know you do. You're +shocked." + +"No," she said, struggling to prevent her teeth from chattering. + +He felt her shiver. "Why! you're shaking with cold! We oughtn't to have +walked, but I did so want to speak to you about this. We must talk about +it another time. But, I say, you aren't really horrified about it, are +you?" + +"No," she said again. "Another time though--There must be thunder. This +storm makes my head ache." + +She could say no more. The rest of the drive was in silence. In the hall +she thanked him for her delightful evening. + +She looked through the drawing-room door and wished her mother and +sister good night, but did not stay to discuss incidents. + +"Well," said Mrs. Rand, who had a fine list of questions ready about the +play--"There's selfishness!" + +Lizzie locked her door, undressed and lay down. + +Like a sword jagging through and through her brain and piercing from +there down to her heart stabbed the refrain: + +"Oh! I hate her! I hate her! I hate her!" + +So, wide-eyed, she lay throughout the night. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +ALL THE BEAMINSTERS + + "We must expect change," returned Mrs. Chick. + + "Of weather?" asked Miss Tox in her simplicity. + + "Of everything," returned Mrs. Chick. "Of course we must. It's + a world of change. Anyone would surprise me very much, + Lucretia, and would greatly alter my opinion of their + understanding, if they attempted to contradict or evade what is + so perfectly evident. Change!" exclaimed Mrs. Chick, with + severe philosophy--"Why, my gracious me, what is there that + does _not_ change! Even the silkworm, who I am sure might be + supposed not to trouble itself about such subjects, changes + into all sorts of unexpected things continually." + + _Dombey and Son._ + + +I + +At four o'clock on the afternoon of Wednesday, October 11th, in this +year 1899 war between England and South Africa was declared. + +At that same hour on that same afternoon an afternoon party was given by +Lady Adela Beaminster at 104 Portland Place, and all the more important +believers in the Beaminster religion were present. + +The Long Drawing-room had the happy property of extending to accommodate +its company and now, shadowy as its corners always were, it yielded the +impression still of size and space, its mirrors reflecting its dark +green walls that receded from the figures that thronged it. + +The Duchess (now Ross's portrait of her) hung above the Adams fireplace +and a little globe of light shone, on this dark October day, up into +that sharp and wizened face and lit those bending fingers and flung +forward the dull green jade and the dark black dress. + +Many people were present. The Duke, Lord John, Lord Richard of +course--also, of course, Lady Carloes, the Massiters, Lord Crewner, +Monty Carfax, Brun, Maurice Garden the novelist, and his wife--also a +fine collection of ladies and gentlemen, important in politics, in the +graver camps of society--also a certain number who belonged by party to +those whom Brun had once called the Aristocrats, the Chichesters, the +Medleys, the Darrants. Old Lady Darrant was there looking like a cook, +and Fred Chichester and his kind and freckled features, and Mrs. Medley +who had married Judge Medley's only son. + +Of the Democrats--of the Ruddards, the Denisons, the Oaks, not one to be +seen. + +The men and women who stood about in the room seemed strangely, oddly, +of one family. No human being present was without his or her +self-consciousness, but it was a self-consciousness that had about it +nothing vulgar or strident. No voice in that room was raised, the very +laughter implied, "Here we are, in the very Court of our Temple; we may +then relax a little. For a time, at any rate, we know who we all are." + +This security was implied on every hand. It was: "Young Rorke's going +out--he's the son of Alice Branches--he married old Truddits' daughter," +or-- + +"No, I don't know him personally, but Dick Barnett has seen him once or +twice and says he's a very decent feller," or-- + +"Well, I should go carefully, if I were you. Neither the Massiters nor +the Crawfords know her and, in fact, I can't find anyone who does." + +Had a stranger penetrated into the fastnesses of the Chichesters or the +Medleys he would have been overwhelmed with courtesy and politeness and, +unless he had full credentials, would have been utterly excluded at the +end of it. Had he boldly invaded the Denisons he would, unless he could +prove his contribution to the entertainment of the day, have been told +frankly that he was not wanted. + +Had he passed the doors of No. 104 and had no proof of his Beaminster +faith upon him, Norris would have exchanged with him a quiet word or two +and he would have found himself in the bright spaces of Portland Place. + +Rachel and Roddy had come to the party. Rachel sat on a high chair and +looked stiff and pale; Lady Darrant, bunched up in an arm-chair, was +beside her. Lady Darrant's emotions were divided between the welfare of +the church in her parish in Wiltshire and the welfare of her only son, a +boy aged twenty who, supposed to be studying for the Diplomatic Service, +was really interested in race meetings and polo. Lady Darrant had, like +most of the Aristocrats, a tranquil mind. Sorrow, tragedies, +perplexities might come and go, the plain surface stability was in no +way disturbed. She would have liked to possess more money that she might +bestow it upon the church, and she would have preferred that her son +should place foreign languages above horses, but, since these things +were not so, God knew best and the world might have been much worse: +none of her friends were ever agitated, outwardly at any rate. Life was +calm, sure, proceeding from a definite commencement to a definite +conclusion and--God knew best. Rumours came to her of atheists and +chorus girls and American millionaires, but she was neither alarmed nor +dismayed. + +At a Beaminster entertainment she felt that she was among strangers. Her +account of such an affair given afterwards to friends implied that this +world into which she had glanced was not her world. Lady Adela +frightened her and the mere suggestion of the Duchess, whom she had +never seen, threatened more fiercely her tranquillity than any other +event or person. + +Now, every minute or so, she flung little agitated glances at the +portrait. At the back of her mind, this afternoon, was the reflection +that there was going to be a war and that quite certainly her boy, Tony, +would insist on helping his country. + +She was proud that he should insist, but, had she not been quite so +confident of God's care for her, would have been very near to most real +agitation. + +She looked at Rachel timidly and wondered whether that strange, fierce, +pale girl would be sympathetic. She had heard of Rachel and her +marriage, and she knew that that rather stout healthy-looking young man +standing and talking to Lord John Beaminster was the husband. + +He looked kinder than she did, Lady Darrant thought. + +"It's terrible about this horrid war, isn't it?" she said at last. + +Rachel, watching the room, was absorbed by her own thoughts; she +scarcely noticed the little woman beside her. + +She saw Uncle John, his white hair and happy smile and large rather +shapeless body, his way of laughing with his head flung back, the look +of him when he was thinking, his face precisely that of a puzzled +pig--simply to see him there across the room brought back to her a flood +of memories. + +She knew that she had avoided him lately and she knew, too, that he was +unhappy about her. He was unhappy, poor Uncle John, about a number of +things--always behind his laughter and cheerful greetings there was the +little restless distress as though Life were offering him, just now, +more than he could control. + +Rachel looked and then turned her eyes away. + +"Yes," she said to Lady Darrant, "I hope it won't be very much. They say +that a week or two will see the end of it." + +Truly, for herself, this afternoon was almost too difficult for her. She +had received, that morning, a letter from Francis Breton asking her to +go to tea with him in his rooms, one day within the following week. + +She had never been to his room; she had not met him once during the +whole year. + +She had known, during all these last twelve months, that meeting him had +nothing at all to do with the especial claim that they had upon one +another. That claim had existed since that day of their first coming +face to face and nothing now could ever alter it. + +But the next time that they met must be, for both of them, a definite +landmark. She might either decide, now, once and for all, never to see +him again, or grasp, quite definitely, the possible result of her going +to him. + +The writing of this letter brought, at last, upon her the climax that +she had been avoiding during the last year. + +Sitting there in the Beaminster camp it was difficult to act without +prejudice. With the exception of Uncle John and Roddy she hated them +all. + +After all if she were to refuse to see Francis Breton did it solve the +question? Did it help her--and that was the great need of her present +life--to love Roddy any better? + +And if she went to his rooms and saw him, would not the truth emerge +from that meeting and the miserable doubts and temptations that had +shadowed her since her marriage be cleared away for ever? + +She liked Roddy and did not love him--nothing could alter that. + +Breton and she belonged to a world that was hostile to this world that +she was now in--nothing could alter that. + +Yes, she would go and see Breton. She got up, smiled at Lady Darrant and +went across the room to talk to Uncle John. + +On this afternoon she had a great overpowering longing for someone to +love her, to care for her, to pity her, to take her into their arms and +whisper comfort to her. It was so long--oh! so long, since Dr. Chris and +Uncle John had done that. + +And yet--the irony of it--there was Roddy eager to do it all: and from +him, the fates had decreed that it should mean nothing to her. + +"Why can't he touch me? Why can't he give me what I want? Is it my +fault? Whose fault is it?" + +And when she came to Uncle John she was almost afraid to look at him +lest he should see the unhappiness in her eyes. + +But, in spite of her unhappiness, she could be satirically observant. +Her grandmother, up there on the wall, controlled, like the moon, this +tide of human beings. They flowed forward, they retreated. About them, +around them, behind and in front of them hovered this War.... + +Rachel knew that it was the Beaminster doctrine that anything that +occurred to the nation was to be attributed, in the main, to Beaminster +principles. She could tell at once that they had seized upon this war as +an example of Beaminster government. Had diplomacy prevented it, behold +the triumph of Beaminster diplomacy; now, as it had not been prevented, +a swift and total triumph would assert the genius of Beaminster +militancy. + +"A week out there ought to be enough.... It's tiresome, of course, but +they'll soon have had enough of it...." + +Even Rachel, looking up at the portrait, might, not too fantastically, +imagine that this war presented the last great manifestation of power on +the part of that old woman. + +Everyone in the room, perhaps, felt the same. + + +II + +Many eyes were upon her as she moved across to Lord John. This girl, +with the foreign colour and bearing, having, apparently, so little of +the Beaminster about her and making so quickly so conventional a +marriage ("One hadn't expected her to care about a man like Seddon"), +stirred their curiosity. + +Monty Carfax, licensed transmitter of public opinion, reported her +unpopular. "Met her one week-end at the Massiters'--that very time when +Seddon proposed. Didn't like her and, really, can't find anyone who +does. Conceited, farouche. It's my opinion Roddy Seddon finds her +difficult." "Yes, but she's interesting," someone would reply, "unusual. +Dissatisfied-looking--not at all happy, I should say." + +Lady Adela, stiff, awkward but important, in an ugly grey dress found +Lord Crewner the only helpful person in the room. He seemed to +understand the way that worries accumulated about one and yet refused to +be defined.... He stayed near her throughout the afternoon. She saw +Rachel moving across to her brother and the sight of her stirred all her +discomfort. + +"Why need she look as though she hated everyone?" she thought. + +Rachel came at length to Uncle John and found him talking to Maurice +Garden. That large and prosperous gentleman hastily proclaimed his +delight in meeting Rachel again, but she had very little to say to him. + +He left them, secretly determined that he would never speak to the girl +again if he could help it. + +Uncle John regarded her with an air of supplicating nervousness. + +"Come along, my dear," he said. "We haven't had a talk for weeks. Let's +find a corner somewhere----" + +They found a corner and then were both of them uncomfortable. The girl +whom Uncle John had known and loved had had her tempers and +intolerances, but she had also had her wonderful spontaneous affections +and tendernesses. + +Now she sat there looking straight before her and replying only in +monosyllables to his questions. + +She was saying to herself: "Shall I go? Shall I go?" + +At last he said timidly: + +"You'll see mother before you leave?" + +"Yes," Rachel said. + +"I'm afraid she's not very well." + +"Not very well?" Rachel looked up at him sharply, Lord John stared away +from her. No one had ever said that publicly before, Lord John himself +wondered at his words when he had spoken them. + +"Of course she doesn't admit it," he said hurriedly. "No one _says_ +anything about it--even Christopher. I oughtn't perhaps to have said +anything myself--but I thought----" He broke off. Rachel knew that he +meant that she should be kind and considerate on this visit. + +Before she could say anything the Duke came up and joined them. + +It always amused Rachel to see her two uncles together. The Duke was a +little dried-up wasp of a man, absolutely selfish, with a satirical +tongue and a self-conceit that nothing could pierce. He wore high white +collars, over which his brown sharp face searched for compliments. He +walked on his toes, his hands were most wonderfully manicured and his +trousers were so stiff and rigid over his thin little legs that they +looked like iron. The one soft spot in him was a strangely tender +affection for his sister Adela which was in no way returned; for her, +and for her alone, he would forget his selfishness. Richard and John he +despised. + +"Well, John," he said. "Well, Rachel?" + +"Well, Uncle Vincent," she said. The Duke was afraid of Rachel because +her tongue was as sharp as his, but he respected her for that. + +"Going up to see mother?" + +"Yes," said Rachel. Should she go? Should she go? + +Suddenly, arising, as it seemed, out of that crowd of moving figures and +coming and standing there in front of her, was her answer. + +Yes, she would go. All these months of indetermination should be ended. +She should know, once and for all, what this Francis Breton meant to +her, what that other life of hers meant to her, and so, in opposition, +what Roddy meant to her. She would, as Christopher would have put it, +grapple with her Tiger.... + +Instantly, the relief, the glad, happy relief showed her how wretched +life had been. + +"What about this war, Uncle Vincent?" she said. + +"Well--hem--well--no need to worry--_I_ assure you--no need to worry!" + +"It seems a pity," said Lord John, still looking furtively at Rachel and +wishing that he could carry her off into some other corner and just ask +her whether she were really happy or no. + +"Why, John," said the Duke, cackling. "You'll have to go out, 'pon my +word, you will--fight 'em, by Jove--Ha! ha! You'd make a fine soldier, +old boy." + +Rachel got up, hating Uncle Vincent very much. She put her hand on Uncle +John's fat arm. + +"You may go, Uncle Vincent," she said. "We all give you leave--Uncle +John we love too much: if it's a question of bravery he'd be quite +certainly the first of this family." She gave his arm a squeeze. + +Uncle Vincent looked at her, smiling-- + +"Well," he said. "None of us would dream of going ... we're all much too +comfortable." + +"I'll see you before I go, uncle dear," she whispered to Lord John. Then +she moved away. + +Slowly making her path through the room she left it and climbed the +great stone staircase. + + +III + +Outside her grandmother's door she paused; so she had always paused, and +now, as she waited there, all the procession of other days when she had +stood there came before her. Conditions might be changed, but her +agitation was the same. Never until she died would she open that door +without wondering, in spite of common sense, whether she might not be +caught by some disaster before she closed it again. + +She went in and found her grandmother sitting back in her stiff chair +and looking at some patterns of bright silks that lay on a little table +beside her. + +A great fire was burning and the room seemed to Rachel intolerably hot; +she noticed at once that what Uncle John had said was true. Before she +had heard Rachel's entrance the Duchess looked an old, tired woman. Her +head was drooping a little over the blue and purple silks; she seemed +half asleep. + +But at the sound of the door she was alert; when she saw that it was her +granddaughter who stood there, tall and stately, her large black hat +shadowing her face, she seemed in a moment to be transformed with energy +and life--her head went up, her eyes flashed, her hands stiffened on her +lap. + +"May I come in for a moment, grandmother?" Rachel said. + +By the door she had wondered--how could she be afraid of this old sick +woman? Now as she crossed over to the fire her sternest self-command was +summoned to control her alarm. She was frightened by nothing but +this--here it was indeed as though there were some spell that seized +her. + +"Certainly, my dear--come in." The Duchess gave a last look at the silks +and then turned to her granddaughter. "I'm afraid you'll find it very +hot--I must have a fire, you know." + +She had a trick of drawing in her lower lip as she spoke, so that her +words hissed a little over her teeth. She did not do this with everybody +and Rachel believed that it was only because she had noticed that Rachel +as a little girl had been frightened of it that she did it now. + +Rachel sat down opposite her and the heat of the fire and a scent of +something that had violets and mignonette in it--a scent that was always +in the room--stifled her so that her head began to swim and the rings on +the Duchess's hand to hypnotize her. + +"There's a great party going on downstairs," she said. + +"Yes. I know. John came up for a moment and told me about it--and how +are you?" + +"Very well, thank you, grandmamma. Roddy and I have been ever so +sociable lately, given several dinner-parties and one musical thing." + +"You're not looking very well. Roddy here?" + +"Yes." + +"Hope he'll come and see me before he goes. Hasn't been to see me much +lately." + +Their eyes met. Rachel held her ground and then, beaten as though by a +physical blow, lowered her gaze. + +"Oh! hasn't he? He's been here a lot, I thought. He's been very busy +over some horses that he's had to go up and down to Seddon about." + +"H'm. Well--I dare say he'll remember me again one day--so we're in for +a war?" + +"Yes. They don't seem to think it very serious though--Uncle Richard +says----" + +"Your Uncle Richard knows nothing about it--nothing. However, I don't +think anyone need be alarmed." + +There was in this last sentence a ring in the Duchess's voice that flung +her words out for the nation to grasp at. "No need, my good people, for +you to worry--_I_ have this in hand." + +"Well, I'm very glad," said Rachel. "It's such a long while since +anything has happened that it seems quite odd for everyone to have +something to talk about except dinner-parties and scandal----" + +The old woman looked across at her and then very slowly a smile rose, +stiffened between her old dried lips and stayed there-- + +"What would you say, my dear, if Roddy thought it his duty to go and +defend his country?" + +There was, suddenly, the sharp ring in her voice that Rachel knew so +well. + +"I know," Rachel said quietly, "that Roddy would do his duty, and of +course I would want him to do that." + +The Duchess, with her eyes still upon her granddaughter's face, +said--"I've heard a good deal about a young friend of yours lately." + +"Who is that, grandmamma?" Rachel said, and, in spite of herself her +hand trembled a little against her dress. + +"Nita Raseley." + +Rachel caught her breath. + +"I gather that you and she haven't seen so much of one another lately." + +"Oh! I think we have. We never were great friends, you know." + +"Did she enjoy her time at Seddon? A clever little thing. I shouldn't +drop her, Rachel, if I were you." + +"She seemed to enjoy Seddon, grandmamma. I must be going, I'm afraid, +with the patient Roddy waiting for me. Shall I tell him to come up?" + +The old hand struck the arm of the chair and the rings flashed. + +"No, thank you, my dear. If he can't come of his own accord, I'd prefer +that he had no prompting. There was a time when it was otherwise." + +Rachel got up. Their eyes met again, and their hatred for one another +was so settled, so historic, so traditional an affair, that their glance +now was almost friendly. + +Then Rachel bent down very slowly and kissed her grandmother's cheek. +How much, she wondered, did she know of the Nita affair? Nita's spite +would, assuredly, have found a happy ground in which to plant its seed. +Oh! how she loathed this thick clouded atmosphere, this deceit, this +deceit! It seemed that, at every turn since her marriage, she had been +dragged into an atmosphere of disguise and subterfuge and +double-dealing. + +Well, she was soon to be done with it. At the thought of what her +grandmother would say did she know of her friendship with Breton her +heart beat triumphantly. There at any rate was a weapon! + +"Well, good-bye, my dear. Come and see me again soon." + +"Yes, grandmamma--good-bye." + + +IV + +In the carriage with Roddy she suddenly laughed. + +All those people, moving so solemnly with such self-importance about +that room. The Duke, Lord Richard, Aunt Adela ... Norris, the +footman.... + +Over them all that fierce commanding portrait. And upstairs that old, +sick woman.... + +And beyond, away from that house, a war that that old woman and those +self-important people saw only as a means of increasing their own +self-importance. + +It was all as a box of tin soldiers and a parcel of stiff china-faced +dolls-- + +What were they all about? What did they think they were all doing? What, +after all, was she, Rachel? Had they no conception of the sawdust that +they all were beside this real, swiftly moving, death-dealing War that +was suddenly amongst them? + +"What is it?" said Roddy. + +"Grandmother--grandmother--my dear, delightful, wonderful grandmother. +To think of her sitting all alone up there in her bedroom and all those +people moving about downstairs--all so conscious of her. And yet she +does nothing--_nothing_." Rachel, in her excitement, struck her knee +with her hand. "She isn't even clever, really--She's never in all her +life been known to say a witty thing--never. She doesn't really know +much about politics.... She just sits there and acts--That's what it's +always been, acting the whole time. If it's effective to be old and +feeble she _is_ old and feeble--if it's effective to be fantastic she +_is_ fantastic--She just sits still and takes people in. Why, if she'd +wanted she could have been going out all these thirty years, I believe!" + +"You're always unfair to her, Rachel," said Roddy. "You know she has +ghastly pain often and often." + +"Yes. I'll give her that," said Rachel. "She's brave--brave as anything. +And after all," she added, "she couldn't affect me more if she were the +wittiest woman in the world----" + +Roddy yawned--"Dam dull party," he said. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +RACHEL AND BRETON + + "We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go + Always a little farther: it may be + Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow, + Across that angry or that glimmering sea. + ... but surely we are brave + Who make the Golden Journey to Samarcand." + + _The Golden Journey to Samarcand._ + + JAMES ALROY FLECKER. + + +I + +Rachel now awaited her meeting with Breton with restless impatience. It +should afford her, beyond everything, a solution. She was young enough +and inexperienced enough to make many demands upon life--that it should +be romantic, that it should, in the issues that it presented, be honest +and open and clear, that it should allow her to settle her own place in +it without any hurt to anyone else, that it should, in fact, arrange any +number of compromises to suit herself and that it should nevertheless be +so honest that it would admit of no compromises at all. + +She approached life with all the reckless boldness of one who has never +come into direct contact with it. Neither her relations with her +grandmother nor with Roddy had as yet taken from her any of her youngest +nor simplest illusions. Were life drab and uninteresting, why, then one +turned simply to the place where it promised colour and adventure. + +She had not yet discovered that when we go deliberately to grasp at +happiness we are eternally eluded. + +But in spite of her desire for honesty she refused to face the actual +meeting with Breton. She knew him so slightly as Francis Breton and so +intimately as an idea. What she felt in her heart was, that her +grandmother had hoped to catch her by marrying her to Roddy and that +nothing could prove so eloquently that she had not been caught as her +friendship with Breton. + +"I will show her and I will show Roddy that I am my own mistress, free +whatever they may say or do." + +Breton--seen dimly as a rebel against a harsh dominating world--was the +figure of all romance and freedom. "Roddy doesn't care what happens to +me. He'll do anything grandmother tells him to...." + +She was now out to attack the Beaminster fortress; she did not as yet +know that half of her was urgent for its defence. + + +II + +When the afternoon arrived she took a cab and was driven to Saxton +Square. She mounted the stairs, knocked on the door and was admitted by +his ugly man-servant. + +"Is Mr. Breton at home?" she asked. + +"Yes, my lady," he answered and smiled; she disliked his smile and +before she passed into the room had a moment of wild unreasoning panic +when she wished that she were not there, when Roddy's face came to her, +kind and loving and homely. + +She stepped forward into the room, heard the door close behind her and +felt rather than saw him as he came forward to greet her. + +Then she heard him say-- + +"Oh, I'm so glad you've come. I was so afraid lest something should stop +you." + +His windows, although only on the first floor, had a wide sweeping view; +a world of chimneys and towers glittering now beneath the sinking sun. + +His room was simple and had the effect of cleanly emptiness; a table +arranged for tea, two rather faded arm-chairs, a dark green carpet, a +book-case, two large framed photographs on the walls, one of some street +in Bombay, the other of the Niagara Falls. + +The sunshine lit the bare room and their faces and she was suddenly +comfortable and at ease. + +He drew one of the easy chairs forward to the window. + +"Sit down in the sun; Marks will bring the tea in a moment." + +She sat back in the chair and looked out on to the shining roofs and +towers, not glancing towards him, but acutely aware of him, of all his +movements. He sat down upon the broad window-seat near her and looked at +her. + +She knew that she had never been conscious, physically, of anyone +before. Roddy's clumsy hands and rather awkward body had always simply +belonged to Roddy and stayed at that; now she felt as if Francis +Breton's hand, close, as she knew, to hers, was joined to her by a +running current of attraction. + +Although he was not touching her, it was as though she were chained to +him. If he moved she felt that she must move with him and every motion +that he made seemed to rouse some response in her. + +She was aware, of course, as she was always aware with him, of the way +that intimacy between them had moved since their last meeting. All her +romantic evocation of life as she wanted it to be helped her to this. It +was as though she said to herself, "Here at least is my true self free +and dominant. I must make the most of it"--and yet, with that, something +seemed to warn her that freedom too easily obtained carried at its heart +disappointment. The ugly man-servant brought in tea and then +disappeared. Breton moved about, waited upon her, then sat down closer +to her, leaning forward and looking into her eyes. + +It was part of his temperament that he should take her coming to him as +an instant acknowledgment of the complete fulfilment of his wishes. He +always saw life as the very rosiest of his dreams until it woke him to +reality. He was ruled completely by the mood of the moment, and his one +emotion now was that Rachel was divinely intended for him alone of all +human beings-- + +But he could not wait.... He knew, by this time, that reflection was +always a period of disappointment. He was unhappily made in that he +yielded to his impulses of regret as eagerly as to his impulses of +anticipation--One mood followed so swiftly upon another that collision +might seem inevitable. + +They were, both of them, young enough to see life as something that +would inevitably, in a short time, condemn them both to years of sterile +monotony. Rachel indeed felt that she was already caught.... + +They must, both of them, therefore, make the best of their time. + +"I _was_ so afraid," he repeated again, "lest something should have +stopped you." + +"I would have asked you to come to us, only I'm afraid that my husband +still----" + +"Oh! I quite understand." + +"It's natural--Roddy's like that. If he wants to do a thing he doesn't +care for anybody and just does it. But if nothing makes him especially +want to do it, then he just takes other people's opinions. Now he might +ask you suddenly to come and see us--simply because he took it into his +head. Then nobody could stop him.... He's very obstinate." + +She was rather surprised at herself for talking about Roddy. She had a +curious feeling about him as though she were going on a journey and had +just said good-bye to him and had a rather desolate choke in her throat +because she wouldn't see him again for so long. + +"Oh! but I'm glad you've come! If you knew the times and times when I've +imagined this meeting--thought about it, pictured----" + +She saw that his hand was trembling on the window-ledge-- + +"I oughtn't to have come, perhaps--But I don't know. I've felt so +indignant at the way that grandmother is treating you. I wanted to +_show_ you that I was indignant...." + +"You don't know," he said, "what a help you've been to me already--You +showed me the very first time that we met that you _did_ sympathize...." + +His voice was tender, partly because her presence moved him so deeply +and partly because the sympathy of anyone about his own affairs made him +instantly full of sorrow for himself--When anyone said that they thought +that he had been badly treated he always felt with an air of surprised +discovery: "By Jove, I _have_ been having a bad time!" + +"Yes--Wasn't it strange, that first meeting in Miss Rand's room? We seem +to have known one another all our lives." + +She looked at him. "That you should hate grandmamma so," she said, "was +a great thing to me. I'd been all alone--fighting her--for so long." + +Rachel felt, in the glow of the occasion, that, all her days, there had +been active constant war-to-the-knife in the Portland Place house. + +"She's been the curse of my life," he said bitterly. "Always keeping me +down, making me unable to do myself justice. Why should she hate me so?" + +"She hates us," cried Rachel, "because we're both determined to be free. +We wouldn't have our lives ruled for us. She wants everyone to be under +her in _everything_." + +They glowed together, very close to one another now, in a glorious +assertion of rebellious independence. He put his hand upon the back of +her chair-- + +"Now," he said, his voice trembling, "now that we've got to know one +another, you won't go back on it, will you? If I couldn't feel that you +were behind me, after being so encouraged, it would be terrible for +me--worse than anything's ever been for me." + +"You needn't be afraid," she said, not looking at him, but tremendously +conscious of his hand that now touched her dress. Then there was a long +and very difficult silence during which events seemed to move with +terrific impetus. + +She was overwhelmed by a multitude of emotions. She was past analysis of +regret or anticipation. Somewhere, very far away, there was Roddy, and +somewhere--also very far away--there was her grandmother, but, for +herself, she could only feel that she was very lonely, that nobody cared +about her except Breton and that nobody cared about him except +herself--and that she wanted urgently to be comforted and that he +himself needed comfort from her. + +She knew that if she were not very strong-minded and resolute she would +cry; she could feel the tears burning her eyes. + +"Perhaps I oughtn't to have come--Oh! it's all so difficult--with +grandmother--and everything--I thought I could--could manage things, but +I can't--We oughtn't--I wanted to do what was best. I--I didn't +know--You----" + +Then the tears came--She tried desperately to stop them, then they came +rushing; she buried her head in her hands and abandoned herself to +weeping that was partly sorrow for herself and partly sorrow for Breton +and partly, in the strangest way, sorrow for Roddy. + +He was on his knees by her chair, had his arm about her, was crying: + +"Oh! Rachel--Rachel--Rachel--I love you. I love you--Don't +cry--Don't--Rachel----" He kissed her again and again and she clung to +him like a frightened child. + + +III + +After a time her crying ceased, she got up from the chair, moving gently +out of his embrace, and then went to the looking-glass above the +fireplace and stood there wiping her eyes. + +Then, smiling, she looked back at him--He was standing in front of the +window and behind him the reflection, from the departed sun, flooded the +town with gold. He seemed a man transformed, gazing upon her with an +ecstasy of triumph, exaltation, happiness. + +"My dear--my dear--Oh! how glorious you are!" + +But she did not move. + +He stirred impatiently, and then, looking at her with adoring eyes, he +whispered, "Oh! my dear! but I love you!" + +"I must go," she said, her eyes, large and frightened, appealingly upon +him-- + +He smiled at her, his eyes laughing. + +"Yes, Francis--let me--let me. Now while I can still see what I ought to +do." + +"There's only one thing that you ought to do. You belong to me now." She +plucked nervously with her hands one against the other. + +"Francis, let me go--please--please----" He saw then that she was +unhappy and the laughter died from his eyes. His voice, fallen from its +happiness, was almost harsh, as he replied-- + +"You know we love one another, have loved one another ever since that +day when we met in Miss Rand's rooms? You know it as well as I do. You +knew it when you came to these rooms to-day." + +"I oughtn't to have come." Her voice had gathered strength. "It's only +because I realize now what you are to me that I want to go. I thought I +was so strong, that I could be fair to Roddy and to you too ... I didn't +know----" + +"Then stay--stay--" he whispered urgently. "It's a thing that you've got +to face anyhow--We can't stay apart, you and I, now. We can try, but you +know--you know as well as I--that we can't do it." + +"We must--That's what I meant before. That's why I must go now, because +soon I shan't be strong enough. But we've got to part--we've got to." + +"Oh, this is absurd," he cried. "We're human beings, not figures to hang +a theory on--Now just as we realize what we are to one another----" + +"Yes, because of that," she broke in swiftly, urgently. "You know that I +love you--I know that you love me. We've got that knowledge that nothing +can take away from us--and we've got the love--nothing can touch it. But +my duty is with Roddy." + +"You knew that," he said, "when you came here to-day." + +Her face flamed--"That's not fair of you, Francis." + +"No, I beg your pardon. It isn't----" He suddenly came to her, caught +her and kissed her, holding her with his arm close to him, murmuring in +her ear. At first she had struggled, then she lay absolutely still +against him, making no response. + +He felt her passive against his beating heart. He released her and +watched her as she went across to the window and looked out into the +darkening city. + +"I don't care," he said roughly, "I love you. There's no talk about it +or anything else. You belong to _me_." + +"I belong to Roddy," she answered quietly. "It's all quite clear. My +duty is to him until ... unless, life with him becomes impossible. I've +got absolutely to do my best and while I'm doing that you've got to help +me." + +"What do you mean?" he said, his eyes upon her. + +"Help me by our not meeting, by our not writing, by our doing +nothing--nothing----" + +"No--No," he answered her, his eyes set upon her. + +"You don't get me any other way. Francis, don't you see that we're not +the sort of people, either of us, to put up with the deceits, the +trickeries, the lies that the other thing means? Some people might--lots +of people do, I suppose--but we're not built that way. We're +idealists--We aren't made to stand quietly and see all the quality of +the thing vanish before our eyes--just to take the husk when we've known +what the kernel was like. + +"Besides, it isn't as though I hated Roddy. If I did I'd go off with you +now, in a minute if you wanted me, although even then it would be a +hopeless thing for _us_ to do. But I'm very fond of Roddy. I'm not in +love with him--I never have been--I told him from the first--But I'm +going to do my best by him." + +"Why did you come here?" + +"I came here because I was driven towards you. I wanted to hear you say +that you loved me--I wanted to tell you that I loved you. We've both of +us said it. We know it now--and we've got to keep it, the most precious +thing in the world. + +"But we should soon hate one another if we destroyed one another's +ideals. For many people it wouldn't matter--For us, weak as we are, it +matters everything." + +"All this talk," he said. "I'm a man. I'm here to love you, not to talk +about it. I've got you and I'm going to keep you." + +"You haven't got me," she cried. "You've got a bit of me. There'll be +times when I'm away from you when I shall think that you've got all of +me. But you haven't--no one's got all of me.... + +"And I haven't got you either--You think now for the moment that it is +so--But I know what it would be if we were hiding about on the Continent +or secretly meeting here in London--That's not for us, Francis." + +"I've got you," he repeated. "I'm not going to wait any longer----" + +"It's the only way you'll ever have me," she answered, "by letting me do +my duty to Roddy--I promise you that. If ever life is impossible--if +it's ever better for both of us that I should go, I'll come to you--But +I shall tell him first." + +"Tell him! But he won't let you go." + +"He won't stop me--if it comes to that." + +He pleaded with her then, telling her about his life, its loneliness, +his unhappiness, how impossible it would be now without her. + +But she shook her head. + +"Don't you think," she cried, "that grandmother would be delighted if we +went off? Both of us done for--you never able to return again ... Ah! +no! For all of us, for every reason, it's not to be." + +"I won't let you go--I've got you. I'll keep you." + +"You can't, Francis----" + +"I can and I will----" + +Then looking up, catching a vision of her framed in the window with the +lighted city behind her, he saw in her eyes how unattainable she might +be.... + +He had, he had always had, his ideals. There was a long silence between +them, then he bowed his head. + +"You shall do as you will--anything with me that you will." + +"Oh, my dear," she whispered, "I love you for that." + +Then hurriedly, moving as though she feared her own weakness, she went +to put on her wraps--He came to her. + +"Let me write--let me." + +"No--Better not." + +"Just a line--Nothing that any ordinary person----" + +"No, we mustn't, Francis." + +He put her furs about her neck, then his hand rested on her shoulder. +Her head fell back. + +"Once more"--she said. He kissed her throat, then her eyes, then their +lips met. + +"Stay," he whispered, "stay"--Very slowly she drew away from him, smiled +at him once, and was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +CHRISTOPHER'S DAY + + "I judge more than I used to--but it seems to me that I have + earned the right. One can't judge till one is forty; before + that we are too eager, too hard, too cruel, and in addition too + ignorant." + + HENRY JAMES. + + +I + +The War had the City in its grip. There was now, during these early +weeks of November, no other thought, no other anxiety, no other +interest. The shock of its reality came most severely upon those whose +lives had been most unreal. Here, in the midst of their dining and their +dancing, was the sure fact that many whom they knew and with whom they +had been in the habit of playing might now, at any moment, find death-- + +Here was a reality against which there was no argument, and against the +harshness of it music screamed and food was uninteresting. + +During that first month of that war, so new a thing was the horrid +grimness of it, that hysteria was abroad, life was twopence coloured. +For everyone now it was the question--"What might they do?" + +Something to help, something to ease that biting truth--"Your life has +been the most utterly useless business--no purpose, no strength, no +unselfishness from first to last--what now?" + +Christopher's life had not been useless and he knew it. The reality of +it had never been in doubt and death--the haphazard surprise of it and +the pathos and melodrama and sometimes drab monotony of it--had been his +companion for many years. + +Christopher, although he had been a hard worker from his childhood, had +always taken life lightly. He loved the gifts of this world--food and +amusement and exercise and pleasant company. He loved, also, certain +people whose lives were of immense concern to him. He also believed in a +quite traditional God about Whom he had never argued, but Whose definite +particular existence was as certain to him as his own. + +He had faults that he tried to cure--his temper--his pleasure in food +and wine. + +He had three great motives in his life--His love of God, his love of his +friends and his love of his work. He hated hypocrites, mean persons, +cruel persons, anyone who showed cowardice or deceit or arrogance. He +was dogmatic and therefore disliked anyone else to be so. He was humble +about his work, but not humble about his position in the world, which he +thought, quite frankly, a very good one. + +His interest in his especial friends was compounded of his love for them +and also of his curiosity about them, and he always loved someone the +more if he or she gave him the opportunity to practise his +inquisitiveness upon them. + +After Rachel Seddon he cared more, perhaps, for Francis Breton than +anyone in the world. He had also of late been interested in Roddy, who +was a far better fellow than he had expected. + +One puzzle, meanwhile, obstinately and continually beset him. What had +happened to Breton during this last year? Something, or in surer +probability someone, had been behind him. Christopher might have +flattered himself that he had been the influence, but he knew that, if +that had been so, Breton's attitude to him would have implied it. Breton +was fond of him, but did not owe that to him. Who then was it? + +On one of these November days he invited a friend and Breton to luncheon +together. + +Christopher's geniality and the supreme importance of the war over +everything else helped amiability. Christopher's little house in Harley +Street showed, beyond its consulting-room, a cheerful Philistine +appreciation of comfort and love. There was old silver, there were old +prints, sofas, soft carpets, book-cases, whose glass coverings were +more important than their contents. Also a luncheon that was the most +artistic thing that the house contained, save only the wine. + +At the side of the round gleaming table Christopher sat smiling, and +soon Breton told the friend about India and the friend told Breton about +Africa. + +Meanwhile Christopher watched Breton. He knew Breton very well and, in +the old days, he would have said that that nervous excitement that the +man sometimes betrayed meant that he was on the edge of some most +foolish action. + +He knew that light in the eyes, that excited voice, that +restlessness--these things had meant that Breton's self-control was +about to break. + +To-day there were all these signs, and Christopher knew that after +luncheon Breton would escape him. + +Breton did escape him, went off somewhere in a hurry; no, Christopher +could not drive him--he was going in the opposite direction. + +Whilst Christopher drove, first down to Eaton Square, then back to 104 +Portland Place, he was wondering about Breton.... + + +II + +It seemed that, on this afternoon, he was unduly sensitive to +impression. The house struck him with a chill, deserted air. There +seemed to be no one about as Norris led him up to the Duchess's rooms, +the old portraits grinned at him, as though they would have him to know +that, very soon, the house would be once more in their possession and +Beaminsters dead and gone be of more importance than Beaminsters alive. + +At any rate it was a cold November day, and always now the streets +seemed to echo with newsboys crying out editions. + +Even through these stone walls, those cries could penetrate; he could +hear one as he climbed the stairs. + +The Duchess, looking peaked and shrivelled, received him with an +eagerness that showed that she was longing for company. The room was +close, but, in spite of that, now and again she shivered a little. + +As he sat opposite her the glance that she flung him was almost +pathetic--struggling to maintain her pride, but showing, too, that she +might now, in his company, a little relax that great effort. + +"I'm not so well," she said; "I've slept badly." + +"I'm sorry for that," he said; "what's the trouble?" + +"It's this war," she said, taking her eyes away from his face. "This +war--I don't think I've ever felt anything before, but this--Oh! I'm +old, old at last," she said almost savagely. + +"Everybody's feeling it just now," Christopher answered her quietly. "I +suppose I'm as level-headed as most people, but even I have been +imagining things to-day--Nerves, simply nerves----" + +"Nonsense," she answered him--"Don't tell _me_, Christopher. What have I +ever had to do with nerves?" + +"Wait a little. All we want is to get used to War: it's a new experience +for all of us----" + +She laughed sharply-- + +"It's ludicrous, but really you'd think if you studied my family that I +was responsible for the whole thing. It's positively as though I'd made +some huge blunder which they would do their best to excuse. Adela, +John--I'm now to them an old sick woman who's got to be kept quiet and +away from worry. They wouldn't have _dared_ let me see that six months +ago--" + +Her voice was trembling. + +She went on again, more quietly. "Every hour now one hears some horrible +thing. This morning that young Dick Staveling dead, shot in some +skirmish or another--Fine boy he was. They're all going out, one after +the other--Not useless idiots who aren't wanted here like John or +Vincent--but boys, boys like--like Roddy." + +Again her voice trembled. + +For the first time in his knowledge of her some pity for her stirred in +him, for the first time in her knowledge of him she definitely looked to +him with some appeal. + +"Roddy came to see me yesterday," she said. + +"Yes?" said Christopher. + +"He had not been so often as he used--I told him so; he made some feeble +apology, but I can see that he will not come again so often----" + +He would have interrupted her, but she went on--"He's not happy, but he +loves her madly--madly. He did not tell me so, but I could see that. +That was something I had never reckoned on." + +"You prefer," Christopher said sharply, "to imagine that he is not +happy. I know, unfortunately, what your feeling is about Rachel. Fond of +him though you are you'd prefer that he was unhappy with her." + +"I know that he is unhappy. He would not care for her so much if she +returned it. I know Roddy. But she's clever enough----" She broke off. + +"If Roddy were to go out to South Africa," she said, "I think I would +kill Rachel--then die happy----" + +"Forgive me," Christopher said, "but this is sheer melodrama. Rachel is +devoted to Roddy and Roddy to Rachel. I've the best means for +knowing----" + +Even as he spoke he saw her mouth curve with that smile that was always +the wickedest thing about her. He had seen it on many occasions and it +always meant that, then, in her heart there was something cruel or +remorseless. + +It gave her now an elfin look so that, amongst the absurd furniture of +the room, she took her place as some old witch might take hers amongst +the paraphernalia of her incantations--her cauldron, her bones, her +noxious herbs. + +"That shows, Christopher my friend, that you know very little. I've a +piece of news that will surprise you." + +He said nothing, but, in his heart, made ready for some blow. + +"What would you say if our Rachel--your Rachel and my Rachel--had found +a new friend in my worthy, most admirable nephew, Francis?" + +"Rachel--Rachel and Breton?" + +The Duchess watched him with amusement. "Exactly. I have the surest +information----" + +"What does your--information--say?" + +He hated her at that moment as he had never hated her before. + +"It says--and I know that it is true--that for more than a year now they +have been meeting and corresponding--The other day Rachel went to tea +with him--alone. Was with him alone for some time--I'm sure that Roddy +knows nothing of this----" + +"It's impossible--impossible! Rachel is the soul of honour----" + +"I know that you have always thought so. But what more likely? Their +feeling about myself would, alone, be enough...." + +But he would not let her see how hardly he was taking it. He deprived +her of her triumph, did not even question her as to what she would do +with it, turned the conversation into other channels, and left her at +last--seeming there, amongst her candles, with her nose and thin hands, +like some old bird of most evil omen. + + +III + +But for him there was to be no more peace. + +It was now about four o'clock and already the dusk was closing in about +the town. He decided that he would go and see whether Rachel were in. + +He was determined that he would ask Rachel nothing; if she wished to +speak to him he would help her, but it must be of her own free +will--that was the only way at present. + +For how much was the Duchess's malignity responsible? What exactly did +she know? What did she intend to do? + +Oddly enough, for a long time past some subconscious part of him had +linked Rachel and Breton together, perhaps because they were the two +persons in all the world for whom he most cared, perhaps because he had +always known in both of them that rebellious discontent so unlike that +Beaminster acquiescence. + +As he drove through the evening streets, he felt that never, until now, +had he known how dearly he loved Rachel. In his mind there was no +judgment of her, only a sense of her peril; if she would speak to +him!... + +When he asked at the door of the flat for Lady Seddon he was told that +she was out. + +"Sir Roderick is at home, sir." He would see Roddy. + +Roddy was sitting in the little box-like room known as the smoking-room, +poring over a war map. About the map little flags were dotted; he had +two in his hand and, with one hand lifted, was hesitating as to their +position. + +"That was a damned bad mess----" Christopher heard him say as he came +in. + +At the sound of the door Roddy looked up, straightened himself, and then +came forward. + +"Hallo! Christopher," he said. "Delighted. Splendid! Rachel's out, but +she said she'd be back to tea." + +He was not looking well--fat, his cheeks pale and puffy, lines beneath +his eyes. + +"I'm jolly glad you've come," he said. He drew two arm-chairs to the +fire and they sat down. + +Roddy then talked a great deal. He was always a little nervous with +Christopher because he was well aware that the doctor had disapproved of +his marriage. + +Christopher had lately shown him that he liked him, but still Roddy was +not at his ease. He talked of the war, then of golf, then polo, then +horses, Seddon Court--abruptly he stopped and sat there gazing moodily +into the fire. + +"You're not looking well, Seddon," Christopher said quietly. + +"I'm not very--Nobody's at their liveliest just now with fellers one +knows droppin' out any minute.... One feels a bit of a worm keepin' out +of it all--skunkin' rather----" + +Moodily he sat there, his head hanging, dejected as Christopher had +never seen him before. + +Suddenly he said--"That ain't quite the truth, Doctor. I _am_ a bit +worried----" + +"My dear boy," Christopher said, putting his hand on the other's +knee--"If there's anything in the world I can do for you, tell me." + +"Thank you. You're a brick. I'm damned unhappy, Christopher, and that's +the truth----" + +"Rachel----" said Christopher. + +"Yes--Rachel. I got to talk to somebody. I've been goin' along on my own +now for months and I know you're fond of her----" + +"I am," said Christopher, "more than of anyone in the world----" + +"I know. That's how I can talk to you. I wouldn't have you think I'm +complainin' of her. I'm gettin' nothin' but what I asked for, you know. +But it's just this. When she took me she never said she loved me, in +fact she said she didn't, but I thought that it wouldn't matter--all you +wanted in marriage was just to be pals and show up about the town +together and treat one another honourably. Well," said Roddy, taking now +a melancholy interest in his discoveries concerning himself, "damn it +all, if I haven't rotted the bargain by fallin' in love with her. Jove! +Why, I hadn't a ghost's guess at what Love meant before Rachel came +along. Of course it isn't her fault. You couldn't expect her to love an +ordinary sort of chap like me, just like a million other fellers +knockin' about--but she's so unusual there ain't another woman in the +world so surprisin' as Rachel-- + +"She's fond of me," he went on, "I know that, but what I want she just +can't give me and that's the long and short of it. + +"Lately it's been terrible hard. She's not happy and that makes me wild, +and every day that passes I seem to want her more. Nothin' else, no one +else matters now. I've been playin' golf, ridin', sittin' down to this +bridge they're all getting mad about, doin' every blessed thing--it +isn't any use. Do you know, Christopher," he said slowly, "I'd give my +soul to make her happy and I just can't----" + +"I know----" said Christopher. + +"But it's worse than that--" Roddy went on, taking up the poker and +knocking on the fire--"Lately she's been having a room of her own. +Started it a while ago as a temporary thing and now she sticks to it. Up +here, in this damned town, we hardly see one another; always a crowd +either here or outside. I know Rachel don't like it and I don't like it, +but there it is-- + +"Next week we're going down to Seddon and things may get better +there--But I can't stand it much more--not like this." + +"Wait a bit. It'll come all right." Christopher spoke confidently. "I've +know Rachel since she was a small child. She's half Russian, you +know--you must always remember that--and Russian and Beaminster make a +strange mixture--Wait----" + +"That's so easy to say--" Roddy answered, shaking his head. "It's so +easy to say, but I don't see just what's goin' to make things different +from what they are----" + +"No--one never sees," said Christopher. "And then Destiny comes along +and does something that we call coincidence and just settles it all. +Your trouble will be settled, Roddy, if you're patient----" + +"Perhaps," Roddy said slowly, "you could see her a bit--find out----" he +stopped. + +"Anything in the world I can do I will. We'll find a way. Meanwhile, +Seddon, there is a bit of advice I can give you----" + +"What's that?" asked Roddy. + +"Go and see the Duchess more than you've been doing. See her a lot--more +than you did ever----" + +"Oh! the Duchess!" Roddy sighed. "I don't know, but it all seems +different with her now. I've changed, I suppose. All her ideas are +old-fashioned and wrong; I used to think her rather splendid----" + +"Yes--but she's ill and old, and you're the only person in the world she +cares about." + +"Yes, I'll go," said Roddy slowly. "I've known I ought to go." + +Voices broke in upon them; the door opened and Rachel, followed by her +friend May Cremlin, once May Eversley, came in-- + +"Oh! Dr. Chris! You dear!" she cried, and came forward and flung her +arms about him and kissed him. + +Her cheeks were flushed, from her black furs her eyes shone at him. Some +thought caught him. He knew where he had seen that excited glitter +already to-day--Breton at luncheon-- + +They all talked. Then Christopher said that he must go. + +Rachel came with him to the door. In the hall she looked at him +defiantly, that flash he knew so well. + +"You never come now, Dr. Chris: you've given me up." + +"I don't care for you in a crowd very much. There's always a crowd +now----" + +"Ask me alone and I'll come," she said, but still her eyes were defiant. + +"No," he said gravely. "I'll do no asking, Rachel. When you want me I'm +there for you at any time--at _any_ time----" + +For answer she flung her arms again about him and hugged him. Her heart +was beating furiously. Then without another word she left him. + + +IV + +He could not go back to Harley Street yet. The sense of apprehension +that had been growing with him all day would give him a melancholy +evening, were he to spend it alone. He thought of Brun. Someone had told +him that the little man was in London. + +He found him in his rooms, reading, with a cynical expression on his +face, a French review. + +"I came to see--" said Christopher, "whether you happened to be free +to-night and would dine with me. I'm a pessimist for once this evening +and it doesn't suit me!" + +Brun was very, very sorry, but he was dining with a Russian princess; it +was most tiresome that he should have to waste his time with a Russian +princess when he'd come over to London on this occasion expressly to +study the English people at this interesting crisis of their affairs, +but there it was--he'd no idea how he'd let himself in for it, and how +much rather would he spend the evening with his friend, Christopher. + +Christopher said that he would smoke one cigarette and that then he must +go. + +"And so you feel pessimistic?" said Brun, looking at Christopher +curiously--"It's the war, _Je crois bien_--How alike you all are!" + +"No," said Christopher, "I don't think the war's much to do with it. I +dare say the war's a very good thing for all of us." + +"Didn't I tell you--?" said Brun, greatly excited--then pulled himself +up--"No, it wasn't you. It was Arkwright. More than a year ago we were +in a picture gallery looking at your Duchess's picture, and coming home +we talked. I said then that something would come, that something _must_ +come, and that then everything, _everything_ would crumple up. And +behold!" cried Brun, his eyes flashing--"See, it crumples!" + +"That's a little previous of you," said Christopher. "Nothing crumpled +yet. We're disturbed of course----" + +"It is most lucky," Brun said, "most lucky. Here we are, you and I, +ordinary people enough, with the end of a Period with its death and the +way it takes it, all for us to watch. _Most_ lucky...." + +"End of Victorian Age ... _Voila!_" and with a little dramatic gesture +he waved his hand as though he were flinging the Age and its lumber +away, out of the window. + +"You know, Christopher," he went on, "I've seen things coming over here +for so long. All you people, you couldn't have gone on very much longer +so remote from life. And now this--it will finish your Duchess, your +Beaminsters, your queen in her bonnet, your Sundays and your religion +and your Whigs and Tories, and all your hypocrisies--No names any more +taken just because they've always been taken, but new names made by men +who're doing things. Nothing taken for granted any more. + +"Your Beaminsters will vanish, and then you'll have your Denisons and +Oaks and Ruddards on top. Then you'll see a time. You'll all be spinning +like a top, dancing, dancing like dervishes. Then while you're busy +dancing up the other people will quietly come--all the real people, the +Individualists--Women will have their justice--no man will skunk behind +his garden hedge because he doesn't want to be bothered. No more +superstition, no more inefficiency----" + +"You're a wonderful fellow, Brun," said Christopher, getting up and +flinging away the end of his cigarette. "You've always got any amount to +say--but do you never think of people as people, not as theories or +movements or developments----" + +"No, thank God, I don't. That's for the sentimentalists like you, +Christopher. People are all the same, fools or knaves." + +"Well, I'm glad I don't think so," said Christopher. + +"Tell me," Brun put his little hand on the other's elbow, "your +Beaminsters now, how are they?" + +"They're all right." + +"The Duchess? I hear she's not so well----" + +"Oh! nonsense--Well as she's been any time these last thirty years." + +"Yes? So--I'm glad. But the other Beaminsters? Ah! I must go quickly and +call--To see them burst asunder, that will be most amusing----" + +Christopher laughed. "You won't see the Duke or Richard Beaminster +burst," he said--"They're like you--no personal feeling." + +"And the girl?" + +"Lady Seddon?" + +"Yes. She'll stir things up. She's not a Beaminster, or only enough of +one to make her hate the family. And she does hate them, _hein_?" + +"Oh, my dear Brun, you've got an absurdly exaggerated view about +everything. You'd twist the Beaminsters into anything to make them fit +your theory." + +"Oh, they'll fit it right enough. But I must be in at the death. We'll +meet there together, Christopher. Things will occur before we're much +older, my sentimentalist." + +Christopher shook his head. "There's something sinister about your +appearances in the City, Brun. 'Where the carcases are, there will....'" + +Brun nodded. "It's true enough this time," he said. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE DARKEST HOUR + + "So God help us! and God knows what disorders we may fall + into.... Home and to bed with a heavy heart." + + _Diary of Samuel Pepys._ + + +I + +During that terrible December week in 1899, England suffered more +defeats to her arms than during any other week of the century. +Magersfontein, Stormberg, Colenso, their names leapt one after another +on to the screen. + +London was dismayed; London was impatient. Easy enough to declare that +the most criminal blunders had been perpetrated, easy enough to explain +how one would oneself have conducted this or that, manoeuvred hither +or thither some pawn in the game. + +Dismay remained--a wide active alarm at the things that Life, so +suddenly real and dominating and destructive, might in the future be +preparing. + +To Lord John this terrible week was simply the climax to a succession of +disturbing revelations of reality. All his days had he been denying +Life, wrapping it up in one covering after another, calling it finally a +box of chocolates or a racing card, a good cigar or a pretty woman, +knowing, at his heart, that somewhere in the dark forest the wild beast +was waiting for him, hoping that he might survive to the end without +facing it. + +Now it was before him and its glittering eyes were upon him. + +He had gone on the Friday of this week, to pay a week-end visit at a +country house near Newmarket. Many jolly, happy week-ends he had spent +at this same house on other occasions, now, from first to last, it was +nightmare. + +On the Monday morning at breakfast a sudden conviction of the impossible +horror of this world struck at his heart. It came as a revelation, life +was for him never to be the same again. His hostess, a large-bosomed +white-haired lady, planted at the end of the table like an enormous +artificial toy in the middle of whose back some key must be turned if +the affair is to amuse the crowd, suddenly horrified him; the women of +the party, their noses a little blue, their cheeks a touch too white, +their voices hard and sharp, the men, red and brown, boisterously hearty +about the animals they hoped to kill before the day was done, the cold +food in a glazed and greedy row, the hot food--kidneys, fish, bacon, +sausages, sizzling and scenting the air--: the table itself with its +racks of toast and marmalade and silver and fruit: the conversation that +sounded as though the speakers were afraid that the food would all +disappear were they spontaneous or natural--all these things suddenly +appeared to Lord John in a very horrible light, so that, in an instant, +racing and women and clothes and food were banished from a naked biting +world in which he was a naked solitary figure. + +He caught a train as one flies from some horrible plague: he arrived in +London, breathless, confused, miserable, the foundations of Life broken +from beneath him. + +Here he found Lady Adela in a like condition. + +He had never cared very greatly for his sister, he had not found her +sympathetic or amusing, she had never appealed to him for assistance, +nor challenged his violent opposition. He had never enquired very deeply +into her interests; she had much correspondence and many acquaintances. +She ran, he supposed, the house or, at least, directed Miss Rand to run +it for her. + +He thought her a rather stupid woman, but then all the Beaminsters +thought one another stupid because they believed so intensely in the +Duchess and she had always made a point of seeing that, individually, +they despised one another, although collectively they faced the world. + +Finally, Adela had always seemed to him unsympathetic towards Rachel and +that he found it very hard to forgive--but then, he often reflected they +were all, with the exception of himself, a most unsentimental family. He +wondered sometimes why he was so different. + +On the afternoon of his return from Newmarket, however, he began to +wonder whether, after all, Adela had not more in common with him than he +had ever expected. He had lunched at the club, had plunged down into the +City to enquire about some investments, it had begun to rain, and he had +returned with the weight of that gloomy day full heavily upon him. + +He did not, as a rule, have tea, but to-day he needed company, and he +found Adela in the little sitting-room next to the library, a little +room with faded wall-paper, faded pictures (groups, some of them, of +himself and Vincent and Richard at Eton and Oxford), faded arm-chairs +and faded chintzes--a nice, cosy, friendly room, full of old +associations and old hopes and despairs. + +This room did not often see either Lady Adela or John, but to-day +Norris, for reasons best known to himself, had put tea there and, to +both of them, as they sat over the fire with the great house so still +and quiet about them, the shabby intimacy of the little place was +grateful. + +John, disturbed, himself, out of his normal easy geniality, noticed that +Adela also was disturbed. + +That dry and rather gritty assurance that had all her life protected her +from both the praise and abuse of her fellow-men and women was, to-day, +absent. She seemed really grateful to John for coming to have tea with +her to-day. He wondered whether she felt as he did that this war, with +all its horrors, foreboded, in some manner, special disasters upon the +Beaminster family, as though it were a portent, to be read of all men, +of the destruction and ruin of that family. + +"Poor Adela," he thought, "she's very plain. If she asks me to help her +I will. She's got something on her mind." + +"Rachel's here," Lady Adela said, looking at her brother nervously. + +"Now?" + +"Yes, she's with mother. She came to say good-bye to her. She and Roddy +are going down to Seddon to-morrow." + +"Yes, I know----" said John. + +"She's very queer--very odd. I don't pretend to understand her." + +"We're all queer just now," said John. "Down at the club to-day it was +too awful. No other subject--fellows killed, fellows going out to be +killed. Blunder, blame, disgrace--all the time. But what's Rachel been +doing odd?" + +"You understand her better than I do," said his sister. "She always +liked you better. I did my best with her, but she never cared about me. +But now I understand her less than ever. She's so excited and hard and +unnatural. Something's happened to her that we don't know about, I'm +sure." + +John said nothing. He was unhappy enough about Rachel, but he did not +intend to talk to Adela about it. He would rather not talk to anyone +about it because talking only brought it more actually in front of him. +Besides, he did not know what to say. He knew that he had been cowardly +about Rachel. He had tried to pretend to himself that she was happy when +he had known that she was not and so, for the sake of his comfort, he +had stifled the most genuine emotion in his life; that indeed was the +Beaminster habit. + +"She's not happy," continued Adela. "I'm sure I don't know why--Roddy's +very good to her--very good. She's so queer. She wants to have Miss Rand +down with her at Seddon for Christmas." + +"Miss Rand?" + +"Yes--she asked me whether I'd let her go. She's got to give a dance and +a dinner-party or two and asked me whether she might have her help. Of +course I said 'Yes.' Miss Rand hasn't been looking at all well for some +time now. A change will do her good." + +"What did Miss Rand say when you told her?" + +"Oh, she was odd. She has been odd lately. At first she thought she +wouldn't go. Then she said she would. I told her it would do her good." + +"How's mother been the last two days?" + +"Oh! the same. She won't say anything--she confides in nobody." + +John looked at his sister and wondered why it was that he had never, +during all these years, considered her as a personality or as anything +actively happy or miserable. She had had, he suddenly supposed, a life +of her own that was, in a way, as acute and sensitive as his and yet he +had never realized this. + +He had always taken his mother's word for it that Adela was a dried-up +stick who resented interference; now he was sure that that judgment was +short-sighted, and then, upon this, came criticism of his mother; +therefore, to banish such disloyalty, he said hurriedly: + +"I didn't enjoy the Massiters a bit--longed to get away--Sunday was +miserable----" + +Adela said--"I never could bear them--John----" she stopped. + +"Yes," he said, looking across at her. His large good-tempered eyes met +hers and then the colour mounted very slowly into her cheeks. He had +never seen her agitated before-- + +"John--" she began again. "I must do something. I can't sit here--just +quietly--going on as though nothing were happening. I know--all one's +life one's stood aside rather, I've never wanted to interfere with +anyone. But now, this war has made one feel differently, I think." + +"Well?" said her brother. + +"Well--an organization is being formed--women, you know--to help in some +way. They're going to do everything, make clothes, have sales and +concerts and get money together. It's to be a big thing--Nelly Ponsonby, +Clara Raddleton, lots of others.... They've asked me to be on the +committee----" + +"Well?" said John, "why not?" + +She looked at him appealingly. "Mrs. Bronson's on it too--one of the +originators of it." + +"Oh!" John was silent. Here was, indeed, a question. Mrs. Bronson, the +Beaminster arch-enemy. Mrs. Bronson, who had snapped her bejewelled +American fingers at the Duchess--Mrs. Bronson, who called the +Beaminsters the most insulting names. Why, a fortnight ago any alliance +with such a woman was unthinkable, incredible-- + +"I believe," went on Lady Adela, "that she herself proposed that I +should be asked...." + +A fortnight ago ... and now-- + +John knew that he was glad that Adela wished to join the committee, he +knew that he was closer to Adela now than he had ever been at any moment +during their lives together. + +He looked across at her and their eyes met and in that glance exchanged +between them barriers were broken down, curtains turned aside--they +would never be strangers again. + +"Mother isn't well." Adela said quite firmly. "Hasn't been well for a +long time--we've all known it. She has felt this war and--and other +things very much. She will feel my going on to the same committee as +Mrs. Bronson--she will certainly feel it. But I think it's my duty to do +so. After all, on an occasion like this family feeling must give way +before national ones." Why did not the walls and foundations of No. 104 +Portland Place rock and quiver before the horrid sacrilege of such +words? John, himself, almost expected them to do so and yet he was of +his sister's opinion. + +"I think you are perfectly right, Adela," he said. + +"Oh! I'm so glad that you do. I don't want to worry mother, just now. +I'm frankly rather nervous about telling her--but it must be done." + +"It's odd, Adela," said John, leaning back in his chair and crossing +his fat legs. "But something real like this war, a ghastly day with boys +shouting horrors at you followed by another ghastly day with more boys +shouting more horrors, it does shake one's life up. I've been very +cowardly, Adela, about a number of things. I see that now. I've never +really wanted to see it before. It makes one uncomfortable." + +"I don't think one ought to give way," said Adela with a slight return +to her gritty manner, "to one's feelings too much. But certainly one is +beginning to see things differently, which is a dangerous thing for +people of our age, John." + +"Yes," said John, "I suppose it is." He paused and then brought +out--"There's Francis, Adela. We've all been very wrong about +Francis. I've felt it for a long time, but hadn't the courage.... +He's been behaving very well all this time--One oughtn't to hold +aloof--altogether----" + +"Mother refuses to have his name mentioned----" + +"We must take into account," John said very slowly and now without +meeting his sister's eye--"that mother is not so well--scarcely so sure +in her judgment----" + +He broke off. There was a long pause and they looked away from one +another, as though they had been guilty conspirators. Norris came in to +take the tea away. + +"Has Lady Seddon gone?" + +"Yes, my lady. She was with Her Grace a very short time----" + +Adela turned impatiently to John. "So like Rachel. She might at least +have come to say good-bye to us." + +When Norris had gone John got up and walked a little about the room. + +He stopped beside his sister and put his hand on her shoulder: + +"If there's anything I can ever do to help you, Adela, tell me----!" he +said. + +"Thank you, John," she answered. + + +II + +Rachel had never understood why it was that she was driven so constantly +into her grandmother's presence. The impulse that drove her had in it, +perhaps, something of defiance and something of challenge as though she +cried to some weakness in her that it should not master her and that she +would just show it how little those visits mattered to her. It had all +begun from some reason of that kind, and lately, when she grew older, +she discovered that her grandmother was more terrible through +imagination than she was through actual vision. + +There was never absent from Rachel a lurking presentiment of what her +grandmother might one day do, and she went to see her now to discover +what she might be at, to prove to her that, whatever she be doing, +Rachel was "up" to her. + +On this particular occasion the visit was a very brief one, but there +was one moment in it that after events always produced for Rachel as a +most definite and (on the part of the Duchess) omniscient omen. + +Rachel had said that she had come in only for a moment to say good-bye. +She had talked a little and then, rising, stood by the fire. + +As she stood there her grandmother suddenly looked at her--a glance that +Rachel had not been intended to catch. There was there a malicious +humour, a consciousness of some power, of some disaster that could be +delivered, triumphantly, at an instant's notice. + +Very swiftly Rachel gathered her control, but she had felt what that +look conveyed. + +"Francis ... she knows ... what is she going to do?" + +She strung her slim, tall figure to its finest restraint and without a +quiver in her voice (her heart was beating wildly), "Good-bye, +grandmamma. I promised Roddy to be back." + +But the old lady looked at her-- + +"How you do hate me, my dear," she said almost complacently. + +Rachel compelled the other's eyes. "Would I come to see you so often if +I did?" she said. + +"Yes, my dear, you would. You've got a sense of humour hidden somewhere +although, God knows, we've seen little enough of it lately. Oh! yes, +you'd come all right--if it were only to see me growing older and +older." + +Rachel turned flaming. "There, at any rate, you're unjust. It's you that +have always hated me from the beginning--since I was small. Hated me, +been unjust to me----" + +Her body trembled with agitation--she was not far from one of her old +tempests of passion. + +But the Duchess smiled. "You exaggerate, Rachel, your old fault. At any +rate, I'll be gone soon, I suppose--it will seem trivial enough one +day...." Then as Rachel, turning to the door, left her--"But hurt a hair +of Roddy's head, my dear, and--well, you'll hate me more than ever----" + + +III + +When Rachel had gone the Duchess felt very ill indeed. She had only to +touch a bell and Dorchester would be with her, but she did not intend to +summon Dorchester before she need. + +She felt now, at this minute, that her spirit of resistance had almost +snapped. Again and again, throughout the last months, the temptation to +lie down and surrender had swept up, beaten about her walls and then +sunk, defeated, back again. + +But this last week of disaster had tried her severely. Her pride in life +had been largely her pride in the arrangement of it and now all that +arrangement was tumbling to pieces and she powerless to prevent it. For +the first time in all her days she felt that she would like to have +someone with her who would reassure her--someone less acid than +Dorchester. + +Why had she never had a companion--a woman like Miss Rand who would +understand without being sentimental? + +There was pain in every muscle and nerve of her body: it swept up and +down her old limbs in hot waves.... She clutched the arms of her chair. + +Even her brain, that had always been so sharp and clear, was now +confused a little and passed strange unusual pictures before her eyes. +That girl ... yes ... Dorchester had been very clever about that: +Dorchester had been in communication with Breton's man-servant for a +long time past. To go to tea there ... to be alone with him ... Roddy-- + +And at that dearly loved name all was sharp and accurate. Night and day +she was terrified lest she should suddenly hear that he was off to South +Africa. She believed that that would really kill her. Roddy--her +Roddy--to go and make another of those ghastly tragedies with which the +newspapers were now full. But let Rachel disdain him and he would go +merely to show her how fine a fellow he was--what idiots men were! + +Or let this other thing become a scandal, then surely he would go. + +She shook there in her chair and then with her eyes fixed on the fire +prayed to whatever gods or devils were hers that he might not go. +Anything, anything so that he might not go. Break him up, hurt +him--only, only he must not go. + +She prayed, thrusting her whole soul and spirit into her urgency-- + +Then, even as she sat there, her darkest hour was suddenly upon her. It +leapt upon her, as it were a beast out of some sudden darknesses--leapt +upon her, seized her, tore her, crushed her little dried withered soul +in its claws and tossed it to the fire. + +She was held by the sudden absolute realization of Death. She had never +seen it or known it before. Others had died and she had not cared; many +were dying now and it did not concern her. + +But this beast crouching in front of her, with its burning eyes on her +face, said to her: "All your life I've been beside you, waiting for this +moment. I knew that it would come. I have waited a long time--you have +played and thought yourself important and have cared for meddling in the +affairs of the world, but Reality has never touched you. You have +gathered things about you to pretend that I was not there. You have +mocked at others when they have seen me--you have enjoyed their +terror--now your own terror has come." + +Death.... She had never--until this instant--given it a thought. +Everything was gone before its presence. In a week or two, a month or +two, silence-- + +Rachel--she saw her standing there by the fire, full of life and energy, +so young, so strong. + +She, the Duchess of Wrexe, the great figure, courted by kings, princes, +artists, all the men and women of her time, now must crumble into the +veriest dust, be forgotten, be followed by others, banished by this new +world. + +She and her Times were slipping, slipping into disuse. Who cared now for +those other glories? What minds now were fit to tackle those minds that +she had known? What beauty now could stand beside that beauty that had +shone when she was young? + +The beast crouched nearer. The room darkened. She could feel the hot +breath, could be dazed by the shining of those eyes. Behind her, around +her, the trumpery toys that she had gathered faded. + +Darkness rose; a great space and desolation was about her--She tried to +summon all her energy. + +She cried out and Dorchester, coming in, found that her mistress had, +for the first time in her life, fainted, bending, an old, broken woman, +forward in her chair. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +LIZZIE'S JOURNEY--II + + +I + +The world, during all these months, had seemed to Lizzie Rand a very +silent place. Before that July night it had been loud with incident, +coloured with possibilities, strange and varied and thrilling. Now she +was only conscious of the duties that must be fulfilled between daybreak +and darkness; she was unconscious of all life and movement, only she was +aware of the demands on her deliberate activity--these demands she +obeyed. + +Slowly, as the dreary autumn dragged its days past her, she accustomed +herself to forestall the horrid moments that would leap from some hidden +darkness upon her. There was the moment when a something said: "Fancy +caring for someone who had never asked nor shown any sign...." Another +moment when something said: "Remember how here you stood, with your +heart beating, waiting for him to come--There you caught some light in +his eyes and fancied it a sign...." + +Burning shame was in those moments did she indulge them--a realization, +too, of the bare grey desolation of a world without movement or vision. +She could not see the people about her, her mother, her sister, Lady +Adela, Dr. Christopher (always kind to her), other friends--they were +not there for her at all. + +Only two things were there--that she must cling, at all possible costs, +to her pride and that she hated Rachel. Her pride had been called to her +defence before, but to hate anyone was new to her. She had never hated +any human being and now the restlessness that this new emotion brought +confused her. + +Night after night stretched ironically before her, banishing sleep. All +her life she had slept from the moment that her head was upon the +pillow; now, at that instant, her brain sprang to fire, thought after +thought, memory after memory, passed in dancing procession before her. + +She saw him as little as possible, she supposed that in time she would +not care, would be indifferent to him; she hoped so. + +Meanwhile she went out when he came in; saw his kind distress because +he thought that she was not well, and shuddered at it. + +Then Lady Adela told her that Rachel had asked whether she were free for +Christmas. + +She received a letter: + + "DEAR MISS RAND, + + I wonder whether by any chance you would care to come to us + here for three weeks at Christmas time? I should be so grateful + if you would come and help me a little with some tiresome + social things here. May I add that I have for a long time + wanted to know you better than the London rush ever gives time + for? My aunt says that you have been overworking lately, she + thinks. If you come here you shall have all the rest and quiet + possible. + + Yours sincerely, + + RACHEL SEDDON." + +A funny little letter--stiff and then suddenly impulsive and friendly. + +Of course she would go--she had never doubted that. Here at last was +some food for the burning restlessness that was always at her +breast--Through these months she had longed for some step that would +help to kill the pain. + +Now she would watch Rachel and discover her heart and perhaps find from +that discovery some way for her own release. For her shame, night and +day, was that she still cared, cared, yes, as deeply as she had ever +done--that caring must die. + +Perhaps the sight and knowledge of this other woman would kill it. + +At least here at last was action after the terrible silence and +remoteness of those many months. + +She would go to Seddon and she would not leave it without finding some +way by which she might still make some use of life. + + +II + +She had really stayed at very few houses before. The anticipation at any +other time would have excited her, now nothing mattered except that she +would meet Rachel. + +Her mother and sister had watched her during these past months with a +dismay stirred by the sudden absence of her genial friendliness. + +They had taken so much of her kindliness for granted and now when she +refused them the sympathy that they had always demanded for a thousand +unimportant incidents they, clamorously, missed it. + +At first it was easy to say that Lizzie was callous and selfish, +afterwards that she was ill and overworked, finally they hailed with +relief the promise of a three-weeks' holiday. "She'll come back," said +Mrs. Rand, "as fresh as paint, and taken out of herself." + +Meanwhile no solution of Lizzie's trouble occurred to them; that she +should ever feel the tyranny of love, like more sentimental mortals, +was, at this time of day, impossible. "We know Lizzie, thank you," said +Mrs. Rand. + +They watched her, on the afternoon of the 23rd of December, depart in a +cab for Seddon Court. She was grave and pale and beautifully neat. "I do +admire Lizzie, you know," said Daisy, returning with her mother into the +house. "I can't get that kind of tidiness. Her things go on for years, +looking as good as new." + +"Men like a bit of disorder," said Mrs. Rand. "It seems more agitated. +All the same I'd like to know what is worrying Lizzie." + +It was a wet and gusty day and the wind blew the rain with hard +impatient spurts against the windows of the cab. Few people were about: +Hyde Park Corner was grey and deserted, umbrellas like black mushrooms +started here and there from the shining ground. + +Victoria Station also had, on this afternoon, nothing beautiful to +offer. She found her way to her train, chose an empty carriage, sat in +her corner with her hands upon her lap, waited for the train to move. + +People, grey people with white faces, hurried past her carriage. She +wondered whether they too had something in their hearts that made every +thought, every movement a danger. + +Because the train would not move and because for the first time in all +these months she found herself without any occupation, she could not +hold thought at bay. She resisted, she tried to sweep her brain empty, +she surrendered. She, Lizzie Rand, always so fond of her self-discipline +and restraint, found control now slipping from her. Before she had met +Breton her duties, the skilful manipulation and arrangement of detail, +her work and her place as a worker, these had supplied her needs. Now +all those things were dust and ashes; high and lofty above them shone +that bright fire whose warmth and colour she had, for an instant, felt +and seen. What was life going to be, through all the years to come, if +she were never to recapture her tranquillity? + +The train moved off and she sat there, her eyes bright and shining, her +little body stiff and resolute. Somewhere, a long way away, like a +rounded coloured cloud, hovered emotion--emotion that would break her +heart, would tear her to pieces and then perhaps build up for her a new +life. But her eyes now were dry and her heart was cold. + +The train went whir-whack--whack-whir and the telegraph wires flew up, +hung, hesitated, were coming down, flew higher, then with a rush were +buried below the window, and with the noise and movement there danced +before her eyes the questions, "Does she love him?" "Does she love him? +Has she told him that she loves him? What will her husband do? Does she +love her husband?" And then, beyond that, "Why did she come and take +from me all that I had, she who had already so much?" + +And then, most bitter of all, "Ah, but you never had him. She took +nothing from you. He never thought of you except as someone to whom he +could talk----" + +She had no doubt that these weeks were intended for a crisis. Something +was going to happen at Seddon.... Something in which she was to have her +share. She felt as though she had known that she would be sent to meet +Rachel--It had to be.... + +Then her thoughts left, for a time, her own miserable little history. +She wondered how Lady Adela would manage without her. Lady Adela had +never been alone before and now that the Duchess had had, a fortnight +ago, that fainting fit, they were all unsettled and alarmed. What would +happen if the Duchess died? Then all the dignity and splendour of 104 +Portland Place would pass away! other people might inhabit it, but the +soul of that house would be dead. + +Everything on every side of her seemed to be hastening to a climax and +Lizzie could see that old woman fighting, behind her closed doors, for +Life, beaten at last, dead, swept away, others laughing in her place--a +new world to whom she was only a portrait cleverly painted by some young +artist. + +Yes, there were other histories developing now besides Lizzie's and she +felt as though she had been whirled, during the last months, into a +wild, tossing medley of contacts and revelations--all this after a life +so grey and quiet and steadily busy. + +As the train plunged into Sussex the rain stayed for a little and the +shining earth steamed upwards to a grey sky broken here and there to +saffron. Little towns quietly rested under the hills and many streams +ran through the woods and the roads drove white like steel through the +crust of the soil. White lights spread in the upper air and the heaving +grey was pushed, as though by some hand, back into the distant horizon. +For a moment it seemed that the sun was bursting through; trees were +suddenly green where they had been black and fields red where they had +been sombre dark--Light was on all the hills. + +But the hand was stayed. Back the grey rolled again, heavily like +chariots the clouds wheeled round and drove down upon the earth--The +rain fell. + +The carriage was very cold. Lizzie's hand and feet were so chill that +they seemed not to belong to her at all. Pictures of houses at Brighton +and the dining-car of some train and two public-houses at the bottom of +a hill stared at her. + +The sense of some coming disaster grew with her. It was as though +someone were telling her that she must prepare to be very brave and +controlled and wise because, very soon, all her restraint and wisdom +would be needed. She summoned now, as she had learnt to do, a stern +armoured resolution that sat always a little oddly upon her. Any +observer who had seen her sitting there would have noticed the mild +softness of her eyes, the tenderness of some curve at the corners of her +mouth, and would have smiled at the lines of resolution as though he had +known that the sternness was all assumed. + +But she was saying that nothing should touch or move her down here at +Seddon; her heart should be closed. She must grow into a woman who had +no need of emotion--and even as she determined that some vision swept +her by, revealing to her the happy dear uses that she could have made of +love and sympathy had life been set that way for her. How she could have +cared!... A dry little sob was at her throat and burning pain behind her +tearless eyes. God, the things that other people had and did not value! + +The train stopped at a wind-swept deserted station and a man and woman +with a little child, the three of them tired, wet, bedraggled, entered +the carriage. + +The man was gaunt with a beard and large helpless eyes, the woman +shapeless, loose-breasted, little eyes sunk in her cheeks, an old black +straw hat tilted back on her head. These two did not glance at Lizzie, +nor was there any curiosity of interest in their eyes, but the small +child, yellow wisps of hair falling about her dirty face, detached +herself from them, crept into the furthest corner of the carriage and +from there stared at Lizzie. + +The train droned on through a country now shrinking beneath a deluge of +rain. The child moved a little, looked at the woman, looked again at +Lizzie, crept to Lizzie's side of the carriage, at last, still without a +word, came close and, finally, stole fingers towards Lizzie's dress. + +Lizzie turned and smiled at the child, who stared back at her, now with +wide terrified eyes. Lizzie looked away, out of the window, and after a +long time, felt the grimy hand upon her knee. + +Once the woman said, "Come away, Cissie. You're worrying the lady." + +"No. Please," said Lizzie. She took the hand in her own and smiled again +at the wide baby face. The child was very, very young and very, very +dirty-- + +No child had ever come near her before. She wondered why it had come +now. + + +III + +At Lewes a carriage was waiting for her and, in a moment, it seemed that +she was driving through a dark village street and in front of her, like +a great wall topping the skies, the Downs rose. + +When the carriage entered the courtyard and stopped before the broad +stone door Lizzie was seized with terror. She wished, oh! she wished +that she had not come. The sense of descending trouble was so strong +with her that she felt for the first time in her life that she was going +to prove unequal to her task. + +Her life was over and done with! Why had she allowed herself to be +pushed back again into all these affairs of other people? + +She was ushered into a square lighted hall where they were all having +tea round a wide open fireplace. She was conscious of Rachel rising, +slim and tall, to greet her, of the square ruddy-faced country-looking +man who gripped her hand, jolly hard, and was, of course, Sir Roderick; +of a handsome, athletic-looking girl in a riding-habit, of a man or two +and an elderly smartly dressed woman. + +They were all immensely cheerful and friendly and to Lizzie, white and +tired, noisy and horribly robust. She would have liked to have slipped +up to her room and stayed there alone until dinner, but Rachel said: + +"Oh! you must be perished after that wet journey. Tea's just at its +hottest and its freshest. Quick, Roddy--the toast--Never mind the rest +of us, Miss Rand--just drink that tea and get warm." + +They allowed her to sink back into an easy chair somewhere in the shadow +and the tea was very comforting and the stern hall with its crackling +fire and its cosy solid shape most friendly. She listened to them all +noisily discussing people and dances and horses and dinners. She watched +Rachel Seddon, sitting a little gravely, straight in her chair, throwing +in a word now and again. + +This was the woman.... This was the woman.... + +She felt a warm tongue that licked her hand. She looked down and saw at +her side the oddest dog, a dog like a mat, shapeless with two brown eyes +behind its hair and a black wet nose. + +There was something about the eyes and the way that the warm body was +pressed against her dress that won her instant affection. + +"What an adorable animal!" she said to Roddy, who was sitting next to +her. + +"Oh! Jacob!" he said, laughing. "He really oughtn't to be in here at +all--servants' hall's his proper place--If you care for dogs, Miss Rand, +I'll show you some----" + +As he spoke she caught the dog's eyes and saw in the depths of them +shame. He had been sitting, very square and upright, with his eyes +gravely fixed, with great interest, upon the company. Then, at the sound +of Roddy's voice his head had dropped, instantly he became furtive, his +eyes searching for some place of escape. + +Her hand caught his rough coat and she drew him to her side and stroked +his ears. + +"I think he's perfectly delightful," she said. "I'm afraid I prefer +mongrels to better dogs." + +"Do you really?" said Roddy, looking kindly at her. "'Pon my word, Miss +Rand, I must show you my little lot. I don't think you'll have much use +for that animal there afterwards." + +At last the girl in the riding-habit and the other woman and the young +man noisily departed. + +Rachel took Lizzie upstairs. "Are you sure," she said, "you'd like to +come down to dinner? Wouldn't you rather, to-night, go early to bed and +have it there?" + +"No, thank you, Lady Seddon." Lizzie looked about the room. "This is all +splendid, thank you. I'm not a bit tired." + +"I'm so glad you've come," said Rachel, searching for Lizzie's eyes. But +Lizzie had turned away. + +At last she was alone. + +Her room was splendid--so wide, and high, and such a fire! + +She flung up her window. There the Downs were, black, huge before her; +the rain came down hissing from the sky and a smell of wet earth and +grass stole up to her. + +"That's the woman ..." she said again to herself--"What shall we say to +one another?" + +Then as she stared into the fire she thought, "She wants me to help +her." + +Afterwards she heard a scratching at the door. A maid had been sent to +her, but she had dismissed her, saying that she would manage for +herself. + +She went to the door and found outside it the shaggy, square dog. + +He walked into her room, sniffed for a time at the bed, pricked up his +ears at the noise that the fire made, listened to the sound of the rain, +at last sat down in a distant corner with one leg stretched at right +angles to his body and watched her. + +She was indignant with herself for the softness in her heart that his +company brought to her. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +RODDY IS MASTER + + "I and my mistress, side by side, + Shall be together, breathe and ride, + So, one day more am I deified, + Who knows but the world may end to-night?" + + ROBERT BROWNING. + + +I + +Introspection had been always to Roddy a thing unknown. He had never +regarded himself as in any way different from the other men whom he met, +and he would have been greatly distressed had he thought that he _was_ +different.--"What you writin' fellers," he had once said to Garden, "can +find amusin' in inventin' people for I can't think; you've got to make +'em odd for people to be interested in 'em and then they aren't like +anyone." + +Now, however, for the first time in his life he would have been glad of +help from someone who knew a little about the motive of human beings. He +was worried, distressed, perplexed; slowly his temper was rising--a +temper roused by his irritation at not being able to deal with the +situation. + +It was not his way to ask for help from anyone and he always had all the +inarticulate self-confidence of the healthy Englishman, but now, as the +days crept towards Christmas he was increasingly aware that something +must soon happen to prevent his patience giving away. + +He might as well not be married to Rachel at all--and that was an +intolerable position for him as husband, as lover, as master of his +house. Beyond doubt, he knew Rachel less now than he had known her when +he married her. Her very kindness to him, her strange alternations of +silence and affection perplexed him; for a long time he had told +himself that he knew that she did not love him and that he must make +companionship do, but ever since that quarrel about Nita Raseley the +division between them had grown wider and wider. + +Because he loved her he had been very patient with her--very patient for +Roddy, who had always had what he wanted and shown temper if he were +refused. + +But Roddy's character was of a very real simplicity. The men and women +and animals whom he had known had also been, for the most part, of a +simple character and, in all his life, there had only been one horse and +two women who had been too much for him, and even these, at the last, he +had beaten by temper and dogged determination. + +Rachel was utterly beyond him. The strange way that she had of suddenly +becoming quite another woman baffled him; had he only not loved her he +was sure that it would have been easier, much easier. + +But now, as the days passed at Seddon, his irritation thrived. Women +were all the same. They _seemed_ obstinate enough, but there was nothing +like brute force to bring them to heel. He was growing surly--cross with +the servants and the animals. He didn't sleep. His discontent made him +silent so that, when they were alone, instead of talking to her and +interesting her and winning her, perhaps, in that way, he would sit and +look at her and answer her in monosyllables, and, afterwards, would be +furious with himself for behaving so absurdly. + +This trouble sent him out of doors and away over the Downs on his horse. +Fiercely he hurled himself into his fields and lanes and farms, getting +up sometimes very early and riding out to some distant place, thinking +always, as he rode, of Rachel and what he was to do. + +His devotion for the country round Seddon, a devotion that had stirred +his heart since his first conscious sight of the outside world, nobly +now rewarded him. The land seemed to understand that he was suffering, +and drew closer to him and watched him with gentle and loving eyes, and +soothed his soul. + +Before Christmas there came some sharp, frosty mornings; he would go out +very early and would see, first, the garden, the lawn crisp and white, +the grey jagged wall that divided his land from the sweeping Downs, the +grey house behind him so square and solid and comfortable. At the end of +the garden away from the road there was an old iron gate with stone +pillars, and upon these pillars sat old stone gryphons. These gryphons +had been there since long ago and he liked the friendliness of their +faces, the strength of their crouching bodies and the way that they +would look out so patiently, over a great expanse of fields and hedges, +until their gaze rested on the white chalk hollows in the rising hills +away behind Lewes. + +Roddy, standing with the Downs so immediately behind him and this green +spread of land in front of him, was always conscious of happiness. Here +he was at home. He knew those fields, the streams that ran through them, +the farmers, the labourers, the horses and dogs that lived upon them. No +fear here that "one of those clever fellers" would wonder at his +stupidity, no sudden "letting you down" or "showing you up." Behind him +was his house, before him the land that he had always known; here he was +safe. + +He had, too, beyond this, some unformulated recognition of a service and +a worship that here he was called on to pay. He had always declared that +he could understand those Johnnies who worshipped the sun and the earth. +"Damn it all--there's something to catch on to there."--He did not, in +his heart, believe in all this civilization, this preserving of the sick +and tending of the maimed and halt. "You've got to clear out if you're +broken up" was his opinion. "If you can't do your bit, can't see or +smell or anything, you're just in the way."--What he meant was that the +halt and maimed were simply insults to the vigour and vitality of his +fields and sky. + +But indeed, what _would_ he have done during these days had he not had +his riding, farms to visit, shepherds and farmers for company? At first +Rachel had ridden with him and they had been closer together during +those rides than at any other time, but lately she had refused, on one +excuse or another, to come with him. + +He went a good deal now to other houses, but it was awkward because +Rachel would not come with him. She asked people to Seddon and was +charming when they came, but she would not often go out with him when +the country people invited them. + +Since the Nita Raseley episode he had thought that she might show +jealousy did he ride and drive with some girl in the country. He hoped +that she would be jealous, that would have filled him with tingling +happiness--but no, she seemed to be glad that he should find someone who +could take her place. + +Over all these things he brooded and brooded. He would look at his old +friendly gryphons and feel, in some dumb confused way, that they were +being insulted.--"Poor old beggars--I bet she doesn't know they're +there"--And through all of this, he loved her more and more, and was, +daily, more wretched and unhappy. + + +II + +The coming of Miss Rand puzzled him. He had, of course, known of her for +a long time--"Adela Beaminster's secretary, most capable woman, simply +runs the whole place."--As a human being she simply did not occur to +him. + +Now she seemed to be the one person whom Rachel wished to know. Another +instance of Rachel's unexpectedness. When Lizzie came he was still more +astonished. This tidy, trim little woman looked as though she ought +always to have a typewriter by her side; her sharp eyes were always +restlessly discovering things that were out of order. Roddy found +himself fingering his tie and patting his hair when she was with +him--not, he would have supposed, the sort of woman for whom Rachel +would have cared. + +Then after a while he discovered another astonishing thing. Miss Rand +did not like his wife, did not like her at all. He watched and fancied +that Rachel soon discovered this and was doing her utmost to force Miss +Rand to like her. + +Miss Rand was always pleasant and polite; she was an immense help about +dinners and this dance that was to be given early in the New Year, but +she yielded to none of Rachel's advances, was always reserved, +unresponsive. + +Roddy was afraid of her but believed in her. She liked animals and loved +the house and the Downs and the country.--"She's all clean and bright +and hard," he thought; "no emotion about her, no sentiment _there_. A +man 'ud have a stiff time love-making with her." + +But it gradually appeared that, whatever her feelings might be towards +Rachel, she was ready to like Roddy. She walked with him, asked him +sensible questions, listened attentively to his rather lumbering +explanations. After a time, he almost forgot that she was a woman at +all--"Damn sensible and yet she never makes you feel a fool." + +He liked her very much, though she obviously preferred Jacob, the +mongrel, to all other dogs in the place. He wondered as the days passed +whether she might not help him with Rachel. He would not speak to anyone +living about his own feelings for Rachel and his unhappiness, but he +thought that, perhaps, in a roundabout way, he might obtain from Miss +Rand some general wisdom that he could apply to his especial case. + +The afternoon of Christmas Eve was cold and foggy and Roddy and Lizzie +sat over the fire in the hall waiting for Rachel, who had gone out for a +solitary walk. Roddy looking at his companion approved of the sharp +delicate little face with the firelight touching it to colour and +shadow; her dress was grey with a tiny brooch of old gold at her throat, +and she wore one ring of small pearls; the look of her gave him +pleasure. + +"I wonder," Miss Rand said, "that you don't go where you'll get better +hunting--you don't hunt round here at all, do you?" + +"A bit"--Roddy looked gravely at the fire--"I go very little though. You +see, Miss Rand, it's a case of bein' born down here and likin' the +place, don't you know. _Of course_ I'd love to have been born in a +huntin' country, but bein' here I've got fond of it, you see, and +wouldn't leave it for any huntin' anywhere." + +She looked at him sharply: "You do love the place very much--I envy you +that." + +Even as she spoke her consciousness of "the place" faced her; she had +always known that she was more acutely aware of the personality of her +surroundings than were most of her friends, but her experience here was +different from anything that she had ever known before. + +She remembered that in the train she had been warned of some coming +event and now, sitting opposite to Roddy beside the blazing fire, she +was sharply and definitely frightened. + +Rachel had already appealed to her; Roddy was appealing to her now, but +stronger than either of these demands was some force in herself, warning +her and raising in her the most conflicting, disturbing emotions. + +The very silence of the house about them, the long green stretches of +the level fields, came almost personally and presented themselves to +her, and in her heart, growing with every moment of passing time, was +her hatred of Rachel and, from that, tenderness for Roddy, who could +thus be left, so pathetically unhappy, so eloquently without words that +might express his unhappiness. + +Something she knew was soon to occur that would involve all three of +them in a common crisis. + +It was almost as though she must leap to her feet and cry to the +startled and innocent Roddy, "Look out!" her finger pointing at the +closed door behind him. + +Meanwhile Roddy had been considering her. She said that she envied him +the place. That was pleasant of her, and he warmed to the urgency with +which she had said it. If she felt in that way about such things, why +then, all the more, he thought, he could speak to her about his trouble +with Rachel. Perhaps, too, although this he would not admit to +himself--his conviction that Lizzie disliked Rachel gave him more +courage. + +Everyone thought Rachel so wonderful--wonderful of course she was, but a +complete sense of that wonder must blind the looker-on to Roddy's point +of view. + +"Places," he said moodily, "ain't everythin'--course _I_ love this old +bit o' ground, but when you love anything a lot you're disappointed +because every feller don't see it exactly as you do." + +Lizzie looked at him. + +"I should have thought, though, Sir Roderick, that you were a very, very +happy person." + +Roddy considered, then slowly shook his head--"No, Miss Rand, not +exactly--no, you know, I shouldn't say that exactly--but then, I +suppose, no man on this earth is absolutely happy." + +"Well," said Lizzie, "a great many people would envy you--your health, +your home, your wife, you've got a good deal, Sir Roderick." + +As she spoke her anxiety to help him seized and held her. He wanted +advice so badly, advice that she could give him, and this English strain +in him prevented him from speaking. Had she gone more deeply into her +motives she would have known that her anger with Rachel, even more +actively prompted, it seemed, by the stones and the fields and the hills +around her, was urging her interference. + +"People envy me," said Roddy, "but then, Miss Rand, people don't know. +It's all my own fault, mind you, that I'm not perfectly happy. It's all +because I'm such a fool, not able to see what people are gettin' at, +always blunderin' in at the wrong moment and blunderin' out again when I +ought to be stayin' in, and that sort o' thing. I used to think," he +concluded, "that all the talk about people's feelin's, studying them and +so on, was rot, but now I'm not so sure. I'd give anythin'--" he stopped +abruptly. + +"It _is_ all rot," Lizzie said sharply--"I can only speak as a woman, of +course, but I know that what every woman ever born into this world has +wanted is just to be taken by someone stronger than herself and be +beaten or kissed, loved or strangled as the case may be. Believe me, it +is so." + +Roddy looked at her, some new thought, perhaps a prologue to some new +determination, shining from his eyes. + +"By Jove!" he said. "I believe you're right, Miss Rand--I do indeed. +_Every_ woman, would you say?" + +"Every woman," said Lizzie firmly. + +Their eyes met. The sure steadiness of her gaze, the way that she sat +there, her little body so sure and resolute, her very neat composure an +argument against lightheaded reasoning, encouraged him beyond any help +that he had yet found. + +Their gaze seemed long and intimate; the colour rose and flushed his +brown cheeks and into his eyes there crept that consciousness of a +victory about to be won, although the odds were hard against him. The +door opened behind him and he turned at the sound and saw that Rachel +had come in. + +Her entry gave him now, as it always did, a conviction that during her +absence he hadn't had the least idea as to how splendid she really was. +She brought into that little stone hall a wild colour, a strong, fine +challenge to anything small, or shackled or conventional. + +Her walk had given her cheeks a flame, the black furs round her throat, +the black coat falling below her knees, a red feather in her round +black fur cap, all these things set off and accentuated the brilliant +fire and energy of her eyes. + +As she came towards them then so splendid was she that Lizzie was +herself for an instant lost in admiration--She lit the hall, she lit the +house, she lit the country and the evening sky. + +To Roddy, as he looked at her, there stole the spirit of some pagan +ancestor telling him that here was his capture, that this fine creature +was his to bind, to burden, to chastise, as his lordly pleasure might +be. + +Rachel, meanwhile, had come in from her walk, unappeased, unsated; the +exertion had only succeeded in stirring in her a deeper, more urgent +uneasiness. During these last weeks she had known no moment of peace. +She had come down to Seddon determined to do her duty to Roddy; she had +found that at every turn her duty to Roddy involved more than any +determination could force her to give. + +She had not known what that last interview with Breton would do to every +situation that followed it. It seemed to her then that those last words +with him would make her duty plain, they had only made her duty harder. + +She could not now act, think, sleep, move but that last kiss, those last +words of his, that last vision of him standing, struggling so finely for +control--these things pursued her, caught her eyes and held them. + +All her duty to Roddy could not hide from her now that she had, at one +flaming instant, known what life at its most intense could be. She had +felt the fire--how cold to her now these antechambers, these passages so +chill, so far from that inner room. Lizzie had then occurred to her as +the strongest person she knew. She sent for Lizzie, found instantly that +Lizzie disliked her, suspected then that Lizzie knew about Breton. + +She knew Lizzie for her enemy.... During the last week also she had +detected a new attitude in Roddy; she had felt in him some active +growing impatience that quite definitely threatened her safety. That +wild lawlessness in Roddy that she had always known, that had produced +the Nita episode and others, was now turning towards herself. + +But most of all did she fear her thoughts of Breton. She drove him again +and again and again from her mind, she called all her strength, mental, +moral, and physical, to her aid--always, with a smile, with one glance +from his eyes he defeated her. + +Day and night he was with her, and yet at her heart she did not even now +know whether it were Francis Breton whom she loved, or the life with +Roddy, the whole Beaminster scheme of things that she hated. Every day +it seemed to her that Lizzie was more watchful, Roddy more impatient, +Breton more insistent--but afraid of them all as she was, fear of +herself gave her the sharpest terror. + +She rang for tea, reproached them because they had waited for her. Then +they were--all three of them--silent. + +One of the footmen brought in the five o'clock post with the tea and +laid Rachel's letters on the table at her side. + +Lizzie had leant across the table for something and saw, as though +flashed to her by some special designing Providence, that the letter on +the top of the pile was in Francis Breton's handwriting. + +Rachel, busied with tea, had not looked down. Now she did so; the +handwriting rose, as though she had at that instant heard his step +beyond the room, and filled first her eyes, then her cheeks, then her +heart. + +Her eyes met Lizzie's and for the barest moment of time their challenges +met. Rachel seemed to hesitate, then, gathering up her letters, looked +round at Roddy and said, "I think I'll just go up and take my things +off, this fire's hotter than I expected--I'll be back in a moment." + +She walked slowly across the room and up the broad staircase. + + +III + +She did not switch on the light. The evening dusk left the room cool and +dim, but by the window, standing so that green shadows met the grey and +through them both a pale light trembled before it vanished, she took the +letter in her hand, allowing the others to drop and be scattered, white, +on the floor at her feet. + +She held the envelope; he had written and he had sworn to her that he +would not do so--she should have been furious at his broken word, +scornful of him for his weakness, indignant at his treating her so +lightly. + +But she could not think of that now, she could only think of the letter. +The envelope was so precious to her that it seemed to return the caress +that his fingers gave it and to have of itself some especial +individuality. She traced his hand on the address, treasured every line +and mark, and then at last tore it open. It was not a very long letter. +He had written to her: + + "You will despise me for breaking my word. Perhaps you won't + read this--but I _can't_ help it, I _can't_ help it, and even + if I could I don't think that I would. I know that my writing + to you is just another of the rash, foolish, silly weak things + that I've gone on doing all my life, but let it be so. I don't + pretend to be fine or brave and I have tried all these weeks, + tried harder than you can know. I've written to you every day + letter after letter, and torn them up--torn them all up. I've + fancied that perhaps you've forgotten by now and then I've + known that you've not and then I've known that it were better + if you did. + + I love you so madly that--(here he had scratched some words + out)--I must tell you that I love you so that _you_ can hear me + and not only my walls and furniture and my own self. I'm trying + not to be selfish. I know that I'm doing something now that is + hard on you, but my silence is eating me, thrusting, killing--I + shall be better soon--I will be sensible--soon--I will be---- + + But now, oh, my darling! for a moment at least I have caught + you and held you throbbing against me, and put my hands in your + hair and stroked your cheeks and kissed your eyes. + + Don't write to me if you must not, don't be angry with me for + this. + + I will try not to break my word again." + +As the letter ended so silence came back into the room that had been +beating and throbbing with sound. + +The pale light had gone, only the Downs were dim grey shapes against a +darker sky--the ripple of some water slipping and falling came from the +garden. + +The letter fell from her hands and lay white with the others on the +floor. + +She tumbled on to her knees by the window and her heart was the +strangest confusion of triumph and fear, exultation and shame. + +For a little time she lay there and felt that she was in his arms and +that his lips were on her mouth and that her hand pressed his cheek. + +She got up, turned on the lights, took off her walking things, brushed +her hair and washed her hands, picked up the other letters, but put his +in the inside of her dress--then went down to the others. + + +IV + +She found Lizzie sitting alone--"Where's Roddy?" + +Lizzie looked up at her. "He had to go and see about a horse or +something." + +Rachel came down to the table and poured out some tea and then sat +smiling at Lizzie; Lizzie smiled back. + +"I hope you liked your walk." + +"Yes, there's a storm coming up. You've no idea how deeply one gets to +care for these Downs--their quiet and their size." + +They were silent for a little and then Rachel said: + +"Miss Rand--I do hope--that this really has been something of a holiday +for you, being here, away from all your London work!" + +Lizzie's eyes were sharp--"Yes--It's delightful for me. The first +holiday I've had for years...." + +"Don't think it impulsive of me--but I've asked you here hoping that +we'd get to know one another better. I've wanted to know you, to have +you for a friend--for a long time. I've always admired so immensely the +way that you've helped Aunt Adela--done things that I could never +possibly have done----" + +She stopped, but Lizzie said nothing--Then she went on more +uncertainly-- + +"You see, I hoped that perhaps you'd teach me a little order and method. +I've married so young--I've hoped...." Then almost desperately--"But you +know, Miss Rand, I don't feel as though your coming here has helped us +to know one another any better." + +The storm had come up and the sky beyond the house was black. Lizzie's +face, lighted by the fire, was white, sharp and set--there was no +kindness in her eyes. + +"Perhaps, Lady Rachel," she said slowly, "I'm not a very emotional kind +of woman. If one's worked, as I have, since one was small--had to earn +one's living and fight for one's place--it makes one perhaps rather +self-reliant and independent of other people--Our lives have been so +different, I'm afraid," she added with a little laugh, "that I'm a +dried-up, unsatisfactory kind of person--I know that my mother and +sister have always found me so." + +"Yes," Rachel said, "our lives _have_ been different. Perhaps if mine +had been a little more like yours--perhaps if _I_ had had to work for my +living--I...." + +She broke off--a little catch was in her voice--she rose from her chair +and went to the window and stood there, with her back to Lizzie, gazing +into the darkening garden. + +She knew that Lizzie had repulsed her; she was hardly aware why she had +made her appeal, but she was now frightened of Lizzie and to her +overstrung brain it seemed that she could now see Lizzie and Roddy in +league against her. + +She heard a step and turning round found Peters, the butler, large, +square, of an immense impassivity. + +"Please, my lady, might I speak to you a moment?" + +She went out. + + * * * * * + +Lizzie, left in the darkening room, could think now only of the letter. +The sight of that handwriting had stirred in her passions that she had +never before imagined as hers--that first pathetic appeal of Roddy and +then the sight of that letter! + +Her brain, working feverishly, showed her the words that that letter +would contain--the passion, the passion! There in the very face of her +husband, Rachel was receiving letters from her lover, letters that she +could not wait a moment to read, but must go instantly and open _them_. + +This hour brought to a crisis Lizzie's agony. Had such a letter been +written to her! + +She tortured herself now with the picture of him as he sat there in his +room in Saxton Square writing it! It appeared to her now as though they +two--there in the very throne of their triumphant love--had plotted this +insult, this snap of the fingers, to show her, Lizzie Rand, how +desolate, how lonely, how neglected and unwanted she was! + +That then, after this, Rachel should appeal to her for friendship! The +cruel insult of it. + +She felt as she heard the fast drops of rain lash the window-frames, +that no revenge that she could secure would satisfy her thirst for it. + + +V + +Roddy, meanwhile, had gone out to the stables. That little talk with +Lizzie had determined a resolution that had been growing now within him +for many weeks. + +That little woman, with her assured air and neat little ways, knew what +she was about--knew moreover what others were about. She had watched and +had given him the tip--He would take it. + +Roddy's mind was of far too simple an order to admit of more than one +point of view at a time. He saw Rachel now as a dog or horse, of whom he +was very fond, who needed, nevertheless, stern discipline. He wondered +now how it was that he had allowed himself for so long to remain +indecisive. + +"London muddles a feller," he concluded; "the country's the place for +clear thinkin'." + +He looked at his horses with great satisfaction, they were in splendid +condition--he had never known them better. He also was in splendid +condition--never been better. + +As he walked away from the stables and turned towards the end of the +garden bounded by the gryphons and the stone gate, he felt his body at +its most supreme perfection. He thought, on that afternoon, that he was +strong enough for anything, and perhaps never before in his life had he +been so conscious of the glories of physical things; of all that it +meant to have fine muscles and a strong heart and lungs of the best and +thews and sinews as good as "any feller's." + +"I'm strong enough for anythin'----" He turned back his arm and felt his +muscle. He cocked his head with a little conceited gesture of +satisfaction--"I was gettin' a bit fat in London--got rid of all that." + +To walk, to ride, to fight, to swim, to eat and sleep, to love women and +drink strong drink! God! what a world! + +And then, beyond it all, Rachel, Rachel, Rachel! He had her now--she +should be under his hand, she should be his as she had never been since +the first week of their marriage. + +"No more nonsense, by God!" he said triumphantly to himself--"no more +nonsense." + +He leaned on the stone gate and looked out over the fields--The gryphons +regarded him benevolently. + +He was conscious, as he stood there, of the Duchess--what was the old +lady doing? He'd like to see her. He felt more in sympathy with her than +he had been for a long time past. "She's right after all. You've got to +stand up and run people. No use just lettin' them handle you." + +There was a storm coming up. The white lights of the higher sky were +being closed down by black blocks of cloud that spread, from one to +another, merging far on the horizon above the hills into driving lines +of rain. The white chalk hollows above Lewes stood out sharp and clear; +the dark green of the fields was now a dull grey, the hedges were dark +and a thin stream that cut the flat surface of the plain was black like +ink. + +Roddy welcomed the storm. Had he been superstitious the physical energy +that now pervaded him might have frightened him. He felt as though with +one raising of his arm he could hold up those black clouds and keep them +off. The rain and the wind had not more force than he-- + +Life was a vast paean of strength--"The weak must go"--He was, at this +hour, Lord of Creation. + +As he went back to the house the rain met him and whipped his cheek. + +"By Gad, I'd like to find the old lady sittin' in the house, waitin' for +a chat," he thought. + +When he came down to dinner, he came as one who rules the world. That +simple clear light was in his eyes that was always there when he had +found the solution to something that perplexed him. His expression too +was one that belonged to Rachel's earlier experience of him, one that +she had not seen on his face for a long time past. His strong but +rather stupid mouth had somewhere in its corners the suspicion of a +smile. His chin stuck out rather obstinately--the light in the eyes, the +smile, the set lips, these things revealed the old Roddy. + +After dinner Lizzie went off to her room. + +For a while Roddy and Rachel sat there--She read some book, her eyes +often leaving the page and staring into the fire. + +Then she got up and said good night. She came over and bent down and +kissed him. He caught her arm and held her. + +"I say, old girl, it's time we had the same room again--much more +convenient." He heard her catch her breath and felt her tremble. She +tried to draw her arm away, but he held her. + +"Oh! but soon, Roddy--Yes--but not just now--I----" + +"Yes--now. I'll see about it to-morrow." She stepped back from him, +dragging herself away, and then put her hand to her forehead with a +desperate gesture. + +"No, no--not----" + +He got up and smiling, swaying a little, faced her-- + +"Yes--I've made up my mind--all this business has got to come to an +end--Been goin' long enough." + +"What business?" + +"Seein' nothing of you--nothing from mornin' till night. You know, old +girl, it isn't fair--if we didn't care about one another----" + +"Yes, I know--but don't let's discuss it to-night. I'm tired, +headachy--this storm----" + +He said nothing--She looked at him and at the steady stare in his eyes +and the smile at his mouth turned away. + +She moved towards the door--He said nothing, but his eyes followed her. + +"Good night," she said, turning round to him--but he still said nothing, +only stood there very square and set. + +For a long time he sat, looking into the fire--Then he went up to his +room and very slowly undressed. Afterwards he came out, carefully +closing the door behind him, then, in dressing-gown and pyjamas, went +down the passage to Rachel's door. + +The house was very still, but the storm was raging and the boughs of +some tree hit, with fierce protesting taps, a window at the passage-end. + +He knocked at her door, waited, then heard her ask who was there. + +"It's I, Roddy," he said. There was a pause, then the door was opened. +He came in and stood in the doorway. Rachel was sitting up in bed, her +face very white, her eyes fixed on him. + +"I'm sleepin' here to-night, Rachel," he said. + +Her voice was a whisper--"No, Roddy--no--not--not----" + +"Yes," he said firmly. + +"No, not to-night." + +"Yes--to-night--now." + +He walked carefully across the room, took off his dressing-gown, and +hung it over a chair. He looked about the room. + +"Too much light"--he said and, going to the door, switched off all the +lights save the one above the bed. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +LIZZIE'S JOURNEY--III + + "Exile of immortality, strongly wise, + Strain through the dark with undesirous eyes, + To what may be beyond it. Sets your star, + O heart, for ever? Yet behind the night, + Waits for the great unborn, somewhere afar, + Some white tremendous daybreak." + + RUPERT BROOKE. + + +I + +That night Lizzie had a dream and, waking in the early hours of the grey +dim morning, saw before her every detail of it. She had dreamt that she +was lost in the house. No human being was there. Every room was closed +and she knew that every room was empty. + +It was full day, but only a dull yellow light lit the passages.--She +could not find her way to the central staircase. A passage would be +familiar to her and then suddenly would be dark and vague and menacing. +She opened doors and found wide dusty empty rooms with windows thick in +cobwebs and beyond them a garden green, tangled, deserted. + +She knew that if she did not escape soon some disaster would overtake +her, some disaster in which both Roddy and Rachel would be involved. She +knew also that, in some way, Rachel's safety absolutely depended upon +her--She felt, within herself, a struggle as to whether she should save +Rachel. She did not wish to save Rachel.... But some impulse drove +her.... + +She ran down the passage, stumbling in the strange indistinct yellow +light--She knew that, could she only reach the garden, Rachel would be +saved. + +She reached a window, looked down, and saw below her, like a green pond, +the lawn overgrown now with weeds and bristling with strange twisted +plants. + +She flung open the window and tried to jump, but a cold blast of some +storm met her and drove her back. The storm screamed about her, the dust +rose in the room, the plants in the garden waved their heads ... the +wind rushed through the house and she heard doors banging and windows +creaking. + +She knew suddenly that she was too late--Rachel was dead. + +She stood there thinking, "I thought that I hated her--I know now that I +loved her all the time." + +The storm died down--died away. A voice quite close to her said, "You +made a mistake, Miss Rand. People have souls, you know--having a soul of +your own is more important than criticizing other people's.... People +have souls, you know." + +She woke and heard a clock strike seven. As she lay there a sense of +uneasiness was with her so strongly that she repeated to herself, half +sleeping, half waking, "I wish to-day were over, quite over, quite over. +I want to-day to be over." + +She was completely wakened by a sound. She lay there for a little time +wondering what it was. Then she realized that something was scratching +on the door. + +She got out of bed, opened the door and found the dog, Jacob, sitting in +the long dark passage, looking through his tangled hair into space as +though the very last thing that he had been doing had been trying to +attract her attention. Jacob was nearer to a human being than any animal +that she had ever known. He had attached himself to Miss Rand and she +had decided, after watching him, that he knew more about the situation +in the house than anyone else. To catch him, as he watched, with his +grave brown eyes, Roddy or Rachel as they spoke or moved was to have no +kind of doubt as to his wisdom, his deep philosophy, his penetration +into motives. + +He liked Miss Rand, but she knew well that his feeling for her had +nothing of the passionate urgency with which he regarded Roddy or +Rachel. All tragedy--the depths and the heights of it--she had seen in +that dog's eyes, fixed with the deepest devotion upon Roddy.--"He +knows," she had often thought during the last week, "exactly what's the +matter with all of us." + +He always slept, she knew, in a basket in Rachel's room, and she +wondered why he had been ejected. He sat now in the middle of the floor +and seemed deeply unhappy. He sat square with his legs spread out, his +hair hanging in melancholy locks over his eyes, his small beard giving a +last wistful touch to his expression. He did not look at Lizzie or show +any interest in her, he only stared before him at the pattern on the +wall. + +Lizzie did not attempt to pat him--she went back to bed, and, lying +there, saw the light gather about the room. + +Once Jacob sighed. Otherwise he made no movement until the maid came in +with Lizzie's tea--Then he crawled under the bed. + + +II + +When she came down to breakfast she felt that she could not endure +another day of this place. She wished now for no revenge upon Rachel, +she had no longer any curiosity as to the particular feelings of any one +of these people for any other ... she felt detached from them all, and +utterly, absolutely weary. + +She was weighed down with a sense of disaster and she felt that she +must, instantly, escape from it all, fling herself again into her London +work, deal with the tiresome commonplaces of her mother and sister--she +must escape. + +Roddy was sitting alone at breakfast and she saw at once that he was +uneasy. He seemed to avoid her eyes and he coloured as she came towards +him. + +"Mornin', Miss Rand," he said, "Rachel's not comin' down. Bit of +headache--rotten night." + +"I didn't have a very good night either. That storm made me sleep +badly." + +"Yes, wasn't it a corker? It's all right to-day though." + +She looked through the wide high windows and saw out over a country +painted as in a delicate water-colour--The softest green and dark brown +lay beneath a pale blue sky, very still, very gentle. Tiny white puffs +of cloud were blown, like soap bubbles across the sun, so that bright +gleams floated and passed and flashed again. + +She drew a deep breath--"Nothing terrifying in such a day as this." + +"Yes, it's beautiful--beautiful! I'm off for the day," Roddy said, +"ridin'----" + +She helped herself to some breakfast and sat down. + +Roddy said, "Well, no one would ever believe _you'd_ had a bad night, +Miss Rand."--"You're fresh as a pin." + +"Thank you," she said, laughing. "But, all the same, I _did_ sleep +badly." + +"I'm not feeling princely myself," he confessed, "that's why I'm goin' +off for a ride, nothin' like a ride to take you out of yourself. Don't +you ever feel, Miss Rand, that you want to get right away from yourself +and be someone else?" + +She looked at him. Roddy was in real trouble. His very physical strength +showed the more clearly that he was unhappy. His fingers moved +restlessly, his eyes were never still. She looked at her letters. There +was one from Lady Adela. + +"Oh! I'm sorry--I'm afraid I shall have to go back almost +immediately--The Duchess is much less well--They're worried about her." + +"The Duchess!" Roddy started up and then sat down again. "I'm sorry--I +was thinking about her only yesterday. What's the matter?" + +"Lady Adela doesn't say, but she asks about you--the Duchess, I mean. +Got it into her head, Lady Adela says, that you're not well or +something." + +"I'll write to her." Roddy spoke slowly as though to himself--"I've not +treated her very well lately and she's always been such a brick to me." +He left his breakfast, walked backwards and forwards once or +twice--"Always been such a brick to me, the old lady has," he repeated. + +Lady Adela really did want Lizzie to return. This horrid war was getting +on her nerves, the house was all in disorder and nobody seemed either +well or happy. + +"Somebody really does want me," thought Lizzie with a certain grim +satisfaction. + +But she was terribly restless that morning. She could settle down to +nothing and ended by walking up and down the garden paths, watching the +pale winter light cross the Downs in sweeping shadow, seeing the bare +branches, all black and sharp against the blue distance. + +How she loved life and how, at every turn, life was thrust from her! For +that other woman, there inside the house, two men were ready, eager to +die--for herself, in all the world, no one cared. + +There came up to her again, borne as it were on the sharp winter air, a +determination to drive down Rachel's defences. The very sense that now, +after Lady Adela's letter, she must shortly return to London, hardened +her resolution. + +Before breakfast she had felt that she did not care, now, quite suddenly +she was determined that she would confront Rachel and drag the truth +from her. How much did Rachel care? Was Rachel already involved in a +liaison with Breton? + +And, at that thought, a pain so fierce clutched her heart that for a +moment she could not see and the garden and the sky mingled like +coloured smoke before her eyes. + +Suddenly, coming to the end of the garden by the stone gate she saw that +a strange thing had happened--one of the gryphons, perched there for +many centuries, had tumbled to the ground and lay in the path, beyond +the garden, broken into two pieces. + +The storm of last night must have driven it down. But what had broken +it? + +She was sorry. She knew how deeply attached Roddy was to those gryphons; +she remembered his pride when he had pointed them out to her. + +The other gryphon looked very lonely. + +"He _will_ be distressed." The dead leaves on the path were trembling +over the broken pieces of stone and whistling, in little excited groups, +above it--"Just as though they are glad," she thought. + +She and Rachel had a very amiable conversation at luncheon. Rachel +confessed to a bad night. + +Lizzie told her about Jacob. + +"How tiresome of him to come and bother you--yes, I couldn't sleep and +he was very restless too, so I put him into the passage. It was after +six--I meant him to go down to the servants' hall. I'm so sorry, Miss +Rand." + +"Oh, he didn't worry me at all. I _was_ awake." That appeal was in +Rachel's eyes to-day more than ever. Lizzie saw it and steeled her +heart. "I must know," she thought. "I _must_ know." + +"I'm afraid," she said, "that I'll have to go back to London to-morrow. +I heard from Lady Adela this morning--The Duchess is not so well." + +"Oh!" Rachel caught her breath--"oh, Miss Rand, no, no, oh! I hope not! +You _must_ stay! I----!" her colour came and went. "There's the dance. I +don't know what I shall do without you." And she went on more +desperately, catching Lizzie's eyes and evading them. "We are just +beginning to be so happy here. My husband likes you so much. I do +hope----" + +She stopped and the colour left her again; her hands were trembling on +the white tablecloth. + +The strangest impulse flooded Lizzie's breast, an impulse to go to her +and put her arms about her and kiss her and let her, there and then, +unburden her heart-- + +Lizzie drove the impulse down, buried it. Her eyes were cold and her +voice hard as she answered-- + +"I'm so sorry, but I think I _must_ go. I can't leave Lady Adela if +things are really difficult. I'll come this afternoon, shall I? and we +might go over the dance----" + +Rachel had been thinking; she looked up sharply and stared at Lizzie, +staring as though she had been some stranger whom she saw for the first +time. + +"Yes--Come to the Chinese room at four, will you? We'll have tea up +there." + +"Yes," said Lizzie, "at four." + +They were both of them aware that something, now quite irrevocable, had +been settled by these words. + +There was a little old library up in one of the towers, and there Lizzie +went. She had a desperate need of some place where, during the next +hour, she might think and decide upon some plan. The room had little +diamond-paned windows that looked down, on one side, over the courtyard, +and on the other over the garden and the Downs. The shelves went from +ceiling to floor and were filled with books that dimly shone with their +old gold and were dusky in their rich, faded bindings. + +It was very seldom that anyone came here; Lizzie was quite alone as, +perched up in one of the deep-seated windows, she looked down at the +garden, saw the stone gate with the solitary gryphon, watched the +swiftly fading afternoon light fill the green lawn as a pot is filled +with water. + +Even now, early though it was, the little room was growing dark. + +She strove now, resolutely, to discipline her mind. Although the very +thought of Francis Breton now shamed her, it was for him that she must +care. "Poor dear," he was even now, in her heart. "Foolish, +indiscreet--must plunge from one mess into another, needs someone--Oh, +so dreadfully--to help him out." + +Her hostility to Rachel did not prevent her from feeling that here was +someone very young, terribly inexperienced, most unhappily +impulsive--the very last in the world to prevent Breton from having +another catastrophe as bad as the early ones. + +She must know absolutely what it was that he and Rachel were doing, and +only Rachel could tell her that--And here her feeling about Rachel was +compounded of the strangest mixture of anger and suspicion, of +tenderness and compassion, of sympathy and hard callous indifference. + +"Oh!" Lizzie thought, "why has all this come to me? Why wasn't I allowed +just to go on with my life as it was--My life that was so safe and sure +and dull?"-- + +She was conscious, as she sat there, that she was listening for +something. She felt, in an odd way, that the day had been a direct +continuance of the dream that she had had in the night; all the morning +she had been aware that her ears, in spite of herself, had been waiting +for some sound, a message, or an arrival. + +She sat now in the swiftly darkening room, as though she had been told +that someone was coming at such and such an hour and she had heard the +clock strike and was listening for the grating of the wheels on the +cobbles of the courtyard. + +The calm winter's day passed now into a purple twilight--lights were +coming in the windows-- + +She thought she heard a step in the passage and was startled as though +someone had been suddenly, unexpectedly within the room. + +She opened the window and listened--"Someone--several people--will come +down that garden path in a minute--I know they will." + +But the air was very cold and she closed the window; even as she did so +a clock struck four. + +She got up and went to Rachel. + + +III + +The Chinese room was so called because its walls were covered with a +stiff golden Chinese paper. It had wide windows looking on to the +garden; Rachel used it a great deal. + +Lizzie fixed upon her mind, very deliberately, all the details of her +surroundings. Rachel was dressed in black with red round her throat and +her waist, and this brilliant colour made her face seem white and there +were deep, heavy black marks under her eyes. + +She looked up when Lizzie came in, seemed, with a violent effort, to +compel control. + +They sat there for some time and discussed the dance; the dusk filled +the room, then tea was brought. There was a light in their corner; +slowly the rest of the room grew dark. + +They finished tea, it was taken away, and Lizzie, sitting quite close to +Rachel, on a little sofa that had a window just behind it, was aware +that again, in spite of herself, her ears were straining for some sound. +The house and all the world were profoundly still. + +When the servant had at last left them alone, Rachel said--"Miss Rand, +you mustn't go away to-morrow--Aunt Adela can manage for another week. +After all, she did promise that you should stay for me over the ball." + +"Why did you ask me here, Lady Rachel?" Lizzie said. Her speech was a +direct challenge and, instantly, when she had spoken she knew that they +had entered upon those personal relations that they had, during all +these weeks, feared. + +"I asked you because I wanted you for a friend--I've no friend--no woman +friend--whom I can trust. I knew that I could trust you--I hoped that +you could help me----" + +"I've been here for some time now and you have told me nothing." + +"No--because you have held me off, have shown me so plainly that you +disliked and distrusted me. You didn't always dislike me--what have I +done?" + +"That's only my way. As I told you this morning, Lady Seddon, I'm not an +emotional person. But I feel more than I show. I would like to help you, +if you will let me." + +Rachel leaned forward and caught first Lizzie's arm, then her hand. Then +she spoke, her voice quivering as though she were forcing upon herself +the most intense control. + +"Oh! you're so strange, so odd I don't know what you feel, whether you +care, but these last months have been so hard for me that even though +you hate me, despise me, it doesn't matter--nothing matters if only I +can get away from myself, you're so different--so dry, so hard, but you +are, you are!--just as hard----" she stopped--Lizzie drew her hand away. + +"Please--don't tell me things if you feel about me like that. It hasn't +been my fault, has it, that we don't get on? _I_ didn't ask to come +here, to know you--let me go--let me go back. Don't bother about +me--leave me alone," she at last brought out. + +But Rachel said more urgently--"No, don't go now. Even though you don't +care, even though you hate me, help me. I've no one else. If only you +knew the things I've suffered these past weeks, how I've hated myself +for my indecision, for my weakness and shame. I don't know why I feel as +though you were the only person to whom I could talk. I'm being driven, +I suppose, by this long silence--and then you're so absolutely to be +trusted--even though you dislike me--you're straight all through--I've +always known that." + +At Lizzie's heart again now that strange confusion of sensation, and +with it a sure conviction that fate had this scene between them in hand, +and that events now, whatever the hours might bring forth, were beyond +her control. + +"Yes, you may trust me," she said drily--"I'm useful, at any rate for +that." + +Lizzie watched her as, in the little pause that followed, Rachel +struggled for concentration and for the point of view that would make +the strongest appeal. _That_, Lizzie grimly knew, was the thing for +which the girl was struggling and it yielded her the pleasanter irony +because she was, herself, so surely aware of that one fact that all +Rachel's confessions contained-- + +For herself she had only confidently to sit and wait.... Then Rachel +plunged-- + +"I'm unhappy," she said, "in my married life, miserably unhappy, and +entirely, utterly by my own fault. I've tried, or fancied that I've +tried. I've done what I've thought was my best--Things have happened +now, at last, that have made it impossible--I can't go on any longer." + +She spoke as though she were, very urgently, endeavouring to deliver a +fair honest statement. There was in her voice a note that showed that +life had truly, of late, been very hard for her-- + +"I married, in the beginning, for a wrong reason. I knew then that I +didn't love my husband. I married because I wanted to escape. I had +always hated my grandmother and she had always hated me--you knew that, +Miss Rand; everyone who had anything to do with us knew it. She had done +more than hate me, she had made me frightened--frightened of life and +people. Someone came along who was kind and easy and comfortable, and +everyone said it would be a good thing, and so I, not because I loved +him, but because I wanted to escape from my grandmother, married him. +Because I had to silence everything that was honest in me I'm paying +now." + +"It was all quite natural," Lizzie said. "Most women would have done the +same." + +"It was horrible from the beginning; I found that I had not escaped from +my grandmother at all. She had arranged the marriage and now was +always, and in some curious way, influencing it. + +"I soon saw what I had done--that I had been false to myself and +therefore false to everything else. My husband was in love with me--He +was very patient and good to me, but I found that everything that I did +or thought or said in connection with my husband was false. What made it +so hard was that I was, and I am, very fond of him. My training--the +training of all our family had always been--to learn how to be sham, so +that one's real self never appeared all one's life. It ought to have +been easy enough--but I've never been like one of my family--I'd always +been different. + +"I had determined that this year I would do my duty to Roddy--But it's +harder than any determination can govern. It's bad for Roddy, it's +deadly for me ... at last things have happened that have made it +impossible for me--I've made up my mind this morning. I must leave +Roddy, let him divorce me, give him a better chance with someone else." + +She spoke with the desperate immediate determination of youth, staring +in front of her, her hands clenched. Like flame at Lizzie's heart leapt +this knowledge. + +"She and Breton are going--only you can stop them--she and Breton." + +"Don't you think," said Lizzie, "a little of your husband?" + +"I'm thinking of him all the time--It's for his sake--that he should +have a better chance with someone who cared----" + +"No, that isn't true," said Lizzie--"It's because you love someone +else----" + +Rachel, with her head down, whispered, "Yes--it's because ... someone +else." + +"Francis Breton." + +"Yes, Francis Breton." + +That whisper of his name had in it confidence, worship, defiance ... all +these things were torture to Lizzie sitting there, very composed, very +stern, very quiet. _She_ should have been able to say that name with +just that precious intimacy, and she saw, in Rachel's eyes, beyond her +trouble the glad pride that the pronouncing of the name had given her. + +"You know?" Rachel asked at length. + +"Yes----" + +"You've known a long time." + +"Yes--a long time." + +"Oh! If you'd only spoken to me!--All this time I've been wanting you +to--You _must_ have known." + +"Yes--I knew." Then Lizzie brought out slowly, letting her grave eyes +wander over Rachel's face-- + +"You yourself insisted on telling me. You have brought it upon yourself +if I say what I must...." + +Rachel caught the hostility. + +"Yes?" she said sharply. + +"I'm older than you--older in every way. You know so little yet, the +harm that you can do.... You must leave Francis Breton alone, Lady +Seddon." + +Rachel laughed--"Of course I knew that you--that it was the kind of way +that you must look at it. But don't you see, we've got past all that +first stage--It isn't, in the very least, any good looking at it from +any general point of view. It's simply the individual happiness of the +three of us, my husband, Francis Breton, myself--It's better for all of +us that I should go." + +"No ... not better for Francis Breton." + +Rachel moved impatiently--"He--he and I--can judge that, Miss Rand----" + +"No--You can't--you're too young. You don't know--I have a right to +speak here, I know him--I have known him all this time----" + +Lizzie broke off. Rachel, suddenly looking up, gazed at her--Lizzie, +fiercely, also proudly as though she were guarding something very +precious that they were trying to take from her, returned her gaze. + +"All this time," Rachel said slowly. "You've known him--of course ... at +Saxton Square...." + +Then, as though the revelation had suddenly broken upon her, "Why +you--you----!" + +"Yes," said Lizzie, now fiercely indeed, hurling back at the girl the +_naivete_ of her surprise. "Yes--it's odd, isn't it? I'm not the kind of +woman, am I, ever to care for a man, or to have a man care for me?--To +have any feeling or desire or affection. But it is not so strange as it +may seem--I love him every bit as well as you do--I've cared more +patiently perhaps, more unselfishly even. But there it is ... it gives +me the right." + +Nothing more surprising than that on this special circumstance Rachel +had never reckoned. Feeling it now, blazing there before her, the way +that she was to deal with it was beyond her experience. In an instant +Lizzie Rand was, to her, a new creature. Always she had seen Lizzie +patiently, with method, with discipline, putting things in order--that +was her world and dominion. Lizzie had appeared, to Rachel, to stand for +all the things that she herself was not. Rachel had often envied that +absence of emotion, that security from impulse and passion, and it was +upon that very security that Rachel had wished to depend. It was that +that had driven her to seek Lizzie's friendship. She herself so unsure, +so caught and destroyed by powers too potent for her resistance, had +looked with wonder and desire upon Lizzie's safety-- + +Now Lizzie Rand was no longer Lizzie Rand. She was of Rachel's number, +she might, as easily as Rachel, be swept, whirled away,--after death and +destruction. + +But there was more than that. There was the realization that Lizzie must +hate her, that Lizzie was the last person in the world to whom she +should have given her confidence, that Lizzie would fight now to the +last breath in her body to keep Francis Breton from her. + +During a long silence they sat facing one another--the little room was +now nearly dark and it was only by the faint pale shadow from the sky +beyond the window that they could catch, each from each, their +consciousness of their new relationship. + +It was during that silence that Lizzie was again aware that her ears +were straining to catch some sound.... + +"I didn't know," Rachel said at last very softly; "it must seem brutal +to you now that I should have told you all this. I wouldn't of course +have spoken." + +"Ah! you needn't mind," Lizzie said grimly. "He's never seen anything of +it. You must never give him any reason to suspect--I trust you for that. +No one in this world knows but you, and you should never have known if +it had not been that I _had_ to prove my right to interfere. Perhaps +even now, you don't see that I _have_ a right, but whether I have one or +no, you've got to reckon with me now----" + +"And _you've_ got to reckon," Rachel answered, with some of Lizzie's own +fierceness, "with a power that's beyond your power or mine or anyone's. +Don't you imagine that we, all of us, haven't tried hard enough. Why! +all these last two years we've done nothing but try. Now it's simply +stronger than we are. If Roddy," she went on, speaking now more slowly, +"hadn't forced it.... If he'd not been impatient--but now--after what's +just happened, it's right--it isn't fair to him, to myself, to any of +us, that things should go on as they are----" + +"I'm thinking," Lizzie answered quietly, "simply of Francis Breton." + +"Well! isn't it fairer too for him? He's been living, as we have, all +this time, a life that's denying all his own _real_ self. Anything's +better than being false to that--life may be hard for us if we go away +together, but at any rate it will be honest----" + +"Ah! that just shows how young you are! Don't I know that pursuit of +truth and honesty as well as you? Don't I know that when life's +beginning for us, the one thing that seems to matter is exposing +ourselves, showing ourselves to the world just as we are! At first it +seems such an easy thing--Just round that corner the moment's coming +when the real person in us is going to stand up and proclaim itself just +as it is, fine and splendid? but always something just comes in the way +and stops it--the years go on and we're further off from truth than +ever. + +"You think that if you go off with Francis Breton now, you'll, both +of you, be leading, suddenly, honest brave lives before the world. +I tell you it isn't so. Things will be just as crooked, just as +shadowed--issues just as confused--it will be worse than it was." + +"But you don't know----" + +"I know Francis Breton. Don't you know too the kind of man that he is? +Don't you know that he's as weak as a man can be, weaker than any woman +ever _could_ be? He's the kind of man who must have society to bolster +him up. If the men of his world are supporting him then he's as good as +gold, as fine as you like. Let them leave him and down he goes. All his +life the world's been down on him and that's why he's been down. Lately +he's been quiet--he's been winning his place back. Soon, if he's +patient, they'll all come round him again. But let him go off with you +and he's done, finished--absolutely, utterly. 'Ah!' everyone will say, +'that's what we expected. That's what we always knew would happen.' +Don't you know what kind of effect _that_ will have upon him? Don't you +know?... Of course you do. It will break him up. His old life abroad, +creeping from place to place, will begin again, only now he'll have the +additional knowledge that he's done for you as well as for himself. It +will be the end, utterly the end of him. And I, who love him, will not +let it be." + +Lizzie's speech had roused in Rachel one of those old storms of anger. +She was exerting now her utmost self-control, but her heart seemed bound +tight with some cord so slender that one movement, one impulse, would +snap it--Then.... She saw in Lizzie now, only moved by a sense of +jealous injury--"She sits there, knowing that I've taken him from her. +That's it.... That's what she's feeling--she's lost him. She can't +forgive me for that." + +But when she spoke her voice was quiet and controlled. + +"That isn't so," Rachel said; "it won't, I think, be like that. There's +so much more between us than you can understand. There's all our early +life--not that we were together, but we seem to have it all in common, +to have known it all together. We're unlike our family--all the +Beaminsters--we're together in that--we are together in everything." + +But Lizzie's voice went on, so coldly, with such assurance that, with +every word, the flame of Rachel's anger climbed a little higher, grew +stronger and steadier. + +"There's another thing too. I watched you, more than you know. No, no +man--no man in the world--will ever keep you altogether--there's +something--I can't tell you what it is--there's something in you that +demands more than just a personal relationship like that--Perhaps it's +maternity--it is, with many women,--perhaps it's a great cause, a +movement of a country-- + +"But I know, with certainty, that you will never love Breton as you +should love a man. Realization will never be the thing to you that +anticipation and retrospection are. I believe if you were to lose your +husband now, you'd find that you loved him--All thoughts of Francis +Breton, would go----" + +At that, because at the very heart of her determination burnt +the knowledge that Lizzie's words were true, Rachel's control +was abandoned, her anger leapt: "You think you know--you +think ... why ... why ... you don't know me at all!--you can't know +me--we're strangers, Miss Rand--now--always.... + +"Nothing, _nothing_ can ever make us friends again--I'll never forgive +you for what you've said--the poor creature that you take me for--no +doubt you'd have done better had the chance been yours, but you go too +far----" + +"That was unfair of you," Lizzie said very low--"You may say to me what +you please--That's of no importance to anybody. But Francis Breton's +happiness, his success, that is more to me than anything or anyone.--You +_shall_ not break his life into pieces for your own pleasure. There are +more important things than your personal happiness, Lady Seddon----" + +They were both standing, but they could not see one another, save, very +faintly, their hands and faces-- + +"It's too late, Miss Rand," Rachel laughed. "I shall write to him +to-morrow. I myself shall tell my husband--there is nothing that you can +do----" + +They stood there, conscious that a word, a movement on either side might +produce an absurd, a tragic scene. Lizzie had never known such anger as +the passion that now held her. Rachel was taunting her with the thing +that she had missed; she stood there, before the world, as the woman for +whom no man cared--she stood there with the one human being who mattered +to her on the edge of complete disaster--nothing that she could do could +prevent it--and the woman at her side was the cause. + +A sudden sweeping consciousness of the things that it would mean if +Rachel were dead flowed over her. Her heart stopped--that way--at +least--Francis Breton might be saved.... + +The room, dark as pitch before her, was filled now with a red glow--Her +hands, clenched, were ice in a world that was all of an overpowering +heat. + +Lizzie never afterwards could remember what then exactly happened. + +She was worked to a pitch of anger, she was thinking to herself, "What +would be a way? ... anything to save him...." + +"She shouldn't have taunted me with that"--when, suddenly, exactly as +though someone had taken her brain and emptied it, she had forgotten +Rachel, had forgotten her own personal injury, forgotten her anger, was +only aware that, with every nerve in her body on edge, she was waiting +for some sound-- + +Like an answer to an invocation, the sound, through the closed window, +came-- + + +IV + +She must have made some startled noise, because she heard Rachel say, +"What is it?" + +She fled to the window and opened it. She could see nothing, but she +could hear, as she had known all day that she would hear, steps, +stumbling, falling heavily, upon the heavy gravel path. + +She felt Rachel's hand upon her sleeve: "What is it?" Rachel said +again--"Lizzie, what is it?" + +Both women were seized and held by fear. Their feelings for one another +were lost, sunk in the cold, shattering sense of disaster that had come, +through the open window, into the room. + +They could see lights now and figures--There were murmuring voices-- + +"Oh, Lizzie, what is it?" Rachel said for the third time, and then after +a moment--"Roddy!" + +Lizzie said--"Wait there. It may be nothing. I'll see--Don't you come +for a moment." + +She crossed the dark room, and opening the door saw Peters hurrying down +the passage towards her. His face was in complete disorder--the face of +someone who, throughout his life, has had only one kind of face that +has served most admirably for every kind of occasion--suddenly a +situation has arisen for which that face will _not_ serve-- + +His body was shaking-- + +"Oh! Miss Rand, the master!" + +Lizzie felt Rachel follow her, brush past both of them, down the passage +and out of sight-- + +"An accident--flung from his horse and dragged along--been hours on the +hill--a shepherd found him." + +"Is he dead?" + +"No, miss, not dead--not yet, thank God!" + +"The doctor?" + +"Dr. Crane from Lewes--we caught him, miss, most fortunately, on the way +from another patient--he's downstairs now." + +"Quick, Peters, things will be wanted." + +Lizzie passed to the head of the stairs, Peters behind her said, +"They've taken Sir Roderick into the green drawing-room, miss, so as not +to have to go upstairs." + +She came down the stairs and then stood, waiting in the hall. That was, +for the moment, deserted, but the house wore an air of dismay, surprised +alarm, so that every sound was of momentous import. Somewhere, a long +way away, someone--perhaps a frightened kitchen-maid--was sobbing--the +hall door was still open and little gusts of cold wind came in and +stirred and rustled the pages of some illustrated papers on one of the +tables. + +Lizzie went to the door and closed it--what should she do? To go into +the room and ask whether she could be of use? Her quarrel with Rachel +had made any movement now on her part difficult--Rachel might resent her +presence-- + +Someone came into the hall: she saw that it was the doctor. He stood, +looking about him, as though he were searching for someone, and Lizzie +went up to him-- + +"Doctor, please tell me--I'm staying in the house--is there +anything--anything at all--that I can do?" + +The doctor was tall, thin, black, like an elongated crow. + +"Ah yes--no, I think there is nothing for the moment--there are two of +us here--we instantly wired to London and the London men should be here +if they catch the seven o'clock in an hour and a half. Lady Seddon is +with her husband." + +"There's hope?" + +"Oh yes--I think Sir Roderick will live--It's the spine that's damaged." + +He seemed to realize Miss Rand's efficiency. This was no ordinary +country-house visitor. He went to the hall door and opened it. "I'm +waiting for the things from Lewes. I just came on with what I'd got. +Yes, the spine ... afraid will never be able to get about again--such a +strong fellow too." + +"There's nothing I can do?" + +"Nothing anyone can do for the moment. Lady Seddon's taking it +wonderfully, but she'll want you later. I advise you to get some quiet +in the next hour--it's afterwards that they'll need your help----" + +Lizzie went up to her room and lay down on her bed. She did not light +the candles, but lay there in the darkness striving to compel some order +out of the turmoil that rioted in her brain--her first thought was of +Roddy. Roddy had always been to her the supreme type of animal spirits +and vigour--_that_ had been, above everything else, what he stood for. +That _he_ should have been struck down like this! + +The cruelty, the irony of it! Much better that he should die than be +compelled to lie on his back for the rest of his life--anything better +for him than that-- + +If he died Rachel would be free. Lizzie faced that thought quite calmly! +her quarrel with Rachel seemed to be now very, very long ago, something +distant and remote, something whose very conditions had been torn +asunder and flung aside-- + +As she lay there tenderness for Rachel came sweeping about her--"She +must want someone now--she's so young and so ignorant--never had any +crisis like this to deal with--hard for this to happen to him just after +she'd thought those things ... that must be terrible for her.... Oh! +she'll need someone now." + +Something reminded Lizzie of other things, of Francis Breton, of +Rachel's words, of Lizzie's anger, then-- + +"Ah, but that's all so long ago. It doesn't seem to count. There are +things more important than all of that. What will she do now? Perhaps +she still hates me--won't let me come near her--it's my own fault after +all; I kept away for so long, wouldn't let _her_ come near _me_. Oh! but +she must have someone to help her!" + +After a while Lizzie thought--"She won't be practical--she won't know +the things that ought to be done--I'll wait a little and then I'll go." + +Then she slept. She awoke with a clear active brain; she felt as though +she could be awake now for weeks--a tremendous energy filled her.... + +She left her room and at the turn of the passage met a thick-set +clean-shaven man whom she knew for Cramp--one of the most famous of the +London doctors, a man whom she had sometimes seen with Christopher at +the Portland Place house. + +She stopped him--"I'm Miss Rand, Doctor--Lady Adela's secretary--we've +met in London--I want you to tell me how I can help." + +He shook hands with her, eyeing her with approval-- + +"Why, yes, of course--How do you do, Miss Rand? Yes, you're just the +sort we want. For the moment Lady Seddon's my chief anxiety--she's borne +up splendidly so far, but now I am a little afraid. I've got her to go +and lie down--would you go to her, Miss Rand? Just be with her a little +and let me know if anything happens----" + +"Sir Roderick?" + +"Pretty bad, I'm afraid--He'll live, I think--afraid will never run +about, though, again." + +Lizzie made her way to Rachel's bedroom. She paused outside the door. +This was the very hardest thing that she had ever, in all her life, had +to do. If Rachel were to repulse her now it would surely be the final +absolute proof that she was of no use, no use to anyone in this whole +wide world. + +She knocked on the door and went in. "Who's that?" + +"It's I--Lizzie." + +The room was dark, but she saw that Rachel was lying on the bed--she +went up to her--Rachel did not move. + +"I came," Lizzie said, "to see whether I could help--if I could do +anything----" + +Rachel said nothing-- + +"If you'd rather--if you don't want to see me, of course just say...." + +Rachel turned over and Lizzie heard her say--"I did it--I wanted him--it +was my fault--it was my fault." + +Lizzie knelt down beside the bed. "Rachel dear, you mustn't think that. +It was nothing to do with anyone. But you can help him now, +Rachel--He'll want you, he'll need you now as he's never wanted anyone." + +Rachel gave a bitter cry--Her hand touched Lizzie's, then she flung up +her arm, caught Lizzie's neck, drew her towards her, put both her arms +around her and held her, held her as though she would never let her go. + + + + +BOOK III + +RODDY + + + + +CHAPTER I + +REGENT'S PARK--BRETON AND LIZZIE + + "Yes," said Mrs. Bright, "he missed it all the time." + + "Missed what?" asked Miss Rankin. + + "'Is good luck," sighed Mrs. Bright.--HENRY GALLEON. + + +I + +Francis Breton had known, during the weeks that preceded his letter to +Rachel, torture that became to him at last so personal that he felt +deliberate malignant agency behind its ingenious devices. + +At first it had seemed that that wonderful hour with Rachel would +satisfy his needs for a long time to come; he had only, when life was +hard, dull, colourless, monotonous, to recall it--to see again her +movements, to hear her voice, to remember to the last and tiniest detail +the things that she had said, to feel that clutch of her hand upon his +coat, and instantly he was inflamed, exultant. + +So, for a time, it was. Into every moment of his daily life he worked +this scene--Rachel was always with him, never, for a single instant, did +he doubt that, in some fashion or another, she was coming to him. He had +purchased an interest in some little business that had to do, for the +most part, with candles, and down to the City now every morning he went. +The candles prospered in a small but steady fashion and he found them of +a more thrilling and romantic interest than he would once have believed +possible. He had always known that he had a business head and now that +his life was equable and regular he was astonished at the useful man +that he was becoming. + +He liked the men with whom he worked, he found that some of his friends +of the old days sought him out ... he was assured that he had only to +wait for the death of his grandmother for his restoration to the +Beaminster bosom. + +He was, during these first weeks, tranquil, almost happy, feeling that +Mrs. Pont and the rest were, with every hour, passing more surely from +his world, nourishing always, like hoarded treasure, his consciousness +of Rachel.... + +Then a faint, a very faint restlessness crept upon him. The repetition +of those precious moments was growing dry; from the very frequency of +their recounting came impatience. His assurance that she would, +ultimately, come to him grew chill. + +He needed now something more tangible, and gradually there grew with him +the conviction that she would write. She had said, very clearly and +distinctly, that she would not--but, if she cared as he knew that she +did, then this silence must be as impossible for her as for himself. + +His state of mind now was that he expected a letter. When he came back +from the City at half-past six or seven he expected to find lying there +on the green tablecloth, the letter--In the morning his man appeared +with a jug of hot water in one hand and the letters in the other--There, +one of those tantalizing, mysterious envelopes, must be the letter. + +At first disappointment was reassured with "Oh! it will be there +to-morrow." But as the days passed and the silence grew the torture +developed. Now after that first search in the morning, after that swift +sharp glance to the green tablecloth came physical pain--sickened heavy +drooping of the spirits when the world looked one vast deserted plain of +monotonous dullness, when the hours and hours and days and days that yet +remained to life seemed intolerable in their dreary multitude. + +He would go to bed early in order that the morning letters might come +the sooner; he fled home from the City, his heart beating like a drum, +as he mounted his stairs. + +Only one line, one line, would have been sufficient. It needed only the +reassurance that she thought of him, that she still cared ... _such_ a +short letter would have given him all the comfort he needed. + +The need for some sign came as much from his impatience with the whole +situation as from his love for Rachel, but this, because he always saw +himself as a fine coloured centre of some passionate crisis, he +naturally did not perceive. His whole idea of Rachel was, as the days +passed, increasingly a picture that was far enough from reality--On the +one side Rachel--on the other side his restoration to his family ... now +as he waited it seemed to him that he was in danger of losing both the +one thing and the other. + +There was nothing that so speedily drove Breton to frenzy as enforced +inaction. + +After all, they had been together so little-- + +Breton was cursed with his imagination. All his instability of character +came from his imagination. He looked ahead and saw such wonderful +events, he knew why people did this or that; he could see so clearly +what would happen did he act in such and such a way.... He traced future +action through many hazardous windings into a safe, fair Haven, and for +the sake of the Haven embarked on the preliminary dangers--discovered, +of course, too late, that the Haven was a dream. He saw Rachel now, +sitting alone, thinking of him, loving him, forcing herself to be fair +to her blockhead of a husband, feeling at last that she could endure it +no longer, and so writing! or he saw her falling in love with that same +blockhead, forgetting everyone and everything else. + +In all of this his grandmother played her part. He was aware that behind +all the attraction that he had had for Rachel was the consciousness that +he was a rebel against the Duchess--they were rebels together--that, he +knew, was the way that she thought of it. + +He was aware, however, that he was a rebel only because he was forced to +be one. Let his grandmother hold out her old arms to him and into them +he would run! He would be restored to the family--horribly he wanted it! +The spirit with which he had returned to England was one of hot +vengeance that would, indeed, have suited the finest of Rachel's moods, +but that spirit had, he knew, subtly changed--Here then, with regard to +Rachel, he felt a traitor--Would she come to him, why then he would do +anything for her even to pulling the Duchess's nose--but if she would +not come to him, why then he would rather that the Beaminsters should +take him to themselves and make him one of them. + +But he felt--although he had no tangible arguments to support his +feeling--that the old lady was "round the corner"--"she knows, you bet, +all about things--what I'd give for just one talk with her.... I believe +we'd be friends----" + +His weakness of character came, as he himself knew, from his inability +to allow life to stay at a good safe dull level. "To-day's +dull--Something _must_ happen before evening; I must _make_ it happen," +and then he would go and do something foolish-- + +London excited him--the lighted shops, the smell of food and flowers and +women and leather and tobacco, the sky--signs flashing from space to +space, the carts and omnibuses, the shouts and cries and sudden +silences, the confused life of the place so that you could never say, +"_This_ is London," but could only, in retrospect say, "Ah, _that_ must +have been London," and still know that you had failed to grasp its +secret. + +The dirt and shabbiness and lack of plan and good humour and crime and +indecency and priggishness--its life! + +Many things out of all this glory called him--racing, women, drink, the +gutter one minute, the stars the next--from them all he held himself +aloof because of Rachel ... and Rachel meanwhile perhaps did not care. + +As Christmas approached he became utterly obsessed by this one +thought--that he must have a letter. His obsession had been able, during +these weeks, to clutch the tighter in that he had seen nothing of +Lizzie Rand. Throughout the autumn he had encountered her very seldom-- + +Ever since that night in the summer when he had taken her to the theatre +she had avoided him, and he decided that she had been shocked at his +confession about Rachel--"You never know about women--I shouldn't have +thought that would have shocked her--But there it is; you never can +tell." Lizzie had been very good for him; he missed her now. He would +tackle her, he said, one day. + +Then not only with every day, but with every hour the torture grew. He +avoided Christopher, because Christopher might see things. His work +faded like mist from before him--He could not sleep, but lay on his back +thinking of what she would say if she _did_ write, whether she were +thinking of him--how she found his own silence and what she felt about +it. + +Then he heard the astonishing news that Lizzie Rand had gone down to +Seddon to stay.... At first he thought that he would write to her and +beg her to find out for him all that she could as to Rachel's mind. + +But Lizzie's avoidance of him checked him there--if she had been shocked +at his just telling her, why then she would not be likely to help him +now--No, that would not be fair to Rachel.... + +It occurred to him then that Rachel had asked Lizzie in order that she +might speak of him, have with her someone who could tell her about his +daily life, and so, without breaking her word, yet be in some kind of +communication with him-- + +Soon this became with him a certainty. It assured him that her patience +was exhausted and that she would forgive, and more than forgive, a +letter from him. + +He wrote--then in an agony would have snatched it back again, and yet +was glad that the post had taken it from him. He had broken his word, +and shown himself for the miserable poor creature that he was. She would +never trust him again, but surely now she would write were it only to +dismiss him for ever. + +He waited and the agony once again grew phantasmal in its terrors; then +swiftly came word first that Roddy Seddon had been flung from his horse +and was hovering between life and death, then that he would not die, +but--"Paralysis of the spine--always have to lie on his back, I'm +afraid" (this from Christopher)--then, finally this note: + + "SEDDON COURT, + + NEAR LEWES, + + SUSSEX. + + DEAR MR. BRETON, + + I have to come up to London next Tuesday for the day--I shall + return here that same evening. I have a message for you. Could + we have tea together that afternoon--or what do you say to a + walk in Regent's Park? Perhaps we could talk there more + easily--I'll meet you at the entrance to the Botanical Gardens + about 3.30 unless I hear from you. + + Yours sincerely, + + E. RAND." + + +II + +The effect upon him of Roddy's accident was indescribable. He was sorry, +terribly sorry--dreadful for a man whose whole interests are in physical +things to be laid on his back, like this, for ever. Surely it would be +better for him to die, and then, at that, sober thought would forsake +him--He did not wish Seddon to die, but around the possibility of it, +always turning, wheeling, his mind fluttered. + +He did not know what Lizzie would have to say to him, but, at his heart, +he expected triumph--with so little encouragement, he would wait so +faithfully-- + +It was a cold windy afternoon of early spring and up to the gates of the +Botanical Gardens little eddies came sweeping: twigs and dust and pieces +of paper tossing, under a grey sky, beneath branches that creaked and +strained; Breton stood there impatiently; he was ten minutes before his +time; this biting windy world took from him his confidence ... a dirty +little brown dog walked round and round, wagging, now and again, a +pessimistic tail. + +There at last she was, coming, as orderly and neat as ever, up the road; +her grey dress, her little shining shoes, her hair that no breeze could +disturb, her expression as though she were ready for anything and would +be surprised at nothing--these all, to-day, irritated him. Good heavens! +was she so surely tied to her typewriter that she could understand +nothing of the emotions that an ordinary human being might be feeling? +Had she no imagination? Because she had never herself known sentiment +about anyone alive was it beyond her to consider what others might +encounter? + +Breton would have preferred any other ambassador in this affair than the +neat, efficient Miss Rand, forgetting that there had been a time when he +had chosen her as his one and only confidante. + +"How do you do, Mr. Breton?" she said, giving him her little gloved +hand. + +"It's just struck--I was a little early," he answered, feeling confused +and hating himself for his confusion-- + +"Let's go round to the left here and turn over the bridge and then out +past the Zoo and back--That makes quite a good round." + +"Yes"--he said. + +"I chose the Park because I thought that we could talk better--We might +have been interrupted at home." + +He caught then a little tremor in her voice and was grateful for it. She +_did_ feel a little that this was important for him; she sympathized +perhaps more than he should have expected. + +"Let's come straight to the point, Miss Rand," he said, "you have a +message for me." + +She nodded, felt in the pocket of her dress and produced an envelope, +which she gave him. + +"She thought it better that I should give it you like this because then +I could say something as well--something she had asked me to say----" + +His hand trembled as he saw the writing on the envelope--"Francis +Breton, Esq., 24 Saxton Square"--During what months and months he had +longed for that handwriting and how often had he imagined that letter +lying, just as it lay now, in his hand-- + +He read it, Lizzie walking gravely at his side-- + + "This letter is not easy to write and you must realize that and + forgive me if I have not put things properly. These last weeks + have all made such a demand on me that I'm tired out.... + + "I said once, Francis dear, that I would not write to you until + I meant to come to you. Now I have broken my word--This is to + tell you that everything, anything, that we have felt for one + another must be ended, now and for ever. + + "Don't think that I am angry with you for writing to me. Perhaps + I should have been, but I understood--Only now all my life must + be always, entirely, devoted to my husband. That is now all + that I live for. I feel as though in some way I had been + responsible for the disaster; at any rate his bravery and pluck + are wonderful and it is a small thing that I can do to make his + life as easy as I can, but it will take the whole of me. + + "Perhaps after a time we shall meet--one day be friends--I can't + look ahead or look back; I only know that I am now absolutely, + entirely, my husband's-- + + "Don't hate me for this--it was taken out of our hands. I've + asked Lizzie Rand to give you this. She knows everything and it + would make me happy to think that you two had become great + friends." + +They had crossed the little bridge, left behind them the strange birds +that chattered beneath it, and had passed into the wide green spaces, +often given up to cricket or football, now empty of any human being--the +Zoological Gardens, a deserted bandstand, a fringe of trees on which the +first tiny leaves were showing; above them the grey sky had broken into +blue and white, the cloud shaped with ribs and fleecy softness like a +huge wing stretching above them from horizon to horizon. + +Over the two of them, so tiny on that broad expanse, this wing brooded +tenderly, gravely-- + +Breton had crushed the letter in his hand and stood looking in front of +him, but seeing nothing. His one thought was that he had been brutally +treated,--she had simply, without a thought, without a care, flung him +aside. + +He had, of course, known that this accident to her husband must, for a +time, hold her, but now, in this fashion, she had passed on without +hesitation--leaving him anywhere, anyhow; was it so long ago that she +had said to him that, whether she came to him or no she would always +love him? Had she already forgotten that kiss, that moment when she had +clung to him, held to him? + +He stood there, filled with self-pity. This restraint, this +self-discipline all done for her and now all useless. It was not wanted; +_he_ was not wanted.... + +Had she only preserved some relationship, told him to wait, assured him +that he meant something to her, anything but this-- + +But there was greater pain at Breton's heart than thought of Rachel +brought him. To every man comes in due time the instant of revelation; +it had flashed before Breton now. + +He saw that his relationship with Rachel was at an end, utterly--However +he might delude himself that, in his soul, he knew. There had been a +moment when they had met and the moment had passed. But he saw more than +this. He saw that he was a man to whom life had always been a succession +of moments--moments flashing, stinging, flying, gone--he, always, +helpless to grasp and hold. + +Had he, on that day, been strong, held Rachel, conquered her, made her +his.... He was weak through the fine things in him as surely as through +the base--His ideals forced his purpose to tremble as often as his +regrets.... + +Standing there, he faced himself and saw that, whether for good or evil, +Life for him had always been evasive, fluid, a thing grasped at but +never caught. + +Rachel was not for such as he-- + +Lizzie had watched him and her face had grown very tender--"I know I'm a +nuisance just now," she said--"it hasn't, naturally, been a very +pleasant thing for me to have to do--but I thought that I could tell you +a little about her--I've seen her through all of this." + +He strode along fiercely, his eyes staring in front of him; he looked, +she thought, like a boy who had been forbidden some longed-for pleasure; +she found it difficult to keep pace with him. + +"She's so very, very young," Lizzie went on, "I expect you forget +that--she's filled, above everything else, with a determination to +express her own individuality, a protest, you know, against its having +been squashed by her family. + +"Anything that helps her to express it she seizes on. You helped +her--she seized on you. Now all her heart is stirred by this disaster to +her husband, the most active person she's ever known absolutely +helpless, so now that has seized her. She can't have two things in her +mind at once--that's where her troubles come from--she cares for you. +You'll always be something to her that no one else can ever be, and oh! +it's so much better, so much, much better, than if you'd gone off, made +a mess of it all, spoilt all your beautiful ideas of one another." + +The thrill in her voice made him, even though he was intensely concerned +with his own wrongs and losses, consider her. What Lizzie Rand was this? +It flung him back, almost against his will, as though he hated to throw +over all the ideas he had formed of her, to that first meeting when they +had stood at the window and looked out on the grey square and he had +called it the Pool. Then he had suspected her of emotion and sentiment; +it was afterwards, when he had made her his wise Counsellor and +common-sense Adviser, that he had thought of her as unemotional. + +He felt now that he had been treating her rather badly. He stopped +abruptly and looked down at her; there was something in her earnest gaze +at him, something rather nervous and hesitating that did not belong at +all to the efficient Miss Rand. + +"It _is_ good of you, Miss Rand, to have come and given me this note. +I'm finding it all rather difficult at the moment, as I'm sure you'll +understand. I'd better go off somewhere by myself a bit, I think, but it +was good of you." He broke off and stared desolately about him. He was +not very far from tears, she thought. + +She too remembered their first meeting. She had found him melodramatic +then, a little insincere--Now she knew that she had been wrong. He was +sincere as a child is sincere; the world was utterly black, was +transcendently bright as it was for a child. + +She understood him so well--so much better than Rachel. She knew that +neither he nor Rachel would ever have had the wisdom to endure that +romantic impatience that was in both of them--"They would have been +fighting in a week--But I--should know how to deal with him----" + +The green park and the brooding sky seemed to join in her +tenderness--She had never loved him so surely, so unselfishly as she +loved him now. + +"Tell me," he said gruffly. "I wrote to her ... did she tell you +anything about that?" + +"Yes," Lizzie answered--"I don't know what might have happened if he +hadn't had the accident.... But as it is, I know she's glad you +wrote--She likes to look back on it, but it's on something that +died--gone altogether. And it's much, much better so." + +"To you," he said, "it may be so." + +"Only because through these weeks I've got to know her so well. She's +strange--unlike any other woman I've known. Her great charm is that +she's so unattainable. Men will always love her for that and sometimes +she may think she loves them in return, but no man will ever call the +_real_ woman out of her. If she were to have a child, perhaps that +would ... but we--all of us--you, I, Dr. Christopher, her husband--all of +us who love her will always love her without quite knowing why and +without, in the end, her belonging to any one of us. + +"I've grown to love her during these last weeks and I've thought it was +because I was sorry for her and admired her pluck--but it isn't that +really--It's simply because--well, because--there's something wonderful +in her that isn't for any of us." + +"Well, you've been very kind, Miss Rand, I shan't forget it. You've said +just the thing to put it all straight and clear. I wouldn't do anything +now to disturb her or hurt her husband, poor devil ... it must be hell +for him ... and it don't anyway matter much what happens to me--it never +has done. + +"You've been a brick. If you really care to bother about a rotten waster +like myself I'll be proud.... Good-bye and thank you----" + +He took her hand and shook it and then was gone, striding off, +furiously, towards the trees. + +She walked slowly back to Saxton Square. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE DUCHESS MOVES + + "Fear of the loss of power has more to do with disasters in the + history of nations than any other motive." + + JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE. + + +I + +Trouble invaded the strongholds of 104 Portland Place that winter: The +Duchess was not so well ... no evasions, whether above or below stairs, +could conceal the harsh truth. The Duchess was not so well.... + +To the bewildered mind of Lady Adela the horrid succession of disasters +that the winter had provided no other years could equal. It had all +begun, she often fancied, from the day of Rachel's coming out, from the +ball, or even, although for this she could not find a real excuse, from +that visit to the Bond Street Picture Gallery. It was on that afternoon, +Lady Adela well remembered, that there had first come to her those +strange, treacherous thoughts about her mother that had, afterwards, as +they had grown stronger and more formidable, changed life for her. Yes, +it had seemed that, with Rachel's appearance before the world, disaster +to the Beamister house had appeared also. Her mother's illness, the War, +perpetual rumours of Rachel's unsatisfactory marriage, the uncomfortable +presence of Frank Breton, the horrible disaster to poor Roddy--how they +trooped before Lady Adela's eyes! Finally, more terrible than all of +them, was the complete destruction of the old fiction, the old terror, +the old submission. Lady Adela did not now dare to look into her mind +because of the horrible things that she found there. + +Roddy's accident had had the most terrible effect upon the Duchess. Only +Christopher could really tell how Her Grace had taken it, but throughout +the house, it was understood that the effect of it had been serious. +"Wouldn't give her long now," said Mr. Norris. "What with this War and +what not she was goin' as it was, and now Sir Roderick, as was always, +as you might say, her pet, having this awful disaster--no, _I_ don't +give her long." + +Adela of course saw nothing of her mother's feelings; she never had been +allowed to see anything of them and she was not allowed now. + +The old lady was outwardly as she had ever been, although she spoke less +and, if you watched her, you could see sometimes that her hands were +shaking. She used paint for her cheeks and she rouged her lips. Her love +of fantastic things had grown very much, and, on the little table behind +her chair, there was a row of strange china animals and some Indian +dolls with wooden limbs that jangled when you touched them. + +But Adela was no longer afraid of her mother. Stimulate it as she would, +force upon herself her sensations of the days when she had been afraid, +as she did, still the terror would not now confront her. There had been +a dreadful scene when the Duchess had been told that her daughter was +acting on the same committee as Mrs. Bronson, the dazzling +American ... a terrible scene ... but Adela had come through it without +a tremor--it had not affected her at all. "It isn't that I've changed +much either. I'm just as nervous of other things--I'm just the same +coward...." + +Perhaps it was, a little, that the war had altered one's values--So many +Beaminster necessities were not quite so necessary-- + +Certainly John felt the same, and the one consolation to Adela, through +all this horrible time, was that she had grown nearer to John than she +had ever been to anyone--John and she had been attacked by the Real +World, both of them at the same moment, and they did find comfort, at +this terrifying crisis, in being together. + +But all Adela's energy was directed towards concealing from her mother +that there was any change at all--"She must think that things are just +the same, exactly the same. She mustn't ever know that ... well, +that ..." + +She could not put it into words. Her Grace's illness was never alluded +to by any member of the household. + +There came word, at the beginning of March, that Roddy had been moved up +to London, that Rachel had taken a little house in York Terrace +overlooking Regent's Park, that Roddy was wonderfully cheerful, suffered +pain at times, but was, on the whole marvellous-- + +Two or three days after this news when Christopher arrived at 104 on his +usual morning visit Lord John met him in the hall. + +"I say, come in here a minute," he said, leading the way into his own +little smoking-room--Lord John was fatter, scarcely now as rubicund, as +shining as he had been--as neat and clean as ever, but there were lines +on his forehead, and in his eye, that glance of surprise that had always +been there had advanced into one of alarm-- + +"What the devil is life going to do, what horrible trick is it up to +next?" he seemed to say-- + +"Look here, Christopher," he brought out, when the door was closed. +"There's the devil and all to pay. My mother declares this morning that +she's going to pay a visit to Roddy!" + +"Well?" Christopher seemed amused. + +"But ... Good heavens!" John was aghast--"She hasn't stirred out of her +room for thirty years! She ... she ... it'll kill her!" + +"Oh! no, it won't--" Christopher answered, "not if she really means to +do it. Of course she can't walk much--she won't have to--We can get her +downstairs, and Roddy's room in York Terrace is on the ground +floor--We'll have to see she doesn't catch cold--She'll have to choose a +warm day." + +"She says she's going this afternoon!" said Lord John, still overwhelmed +by this amazing development. + +"Well, to-day won't do any harm----" + +"Are you sure?" + +"Quite sure. The danger with your mother has always been to stop her +inclinations. Indulge 'em all the time if you can, let her say what she +wishes, do what she wishes. If you were to carry her out of doors +against her will, why it would do a great deal of harm indeed--but if +she wants to go she'll see that she's up to it. It may be the best thing +for her. She could have gone out heaps of times in the last thirty years +if she'd wished to!" + +Lord John rubbed his forehead-- + +"It's a great relief to hear you say that, Christopher. I didn't know +how we were going to get out of it. She was so determined this +morning----" + +He broke off--"You're _sure_ it won't do any harm?" he said again. + +"I'm sure," said Christopher. + +"There's something," Lord John went on again, "dreadfully on my mother's +mind--She seems to feel that, in some way or other, she was responsible +for his accident. I can't get at the bottom of it all and of course she +won't tell me--she never tells me things. Perhaps you can get at it. I +saw Rachel yesterday." + +"Yes?" + +"She's very fair about it all. Must be having a very hard time. She was +glad to see me, I think, but--" he added a little wistfully--"I've never +been anything to her since her marriage. + +"She just seemed not to want me after that, and I'd been a good deal to +her before. When one's getting old, Christopher, we old bachelors, we +begin to notice that nobody wants us very much." + +Christopher looked at him--Yes, John Beaminster had changed in the last +year. Had he himself, he wondered, also changed? + +"Yes," he said, smiling. "But I've been an old bachelor, Beaminster, +for years and years and I see no likelihood of your ever being one. You +get younger with every year, I believe." + +"This accident to Roddy," John said slowly, as though he were thinking +it all out, "has upset us all. It seems so terrible, happening to +him ... much worse for him ... and then Rachel--But look here, I know +you've got to go up to my mother, I won't keep you a minute--But there's +a thing I've got to talk to you about--It's been on my conscience now for +ages.... I've not known what to do ... at last I've made up my mind." + +John Beaminster had made up his mind to do something that he hated! To +Christopher perhaps more than to anyone else in the world this was a +revelation of the most vital, the most moving interest--He had known +John for so long, seen him struggling behind screens and curtains, +hugging to himself the happy knowledge that to the very end he would be +able to keep life from getting at him, and now behold! Life _had_ got at +him, wag clutching him by the throat. + +"It's about Frank"--at last he desperately brought out "I've made up my +mind. I must go and see him--now, perhaps whilst mother is--is still +suffering from the effects of Roddy's accident it wouldn't be wise +perhaps to have him here actually in the house--But something must be +done.... Adela agrees." + +Adela agrees! Well, if the old woman upstairs.... Christopher was moved, +as he had lately been often moved, by a swift stirring of pathos. + +"You see, this War has upset us all so, has made one feel +differently--And then he really does seem to have changed, been as quiet +as anything all this time, and I hear that he's working at something +sensible down in the City. I must go and see him----" + +Then they hadn't heard, Christopher knew, of any rumours about Rachel +and Francis. + +Perhaps there _were_ no rumours, perhaps only in the mind of the old +lady.... But then let John say a word to her about this visit to Breton +and out she would come with it all. + +"Yes, Beaminster," Christopher said. "Of course I'm delighted. It's just +what I hoped would happen, but perhaps, as your mother has been rather +upset lately it would be just as well to say nothing to her...." + +"Quite so...." John looked away, out of the window--Poor John! + +Christopher held out his hand, and John took it and for a moment they +stood there, then Christopher went upstairs. + + +II + +Dorchester no longer asserted that her mistress was "better than she had +ever been"--Since that terrible morning when Dr. Christopher had broken +the news of Sir Roderick's accident Dorchester had made no pretence +about anything. This was the time that must, she had always known, one +day arrive, but what she had not known was that it would be quite like +this. + +She was a woman of some imagination; moreover, were there one person in +the world who touched her heart, then was it her mistress; she had +penetrated, she thought, some of the strange secrets and fantasies of +that old woman's soul, and it seemed that now, in these later days, she +was at last in touch with every motive and grim artifice that her +mistress adopted-- + +But no--since that terrible day at the beginning of the year Dorchester +had lost touch, was left, bewildered, at a loss, as though she were +suddenly in the service of some stranger. + +She had known that nothing more terrible could happen to her mistress +than this--When she heard it she said to herself, "This will kill +her--bound to--" She had known too that her mistress would not flinch, +outwardly, and that to the ordinary observer there would be no sign, but +the thing for which she had not been prepared was this silence, a +silence so profound and yet so eloquent that one could obtain from it no +clue, could discern no visible wound, but daily, almost hourly, as she +sat there, change was at work ... she was dying before their eyes-- + +What Dorchester did not know was that the Duchess had been aware, for a +long time, that this was to occur, if not exactly this, why, then, +something like it. + +All through that autumn she had sat there waiting--the War, the +rebellion of her children--it only needed that disaster should overtake +Roddy and the circle was complete. + +She did not doubt that it was because he had married Rachel that this +had happened to him, and she might have prevented his marriage to Rachel +had she wished. + +The girl had now for her sitting there in her room the fatal +inevitability of some hostile spirit. She saw all her past years as a +duel with this girl, the one soul in rebellion against hers. Rachel +had taken everything from her; she had first stirred Adela and John +into rebellion, she had encouraged Francis Breton, she had destroyed +Roddy ... she rose, before the old woman's eyes, black, titanic, +sweeping, with great dark wings, across the horizon. + +The Duchess did not in so many words state that Rachel had flung her +husband from his horse and then watched whilst his body was dragged +along the stones, but, in some way, the girl had plotted it. + +The old woman had indeed during these last months suffered from visions. +There were days when her brain was as clear as it had ever been and on +these days she thought more of Roddy than of Rachel, ached to be with +him, longed to comfort him and make life bearable for him, cursed +whatever fate it was that had ordained that upon him of all people such +a burden should have fallen. Then there were other days when the old +china dragons seemed more real than Dorchester, when shapes and sizes +altered in an instant, when the cushion at her feet was swollen like a +mountain, when she seemed floating through space, looking down upon +houses, cities, mountains, when only like a jangling chain upon which +everything hung, ran her hatred of her granddaughter. + +On such a day if Rachel had come to her and she had been alone with her, +she would have wished the dragons to devour her, would have urged the +silver Indian snake on the little black table to have strangled her. On +such a day she would sit hour after hour and wonder what she could do to +her granddaughter.... + +It was upon one of her clear days that it flashed upon her that she +would go and see Roddy. Beyond the actual excitement of visiting Roddy +there was the determination to show the world what she still could do. +Doubtless they were saying out there that she was bedridden now, ill, +helpless, dying even ... well, she would show them. + +For thirty years she had not been outside her door--now, because she +wished it, she would go. + +She said nothing to Adela about this--she saw Adela now as seldom as +possible. She told John on the morning of the day itself--on that same +morning she told Christopher. + +She told him sitting in her chair, with her cheeks painted and her white +fingers covered with rings-- + +"I'm going to pay a visit--this afternoon, Christopher." She had +expected opposition--she was a little disappointed when he said-- + +"Yes, so I've already heard this morning. I think it's an excellent +thing--the day's warm. You'll have to be carried downstairs, you +know----" + +"You and Norris can do that. I won't have anyone else." + +"Very well, I shall have to come with you----" + +"Yes--You can talk to my granddaughter." + +"It's thirty years...." + +"Yes--The last time was Old Judy Bonnings's reception. They're all +dead--all of 'em--D'you remember, Dorchester?" + +"Yes--Your Grace--Very well." + +Dorchester expressed no surprise--Anything was better than that silence +of the last months. Moreover she had trusted Christopher. She had often +been amazed at the knowledge that he showed of her mistress's +temperament, would allow her temper, her imperious self-will indulgence +one day and on another would control them absolutely. He knew what he +was doing.... + +The picture that she presented, however, when helped downstairs by the +pontifical Norris and Christopher! the house, with the decorous +watchfulness of some large, solemn, and immensely authoritative +policeman, surveying her descent, her own little bird-like face, showing +nothing but a fine assumption of her splendid appearance before the +public, after thirty years, she thus, once again, was saluted by +Portland Place! Black furs of Lady Adela's surrounded, enfolded her, and +from out of them her eyes haughtily but triumphantly surveyed a +crossing-sweeper, two small children with their nurse, a messenger boy, +and Roller the coachman. To Roller this must have been _the_ dramatic +moment of a somewhat undramatic career, but stout and imperial upon his +box his body was held, rigid, motionless, and his large stupid eyes +gazed in front of him at the trees and the light cloud-flecked March +sky, and moved neither to the right nor to the left. + +She was placed in the carriage--Christopher got in beside her and they +moved off. He was interested to see the effect that this breaking into +the world would have upon her. He felt himself a little in the position +of showman and was glad that he had a spring afternoon of gleaming +sunshine and a suggestion of budding trees and shrubs in the Portland +Crescent garden to provide for her. They were held up by traffic as they +crossed the Marylebone Road; drays, hansoms, bicycles passed--there was +a stir of voices and wheels, somewhere in the park a band was playing. + +He looked at her and saw that she paid no heed, but sat back in the dim +shadow, her eyes, he thought, closed. She was, at that instant, more +remote from him and all that he represented than she had ever +been--Curiously he was moved, just then, by a consciousness of her +personality that exceeded anything that he had ever felt in her before. + +"Yes, she must have been tremendous," he thought. And then he wondered +of what she was thinking, so quiet, and yet, from her very silence, +sinister, and then--how could he have not considered this before? What +was she going to say to Roddy? + +At this, the dark carriage was suddenly, for him, as flashing with life +and circumstance as though it had been the florid circle of some popular +music-hall--_What_ would she say to Roddy? + +He knew her for the most selfish of all possible old women: unselfish +only perhaps if Roddy were concerned, but there also, if some question +of her power moved her, ruthless. He had traced the windings of her +queer intertwisted brain with some accuracy--He knew also that the +coloured unreal state that her closed, fantastic life (resembling, you +might say, life inside a Chinese puzzle) had brought upon her led her +now to see Rachel as arch-antagonist in every step and movement of her +day. + +She would not wish to make Roddy unhappy, she might persuade herself +that to hint to him of Rachel's infidelity would be to put him on his +guard--she might say that it was not fair that Rachel should not be +pulled up.... + +Christopher himself could not tell how far this affair with Breton had +gone.... + +During that short time it seemed to him that a crisis, that had been +building up around him, here, there, for months, for years perhaps, had +leapt upon him and that in some way he must deal with it. + +Even whilst he struggled with the thoughts that were sweeping upon him +now from every side, they were at the house--As he stepped out of the +carriage he felt that he was before a locked door, that the safety of +many persons depended upon his opening it, that he could not find the +key. + +"Lady Seddon was out. Sir Roderick was alone----" The Duchess was half +assisted, half carried into the house. + + +III + +The Duchess's feelings were indeed confused as she was helped into +Roddy's room, placed in a large easy chair opposite to him and at last +left alone with him. + +Enough of itself to disturb her was the fact that now for the first time +for thirty years she was able to examine some room different from her +own--A large, high white-walled room with wide windows that displayed +the park, sporting prints on the walls, antlers over the fireplace, a +piano in one corner, a large bowl of primroses on the piano, some +boxing-gloves and two old swords over the door, a wooden case with thin +rosewood drawers and "Birds' Eggs" in gold letters upon it, a round +table near the sofa upon which Roddy was lying and on the table a +photograph of Rachel-- + +All these things her sharp old eyes noticed before she allowed them to +settle upon Roddy-- + +His quiet, almost humorous "Well, Duchess," set, quite concisely, the +note for this conversation. Not for either of them was it to betray any +consciousness that this meeting of theirs was in any way out of the +ordinary. Formerly it had been the ebullient, vigorous Roddy who had +brought his vigour to renew her fierce old age; now that old age must be +brought to him-- + +The Beaminsters did not show surprise at anything at all; had she come +from her grave to visit him he would have greeted her with his quiet +"Well, Duchess"--his life was broken in pieces, but she was not to offer +any comment on that either. + +She was exhausted even by that little drive, and that little passage +from door to door, so she just lay back in her chair for a little while +and looked at him. + +His body was covered with a rug; his hands, still brown and large and +clumsy, were folded on his lap; he was wonderfully tidy, brushed and +cleaned, it seemed to her, as though he were always expecting a doctor +or a visitor or were performed upon by some valet or other, simply, poor +dear, that the time might be filled. His cheeks were paler of course and +his face thinner, but it was in his eyes--his large, simple, singularly +ungrown-up eyes she had always considered them--that the great change +lay-- + +They smiled across at her with the same genial good temper that they had +always presented to her. But indeed she could never call them +"ungrown-up" again. Roddy Seddon had grown up indeed since she had seen +him last; she knew now, as she faced the experience and, above all, the +strength that those eyes now presented for her, that she had a new +spirit to encounter. + +Yes--he "had had a horrible time," but she was wise enough, at that +instant, to realise that the "horrible time" had drawn character out of +him that she, at least, had never, for an instant, suspected. + +The old woman was moved so that she would have liked to have tottered to +his sofa, to have caught his hands in her old dry ones, to have kissed +him, to have smoothed his hair--but she sat quietly in her chair, +recovered her breath and, grimly, almost saturninely, smiled at him. + +"Well, Roddy," she said, "how are you?" + +"I'm quite splendid. Play patience like a professor, can knit five +mufflers in a week and am learning two foreign languages--But indeed +how rippin' to see you here. I've spent a lot o' time on this old sofa +wonderin' how you and I were goin' to see one another." + +"Have you?" She was pleased at that--"Well, you see, I _have_ managed it +and quite easily too, not so bad after thirty years. My _good_ Roddy, +you of all people to tumble off a horse! What _were_ you about?" + +"Oh! it was simple enough." Roddy's eyes worked swiftly to the park and +then back again. "I was worried, you see--my thoughts were wandering, +and the old mare just tripped into a hole, pitched and flung me--I fell +on a heap o' stones, _they_ knocked the sense out of me, the horse was +frightened and went dashin' along with me tangled up in her. All came of +my thoughts wanderin'--But you know, Duchess, I've had heaps of +accidents, heaps and heaps, every kind of thing has happened to me, but +it's never been serious--always the most wonderful luck. Well, for once +it left me." + +"Poor old Roddy." + +"Yes, it _was_ 'poor old Roddy,' I can tell you, for the first six +weeks--thought I simply _couldn't_ stand it, had serious thoughts of +kickin' out altogether, seemed to me everythin' had gone ... it's +wonderful, though, the way you pick up. And then everyone's been so +tremendous, and as for Rachel!" + +He heaved a great sigh--Her eyes half closed, then she looked very +carefully at the photograph on the little round table. "That's a good +photograph of her you've got." + +"Yes--it's my favourite. But you, Duchess, tell me about yourself. You +must be in magnificent form to have planned this great adventure." + +She told him about herself--only a little, all very carefully +chosen--She was fancying, as she sat there, that she was again playing +the great diplomatist before the world. + +This expedition had greatly excited her, it had fired her blood, and +just now she felt that she was equal to taking up her old life of thirty +years ago, playing once more a tremendous part, beating Mrs. Bronson and +others of her kind straight off the field. + +She had a great plan now of coming often to see Roddy and of gaining a +very great influence over him; she did not say to herself in so many +words that she could not bear to think of him lying there helpless and +therefore completely in Rachel's power, but that is what in reality +stirred her. + +Roddy's helplessness--the sight and sound of it--drove higher that flame +that had burnt now for so long before the altar at which Rachel was, one +day, to be sacrificed. "She may come and go as she pleases. He lies +here--He can do nothing. He can know nothing of her movements--He's in +her hands--after what I know...." + +What did she know? The acquaintanceship of Breton's man-servant and +Dorchester had produced the fact of Rachel's visit, of letters--but +wasn't that all? Amongst the strange mingled visions that now crossed +and recrossed her brain it were hard to say what were real and what +phantasmal. But granted that the two of them had come together at all, +why then it was plain enough to anyone who knew them that only one +result was possible--Poor Roddy ... _her_ poor Roddy! + +But she did not know even now that she intended to tell him anything; +her sense of the pain that that revelation would give to him held her, +but as the minutes passed her delight at being back once more in this +gay, bustling world (yes, she liked its new invigorating noises) the +sense of power that she had, and youth, and strength, spun her brain to +finest cobwebs of entanglements. + +She was glad to be with her Roddy again, it was only fair that, helpless +as he was, there should still be someone to guard and protect him ... to +protect him, yes! + +Her eyes flashed at the photograph. + +But for a long time they talked in precisely their old fashion. The War, +friends and enemies, victories and defeats, marriages and deaths; Roddy +seemed, for a time, the old Roddy. + +And then gradually through it all there pushed towards her the +consciousness that he was doing it now to please her; more than that, +again and again she was aware that some bitter jest, some sharp +distraction, some fierce criticism had been turned by him deftly +aside--simply rejected with a deftness and a strength that the old Roddy +could never have summoned. + +Here again then--and it stabbed her there in the midst of her new pride +and confidence--was a reminder that her power, her sovereignty had +vanished! Was Roddy also to be beyond her influence, Roddy whom she had +had at her feet since he was a boy of sixteen? + +The photograph smiled across at her--She bent forward, her hand raised a +little as though to lend emphasis to her words--"And then you know, +Roddy, I'm still troubled with my abominable relation----" + +"What! Breton? Why, how's he been behaving?" Roddy's voice was scornful. + +"Oh! he's not _done_ anything that I know of--But he's always there--so +tiresome to have him so close, and John and Adela have grown so peculiar +lately that there's no knowing--They may ask him in to tea one day----" + +"Oh no, they won't," said Roddy. "He must be the most awful outsider." + +"I wanted to speak about him to you because I thought you might give a +word of warning to Rachel----" + +"To Rachel?" Roddy's voice was amazed. + +"Yes--She's become such a friend of his! Surely you know? That's what +makes it so difficult for me--When one's own granddaughter----" + +"Rachel! A friend of Breton's! But I didn't know she'd ever spoken to +him--Look here, Duchess, you must explain----" + +"I thought you must have known. I've often wished to speak to you about +it, only Rachel is so difficult and I didn't want to worry you, and it +seems especially hard just now----" + +"But it doesn't worry me--not a bit. Only tell me--How do you mean that +she's a friend of his?" + +"Only that she goes to see him, writes to him----" + +"Goes to _see_ him----" + +"Oh yes--is in complete sympathy----" + +"Are you sure?" + +"Absolutely. You must ask her." + +"I will of course----" + +He lay back on his sofa. For a little time there was silence between +them. She was filled now with wild regrets. She wished that she had said +nothing. His face was hard and old--She wished ... she scarcely knew +what she wished; she only knew that suddenly she was tired and would +like to go home. + +A bell was rung and Christopher was sent for. She would like to have +kissed Roddy, but only wagged her bony finger at him-- + +"Now be a good patient boy and I'll soon come again." + + +IV + +Meanwhile, five minutes before this, Rachel had come in. She was told of +the visits, and going swiftly to the little drawing-room upstairs had +found Christopher. + +She flung her arms around him and kissed him. + +"Oh, dear Dr. Chris!" + +But he stopped her. + +"Quick, Rachel. I may only have a minute.... I've got to speak to you." + +Instantly she drew back, her grave eyes watching him and her hands, as +of old, nervously moving against her dress. + +"What is it?" + +"It's just this. The Duchess may ring at any moment--she's been with him +a long while. Look here, Rachel, she knows about Breton--that you've +been to see him, that you've written to him----" + +"She told you?" + +"Yes--long ago--But never mind that now, although I'd have spoken to you +of it before if you'd let me--But the only thing that matters is that I +believe--I can't of course be sure--but I believe that she's come now to +tell Roddy." + +Rachel drew a long breath. "Oh!" she said and, stiffly standing there, +showed in her eyes the pitch of feeling to which now her grandmother had +brought her. + +Christopher went on urgently--"I've been praying for you to come in. I +hoped you'd have come half an hour ago. There's no time now, but--it's +simply this, Rachel dear--tell Roddy everything----" + +She broke in passionately. "You know it's all right, Dr. Chris--you've +trusted me?" + +"Absolutely," he said gravely. "But it simply is that Roddy mustn't be +there imagining things, waiting, wondering.... Perhaps he won't ask +you--Perhaps he will--But, anyway, tell him--tell him at once +everything...." + +The bell rang, he went across to her, kissed her, and then went +downstairs. + +She stood there waiting, without moving except to strip off, very +slowly, her black gloves. Her eyes were fixed upon the door. + +She heard the door downstairs open, the stumbling steps; once she caught +the Duchess's voice and at that she drew in her breath. Then the hall +door closed, but, for a long time afterwards, she stood there without +moving. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +RODDY MOVES + + "... But the Red Dwarf, although as malevolent as possible, + found that his ill-temper had no effect against true love, + which always won in the end, even with quite stupid people." + + _Grimm's Fairy Tales._ + + +I + +It would have been quite impossible for Roddy to have given any clear +description of his experiences since the event of his accident. There, +surely, like a gleaming sword, that cut his life into two pieces, the +fact itself was visible enough, and there floated before him, again and +again, the casual canter, the especial view that was before him just +then, a view of undulating Downs, somewhere to his left white chalk +hollows in grey hills and to his right a blue strip of sea, the wonder +that was in his mind about Rachel, his thoughts chasing back over all +the incidents of their life together, then suddenly the jerk, his +consciousness of falling with the ground rising in a high wall to oppose +him, and then darkness. + +After that there was nightmare in which pain and Rachel, Rachel and +pain, mingled and parted, were confused and then separate, and with them +danced shapes and figures, sometimes in a turmoil that was horrible, +sometimes in silence that was the most terrible of all. Clear after that +first period of misty confusion was the day when he was told his fate. + +He had come out from the heart of the more terrible pain--No longer had +he to lie, knowing that soon, after another minute's peace, agony would +rise before him like a creature with a wet pale malignant face, and then +after looking upon him for a moment, would bend down and, with its +horrible damp fingers, would twist and turn his bones one against +another until the supreme moment came when nothing mattered and no +agony, however bad, could touch his indifferent soul. + +He was now simply weak, weak, weak--nothing mattered. In his dream he +fancied that someone had said that he would never rise from his back +again. For days after that it lingered far away from his actual +consciousness. Really it had not mattered; something, this dream, that +concerned him, but what could concern him except that people should keep +quiet and not fuss? + +For instance he loved to have Rachel with him, he was miserable were she +not there, but at the same time he was conscious that she _did_ fuss, +was not quite like Miss Rand. + +But of this thing that he had heard he thought nothing. "There's +_something_ that I ought to think about. I don't know _what_ it is--One +day when I'm stronger I'll look into it." + +There came a day when he _was_ stronger, a day, late in January, of a +pale wintry sun and watery gleams. They had placed his bed so that he +could see his beloved Downs and the little road that ran from their foot +out into the village. + +On this morning he was wonderfully better--he had slept well, breezes +and pleasant scents came through the open window, geese were cackling, a +donkey's braying made him laugh "Silly old donkey," he said aloud to no +one in particular. Then he was aware of Jacob, sitting bunched into a +heap in the middle of the floor, his brown eyes peering anxiously +through his hair. At every sound his ears would rise for a moment, but +his eyes were fixed upon Roddy. + +The dog had been in Roddy's room a good deal during these last weeks, +had been wrenched away from it. Roddy found that he was touched by this +devotion; Jacob apparently cared more for him than did the other +dogs--"Not a bad old thing--Often these mongrels are more human--But, +Lord! he _is_ a sight!" + +The nurse was sitting sewing by the window. Roddy lay, happily, thinking +that now at last that jolly bad pain really _did_ seem to have been left +behind. He was immensely, wonderfully better; it would not be long, +surely, before he was quite fit again, before he.... + +Then down it swung, swung like an iron door shutting all the world away +from him, inexorable--"Always on your back ... never get up again!" + +His hand gripped the bed-clothes. + +"Nurse." + +"Yes?" + +"Tell me--am I dreaming or did someone say something the other day +about--about my never being able, well, to toddle again, you know?" + +"I'm afraid----" + +"Thanks." + +He closed his eyes and then summoned all the grit and determination that +there was in him to face this fact. He could not face it. It was as +though he were struggling up the side of a high slippery rock--up he +would struggle, up and up, now he was at the top, down he would slip +again--it could not, oh! it could not be true! + +It _was_ true. As the days passed grimly in silence, he accepted it. It +had always been his creed that in this world there was no place for the +maimed and the halt. He was sorry for them, of course, but it was better +that they should go; they only occupied room that was intended for +lustier creatures. + +Well, now he was himself of the halt and maimed--that was ironical, +wasn't it? Indeed he would much rather that he had pegged out +altogether--better for everybody--but, as things were, he would square +things out and see what he could make of it all. Then he saw as, every +day, he grew stronger, that he had no resources; everything in his other +life, as he now had come to think of it, had depended upon his physical +strength, every pleasure, every desire, every ambition had had to do +with his body--everything except Rachel. + +In his other life half his happiness arose simply from the sense of his +physical movement, his consciousness that, as the rivers flowed and the +winds blew and the sun blazed, so did he also live and have his +being--And with all this, most intimately was his house mingled. That +grey building and he grew and moved and developed together; life could +never be very terrible for him so long as he had his place to come back +to, his place to care for, his fields and his gardens, his horses and +his dogs to look after. Now he could do nothing more for it--perhaps one +day he would be wheeled about its courts and paths, but oh! with what +pitying eyes would it look down upon him, how sorrowfully his gryphons +would greet him, with what memories they would confront him! + +He could not bear now to look out upon the Downs on the little village +path--His bed was moved. A day arrived when he felt that it was all, +really, more than he could endure. He was in wild, furious rebellion, +surly, sometimes in raging tempers, sometimes sulking from day to day. +He cursed all the world. Even Christopher could do nothing with him-- + +Then upon this there followed a period of silence. He lay there and +beyond "Yes" and "No" would answer no one. His eyes stared at the wall. +Christopher feared at this time for his sanity. + +Suddenly the silence was broken. He must go to London because he could +not endure the memories that this place thronged upon him--At the +beginning of March he was moved to the house in York Terrace. + + +II + +The little house by the park helped him to construct his new life. The +normality that there was in Roddy, the same balance of common sense, +fostered his recovery. He was not going to die--Life would be an +infernal trouble were he always to be in rebellion against it--he must +simply make the best of the conditions. And then, after all, he had +Rachel. Rachel had been a heroine during this time, and to his love for +her he now clung, passionately, tenaciously, the one thing left to him +out of his great catastrophe. + +She seemed, during these months, to have thought for nothing else in all +the world. She was not so useful in a sick room as Miss Rand--Miss Rand +was wonderful--but there were certain moments when she would bend down +and kiss him or would look at him or would take his hand, when he +wondered whether love for him had not crept into her heart after all. + +Funny when he had gone out for his ride on that eventful morning +expecting that he had offended her for ever! Well, if his accident had +won Rachel for him, it had been worth while! + +But there were other days when he knew for a certainty that it was not +so, knew that it was pity that moved her; affection too perhaps, but +nothing more than affection.... + +Nevertheless he hoped that this might be the beginning of something +else; he would lie for hours looking out at the park and creating +visions. + +He made now something tolerable of his life. People showed a wonderful +kindness and there was always someone to entertain him, some new present +that someone had sent him; people could not be kind enough. He was +grateful for all of this, but he spent many, many hours in thinking. He +found that he had never thought before; he found that he would have gone +to his grave without thinking had not the great catastrophe occurred. He +thought of a great many things, but especially of what other people's +lives were like. There were, he supposed, a great number of people who +had had misfortunes as overwhelming at his--How had they behaved? And +what, after all, were all the other people, in all their different +circumstances, doing? Before this it had only occurred to him to be +interested in the people who were leading lives like his, now he +wondered about everybody. + +Little things became of the greatest importance. Every day he read the +paper with absorbed care from the first line to the last. The +arrangement of the room interested him and he would give its details, +minutely, his consideration. + +He was greatly interested in gossip and he would chatter, happily, all +the afternoon did someone come and visit him. To everyone it was an +amazing thing that he should take it all so easily. No one had ever +given Roddy credit for the strength of character that was in him and +they did not perhaps recognize that his earlier impatient condemnation +of other people--"Why the devil don't the feller stand up to it like a +man?"--made him now conscious that he was himself at last faced with a +similar test to which he himself must stand up. + +But, beyond question, he could not have held the position as he did had +it not been for Rachel; he seemed to see that here was a chance of +seizing her and making her really his own, a chance that would never be +his again. He was making an appeal to her--she was closer to him, he +thought, with every day. + +So his natural humour and spirits returned--At present life was +tolerable; he suffered very little pain and he was aware that a number +of people to whom he had never meant anything whatever now cared for him +very much indeed. + +He was ashamed when he heard of the men who were dying and suffering for +their country--"He would have had to have gone to Africa," he told +himself, "if he'd not had his accident. Then enteric or a bullet and +good-bye to Rachel altogether!" + + +III + +He had often, during those long hours, thought of the Duchess. He had, +always, in his heart, considered her affection for him strange; he knew +that it was difficult for her to be patient with fools and he knew that +his own intellectual gifts were on no very high level. He based her +friendship for him on the naive transparency with which he displayed his +frankly pagan indulgences. His love for Rachel and this accident had +changed all that. He was still pagan enough at heart, but there were +other things in his world. Principally it occurred to him now that one +couldn't judge about the way things looked to other people, and the +Duchess, of course, always _did_ judge; if they didn't look her way, why +then wipe them out! + +He had, in fact, much less now to say to the Duchess; he was afraid that +he would no longer agree with her about things--"Of course she knows the +world and is a damn clever woman, but she's jolly well too hard on +people who aren't quite her style--She'd put my back up, I believe, if +she talked." He had, indeed, always been uncomfortable at the old lady's +approaches to sentiment. She was never sentimental with other people--He +_hated_ sentiment in anyone except, of course, Rachel and she never +_was_ sentimental. + +He looked out now upon the road that ran through the park beyond his +window, watched the nursemaids and the children, the old gentlemen, the +girls, the smart women and the pale young men with books and the smart +young men with shiny hats, and he wondered about them all. + +Sometimes when the grass, was very green, when high white clouds piled +one upon another hung above the pond whose corner he could just see, +thoughts of his little grey house, his gardens, the Downs, his horses +and dogs would come to him-- + +"Come out! Come out!" a sparrow would dance on his window ledge-- + +"Damn you, I can't!" he would cry and then his eyes would fly to +Rachel's photograph--"If I get her it will be worth it, won't it, Jacob, +my son?" + +He talked continually to Jacob and found great comfort in the stolid +assurance with which the dog would wag his stump of a tail--"He's more +than human, that dog," he would tell Rachel; "funny how I never used to +see anything in him." + +Of course there were many days when life was utterly impossible; then he +would snap at everyone, lie scowling at the park, curse his impotence, +his miserable degraded infirmities. "Curse it, to die in a ditch like +this--to be broken up, to be smashed...." + +His majestic butler--now the tenderest and most devoted of +attendants--stood these evil days with great equanimity. + +"Bless you, of course he's bound to be wild now and again--wonder is it +don't happen more often--It does him good to curse a bit." + +So things were with him until the day of the Duchess's visit. His +surprise at seeing her was confused with an assurance that "she had come +for something." After her departure what she had come for was plain +enough to see. + +He had not taken her words about Breton at first with any credulity. His +principal emotion at the time had been anger with the old woman, a great +desire that she should go before he should forget himself and be +disgraced by showing temper to anyone so old and feeble--But when she +had gone, he found that peace had left him now once and for all. + +He knew that the Duchess hated Rachel and he was ready to allow for the +bias and exaggeration that spite would lend, but, when that was taken +away, much remained. + +Rachel knew Breton, that was certain; she had never told him. Breton's +name had occurred sometimes in conversation and she had always spoken of +him as though he were a complete stranger. Rachel knew Breton and she +had never told him.... + +He might tell himself that she had not told him because she knew that he +would instantly stop the acquaintance--It was, of course, simply a +friendship that had sprung up because Rachel was sorry for his +ostracism. Roddy thought that that was just like Rachel, part of her +warm-hearted interest in anyone who seemed to be unfairly +treated--yet--she had never told him. + +Then, lying there all alone with no one in whom he could confide, there +sprang before him suspicions. If she had known this scoundrel of a +cousin of hers, if she had been so careful to keep from her husband all +cognizance of her friendship, did not that very silence and deceit imply +more than friendship? Was Breton the kind of man to abstain from +snatching every advantage that was open to him? Did not this explain +Rachel's avoidance of Roddy during the last year, her moods of +restraint, repentance, her sudden silences? + +Then upon this came the thought, how much of all this did the world +know? Perhaps it was true once again that the husband was the last to be +informed, perhaps during the last year all London Society had mocked at +Roddy's blindness. + +The Duchess, he might be sure, had not spared her tongue--The +Duchess ... he cursed her as he lay there and then wondered whether he +should not rather thank her for opening his eyes, then cursed himself for +daring to allow such suspicions of Rachel to gain their hold upon him. + +In Roddy there was, strong beyond almost any other principle, a sturdy +hereditary pride. He was proud of his stock, proud of his ancestors and +all their doings, worthy and unworthy, proud of his own pluck and +standing--"Different from all these half-baked fellers with only their +own grandmothers to go back to." It had been this arrogance, with other +things somewhat closely allied, that had endeared him to the Duchess. +Now it was that same pride that suffered most terribly. Here was some +disaster hanging over his head that threatened most nearly the honour of +his family--Let Breton touch that.... + +He was alone on that evening after the Duchess's visit; Rachel had gone +out to a party; she went, he had noticed, reluctantly, protested again +and again that she wished she could stay with him, seemed to hang about +him as though she would speak to him, looked, oh! too adorably, too +adorably beautiful! + +Whilst she was with him he saw behind her the dark shadow of Breton, +that fellow kicked out of the country for cheating at cards or +something as bad, disowned by his family, and she, she, Rachel so +proudly apart, could have gone to him--He was glad when, at last, she +had left him. + +Then, lying there, he endured three of the most awful hours of agony +that he was ever, in, all his life, to know. Nothing that had come to +him through his accident was so bad as this. At one moment it was +fury--wild, raging, unreasoning fury--that wished that Rachel and Breton +and the Duchess, all of them together might suffer the torments of +hell--And then swiftly following it came his love of Rachel, nearer now +to burning heights, so that he swore that, whatever she had done, he did +not care, he would forgive her everything, but all that mattered was +that she should be spared, that her honour should be vindicated. Then, +more quietly, he reflected that he was uncertain of everything as yet, +he had only that malicious old woman's word, and until he had something +more solid than that he must trust Rachel. + +Oh! if only she would, of her own accord, speak! If she would only sit +there by his sofa and, with her hand in his, tell him, quite simply, in +what exactly her friendship with Breton consisted--Ah! then how he would +forgive her! How together they would be revenged upon the Duchess! + +If she did not speak he did not know what he would do. That old woman's +mouth must be stopped; he must find out exactly how far the danger had +spread--he must deal with Breton--Now indeed he cursed so that he should +be tied to this sofa; there had swept down upon him the hardest trial of +his life. + +Rachel returned from her party--she sat by his sofa and he lay there +looking at her. + +Had it been a nice party? Not very--One of those war parties that +everyone had now. That silly Lady Meikleham recited "The Absent-minded +Beggar," and they had that French tenor from Covent Garden to sing +patriotic songs, and of course they got money out of everybody. + +There'd been nothing for supper--She'd seen nobody amusing-- + +She broke out: "Roddy dear, what have you been doing with yourself? You +look as white and tired as anything--Has that pain in your back----?" + +"No, dear,--thank you." + +"I _wish_ I hadn't gone, and the dinner at Lady Massiter's was so +stupid--Monty Carfax whom I loathe and Lord Massiter so dull and +stupid--says he's coming to see you to-morrow afternoon." + +"Well, he can, I'm at anybody's mercy!" + +She got up, stood over him for a moment looking so tall and slender, so +dark with diamonds in her black hair, so lovely to-night! + +She looked down upon him, then suddenly bent and kissed him. + +"Roddy----" + +"What is it, dear?" He caught her hand so fiercely that she cried: + +"Roddy dear, I----" + +"Yes." + +"Oh, nothing, only you look so tired, I wish _I_ could take some of the +pain----" + +"There isn't any, dear, I'm wonderfully lucky." + +Peters came in to take him to bed. + +She kissed him again and left him. + +"Looking done up to-night, sir," said Peters. + +"I am," said Roddy. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MARCH 13th: BRETON'S TIGER + + "If I'd had the power not to be born, I would certainly not + have accepted existence upon conditions that are such a + mockery. But I still have the power to die, though the days I + give back are numbered. It's no great power, it's no great + mutiny."--DOSTOEVSKY. + + +I + +Christopher's knowledge of Rachel, long and intimate though it had been, +had never made him sure of her. In his relations with his fellow-men he +proceeded on the broad lines that best suited, he felt, any +investigation of his own character. Broad lines, however, did not catch +that subtle spirit that was Rachel; he had been baffled again and again +by some fierceness or sudden wildness in her, and had often been held +from approaching her lest by something too impetuous or ill-considered +he should drive her from him altogether. He had been aware that, since +her marriage, she had been gradually slipping from him, and this had +made him, during the last year, the more careful how he approached her. +He loved her the more in that something that was part of her was strange +and mysterious to him; the idealist and the poet concealed in him behind +his frank worldliness cherished her aloofness. She was precious to him +because nothing else in this life had quite her unexpected beauty. + +Since that afternoon when the Duchess had paid her visit to Roddy he +wished many times that he were a cleverer man. He felt that something +must instantly be done, but he felt, too, that one false step on his +part would plunge them all into the most tragical catastrophe. + +He was baffled by his own ignorance as to the real truth; neither Breton +nor Rachel had taken him into their confidence. He could not say how any +of them could be expected to act, and yet he knew that something must +be done at once. He saw Rachel through it all, like a strange dark +flower, mysterious, shining, with her colour, beyond his grasp, but so +beautiful, so poignant! She had never appealed to him as now, in the +heart of some danger that he could not define she eluded him and yet +demanded his help. + +After much puzzled thinking he decided that it must be Breton whom he +had best approach, and so he wrote and asked him to come and dine +quietly with him in Harley Street on the evening of March 13th. Breton +accepted if he might be released at nine-thirty, as he had then another +appointment. + +"Can't stand a whole evening," thought Christopher, "thinks I want to +bully him. Well, perhaps I do!" + +He was detained to a late hour on that afternoon by a patient in Halkin +Street and it was after seven when he started home, driving through +Piccadilly and Bond Street. + +It had been an afternoon of intense closeness, and now as evening came +down upon the town the thick curtain of grey that had been hanging all +day overhead seemed, with a clanking and jolting, one might imagine, so +heavy and brazen was its aspect, to fall lower above the dim grey +streets. The lights were out, swinging pale and distended down the +length of Piccadilly, and already the carriages were pressing in a long +row towards the restaurants; boys were crying the latest editions with +the war news and upon all those ears their cries now fell drearily, +monotonously, for so long had the town been filled with details of +escape, folly, death, ignominy, that it was tired and weary of any voice +or cry that concerned itself with War.... + +Christopher, waiting impatiently for his carriage to move on, thought of +Brun; this oppressive, stifling evening seemed to call, in some manner +too subtle for Christopher's powers of expression, the houses, the +streets, the lamps, the very railings into some life of their own. Under +the iron sky that surely with every minute dropped lower upon the +oppressed town the clubs opposite the Green Park raised their hooded +eyes and stirred ever so little above the people, and the twisted +chimneys watched and whispered, as the trail of carriages wound, +drearily, into the misty distance. Christopher was not an imaginative +man, but he thought that he had never known London so evilly perceptive. + +It grew hotter and hotter, but with a heat that made the body perspire +and yet left it cold. A dim yellow colour, that seemed to herald a fog +that had not made up its mind whether it would appear or no, hung at +street corners. Figures seemed furtive in the half-light and, +instinctively, voices were lowered as though some sudden sound would +explode the air like a match in a gas-filled room. A bell began to ring +and startled everyone.... + +"There'll be an awful thunderstorm soon," thought Christopher. "I've +never known things so heavy. Everyone's nerves will be on the stretch +to-night. Why, one might fancy anything." His own brain would not work. +He had just left a case that had needed all his sharpest attention, but +he had found that it was only with the utmost difficulty that he could +keep his mind alert, and now when he wanted to think about Breton he was +continually arrested by some sense of apprehension, so that he had to +stop himself from crying out to his driver, "Look out! Take care! +There's someone there." + +When he got to his house he found that his forehead was covered with +perspiration and that he could scarcely breathe. Meanwhile he had +decided nothing as to the course he would pursue with Breton. When he +had dressed and come down he found that Breton was waiting for him. + +"How ill he looks!" was Christopher's first thought. Perhaps Breton also +was oppressed by the weather and indeed in the house, although the +windows were open, it was stifling enough. + +"No, the man's in pieces." Christopher's look was sharp. He had never +seen Breton, who was naturally neat and a little vain about his +appearance, so dishevelled. His beard was untrimmed, his eyes bloodshot, +his hair unbrushed, his face white and drawn and his mouth seemed, in +that light, to be trembling. + +"Good heavens, man," said Christopher, "what _have_ you been doing to +yourself?" + +Breton smiled feebly--"Oh, nothing. Don't badger me--I can't stand it." + +"Badger you? Who's going to badger you? only----" Christopher broke off, +looked at him a moment, then put his hand on the other's shoulder. + +"Look here, old man, why have you left me alone all these weeks?" + +"Haven't felt like seeing anybody." + +"Well, you might have felt like seeing me. I've missed you. I haven't +got so many friends that I can spare, so easily, my best one." + +"Oh, rot, Chris," Breton said almost angrily. "You know it's only the +kind of interest you've got in all lame dogs that ties you to me at +all." + +"You're an ungrateful sort of fellow, Frank. But no matter--I'm fond of +you in spite of your ingratitude. Come in to dinner and see whether you +can eat anything on this stifling night." It _was_ stifling, but +oppressive with something more than the mere physical discomfort of it. +It was a night that worked havoc with the nerves, so that Christopher, +who had naturally a vast deal of common sense, found himself glancing +round his shoulder, irritated at the least noise that his servant made, +expecting always to hear a knock on the door. + +Breton contributed very little to the conversation during dinner. He ate +almost nothing, drank only water, looked about him restlessly, muttered +something about its being strangely close for March, crumbled up his +bread into little heaps. + +When they were back in Christopher's smoking-room Breton collapsed into +a deep chair, lay there, staring desperately about him, then, with a +jerk, pulled himself up and began to stride the room, swinging his arm, +then pulling at his beard, crying out at last, "My God! it's stifling. +Christopher--I must go out. I can't stand this. It's beyond my bearing." + +Christopher made him sit down again and then, feeling that he could not +more surely hold the man than by plunging at once into what was, in all +probability, the heart of his trouble, said: + +"Look here, Frank, I said I wouldn't badger you and I won't, but there's +something about which I must speak to you. You must tell me the truth. +There's more involved than just ourselves." + +Breton seemed instantly aware of Christopher's meaning. He sat up. "I +knew," he said, "that I was in for a lecture. Well, it can't make any +difference." + +"No," Christopher answered brusquely. "Whether it makes any difference +to you or no you've _got_ to listen, Frank. It's simply this. I happened +to hear, a good time ago, that you had met Rachel. I knew that she had +been to your rooms. I knew that you had corresponded. I should dismiss +that man-servant of yours, Frank." + +Breton muttered something. + +"You might have told me yourself, Frank. You might, both of you, have +told me. But never mind--it's all too late for that now. The point is +that it was your grandmother that told me." + +"My God!" Breton cried. "She knows? She knew.... But there was nothing +_to_ know. There was nothing anyone mightn't have known. If anyone dares +to breathe a syllable against one of the purest, noblest ..." + +"Yes, yes. I know all that," Christopher answered. "But the thing is +simply this. I don't know--she doesn't know exactly what the truth is +between you and Rachel. All that she does know is that Rachel went to +see you and wrote to you. Now Roddy Seddon isn't--or wasn't aware that +his wife had ever met you. He holds the more or less traditional family +point of view about you. I believe that, two or three days ago, the +Duchess told him about Rachel's visits. I am not sure of this. I hope +that by now Rachel herself has told her husband. But of that also I'm +not sure. All I know is that it's our duty--your duty and my duty to +save Rachel all the unhappiness we can, and still more to save Roddy. +Remember the position he's in." + +Breton sprang to his feet. "Look here, Chris, I should have told you of +all this long ago. I didn't know that you had heard. I wish to God I had +spoken to you. But as Heaven is my witness, Rachel is a saint. I'm a +miserable cur--a misery to myself and a misery to everyone else. But +she----" + +"You've been fools, the couple of you," he answered sternly. "It's no +use cursing now. I won't go and urge Rachel to tell Roddy--she must do +that of her own free will--All our hands are tied. It depends upon the +steps that Roddy takes, and after all the old lady may never have told +him. But I've warned you, Frank. It's up to you to do the right thing." + +"What do you want me to do?" asked Breton. + +"I don't know what you can do. You must see for yourself--only, Frank," +here Christopher's voice became softer, "by all our old friendship and +by any affection that you may have left for me, I do conjure you to play +fair by Rachel and her husband. Rachel is very, very young. Roddy is +helpless----" + +"That's enough," Breton cried. "My God, Christopher, of you could +realize the weeks I've been having you wouldn't think, perhaps, so badly +of me. It's been more, I swear, than any mortal flesh can endure. I'm +driven, driven--I'm at the end.... But she's safe from me, safe now and +safe forever. And that now that old woman should step in--now." + +Christopher came and again put his arm on Breton's shoulder and held +him up, it might seem, with more than physical strength. + +His affection for Breton was an affection sprung from his very knowledge +of the man's weaknesses. He had in him that British quality of ruthless +condemnation for the sinner whom he did not know and sentimental +weakness for the sinner whom he did. He had seen Francis Breton through +a thousand scrapes, he would see him, doubtless, through a thousand +more. + +"We'll say no more now, old boy--You look done up--I won't worry you, +but if you want me here I am and I promise not to lecture. Only you owe +me some confidence, you do indeed." + +Breton got up and stood there, with his hand pressed to +his forehead. "What you've told me," he said. "I must do +something ... something ... it's all been my fault. If they should +touch her----" + +Then, turning to Christopher, he said: "You _are_ the only friend I've +got, and I know it. I do value it--only lately I've been going to bits +again. If it weren't for you and little Miss Rand I swear I'd have gone +altogether. You _are_ a brick, Christopher. Another day I'll come to you +and tell you everything. To-night I'm simply past talking." + +A servant came in and gave Christopher a note. It was from Lord John +saying that he was anxious about his mother and asking the doctor +whether he could possibly come round and see her. + +Breton then said that he must go. He went, promising that he would soon +come again. When he had left the house Christopher stood, perplexed, +wondering whether he should have left him alone. Then he put on his hat +and coat and set off for 104 Portland Place. + + +II + +Breton had, indeed, no destination. He had been frightened of a whole +evening with Christopher. + +He was frightened of everything, of everybody--above all, of himself. He +found himself, with a sense of surprise, as though he were the helpless +actor in some bad dream, standing in Oxford Circus. Surely it _was_ a +dream. + +The sky, grey and lowering, was yet tinged with a smoky red. He had an +overpowering sense of the minuteness of humanity, so that the crowds +crossing and recrossing the Circus seemed like tiny animals crawling +over the surface of a pond from which the water had been drained. + +His old fancy of the waterways came back to him and now he thought that +Oxford Circus, often a maelstrom of tossing, whirling humanity, had run +dry and lay stagnant, filled with dying life, beneath the red-tinged +sky. + +Ever lower and lower that sky seemed to fall. Theatres, restaurants on +that evening were almost deserted. People stood about in groups, saying +that soon the thunder would be upon them, wondering at this weather in +March, watching, with curious eyes, the sky. + +Breton was near madness that evening. He was near madness to this +extent, that he was not certain of reality. Were those lamp-posts real? +What was the meaning of those strange high buildings in whose heart +there burnt so sinister a light? He watched them expecting that at any +moment these would burst into flame and with a screaming rattling flare +go tossing to the sky. + +Near him a girl said, "All right--of course it ain't of no moment what I +might happen to pre-fere--Oh, no!" + +A mild young man answered her: "Well, if yer want ter go to the Oxford +why not say so? _That's_ what I say. Why not say so 'stead of 'angin' +about----" + +"Oh! 'angin' about! Say that again and off I go. 'Angin' about! I'd like +to know----" + +"I didn't say anythink about your 'angin' about. Yer catch a feller up +so quickly, Bertha. What I mean to say----" + +"Oh! yer and yer meanin's. Don't know what yer _do_ mean, if the truth +were known. 'Ere's a pleasant way of spendin' an evenin'----" + +Breton regarded them with curiosity. Were they real? Did they feel the +strange oppression of this lowering sky as strongly as he did? Were they +uncertain as to whether these buildings were alive or no? Perhaps they +could tell him whether those omnibuses that came lumbering so heavily up +Regent Street were safe and secure. + +Oddly enough, although he tried, he could not remember exactly what it +was that Christopher had told him. Something, of course, to do with his +grandmother. Everything was to do with her.... She was the one who was +driving him to destruction. Always she was stepping forward, sending him +down when he was climbing up, at last, to safety, always it was she who +stood behind him, on the watch lest some happiness or success should +come his way. + +He felt as though he would like to go and force his way into 104 +Portland Place and face the woman and tell her what she had done to him. +Yes, that would be a fine thing--to see all those Beaminster relations +gathering round, protesting, frightened. + +And then it occurred to him that he really did not know the way to +Portland Place. Things were so strange to-night. He knew that it was +close at hand, but he was afraid that he would never find it. He was +really afraid that he would never find it. + +Some man jostled into him, apologized and moved away. The contact +cleared his brain, asserted the reality of the buildings, the crowds, +the cabs and carriages. He pulled himself together and began slowly to +walk down Oxford Street in the direction of Tottenham Court Road. + +He remembered very clearly and distinctly what it was that Christopher +had told him. Rachel was in danger because her husband had heard of her +friendship with him, Breton.... + +It would not have been Francis Breton if he had not taken this piece of +news and looked at it in its most sensational colours. He had, through +all these last weeks, been striving to accustom himself to the agony of +enduring life without her. He dimly perceived that it was the emptiness +of life rather than any actual loss of any particular person that was so +terrible to him. He had still, very fine and beautiful, his memory of +the day when she had come to him in his rooms, and had that day been +followed by a secret relationship between them and many hours spent +together, then his passion would have been very genuine and moving. + +But, after all, she had flashed into his life, and then flashed +out of it again, and, so swiftly with him did moods follow one upon +another, and ideals and ambitions and despairs and glories jostle +together in his brain, that she might have remained, very happily raised +to a fine altar in his temple, very distantly recognized as a beautiful +episode now closed and contemplated only from a worshipping distance, +had any other figure or incident definitely occupied his attention. + +But no figure, no incident had arrived. He had had, during all these +weeks, no drama into which he might fling his fine feelings, his great +ambitions, his glorious sacrifices. Of genuine sincerity were these +moods of his--he had never stood sufficiently beyond himself to arrive +at any definite insincerity about any of his movements or impulses--but +of all things in the world he could not endure that his life should be +empty, and empty now it had been for, as it seemed to his swift +impatience, a long, long time. + +Christopher's news did touch him very deeply. He would instantly have +sacrificed his life, his honour, anything at all, for Rachel, and the +fact that he would enjoy the drama of that sacrifice did not rob it of +any atom of its sincerity. + +But the pity of it was that he really did not see what he could do. Had +he been able, here and now, to rush into the Portland Place house and +seize his grandmother by the throat and shake her, or had it been +possible to appear before Roddy Seddon, to declare himself the only +culprit, to proclaim that he was ready for any condemnation, any +punishment, then, in spite of all his unhappiness, he would be now a +happy man, but, alas, the only possible action was to pause, to see what +happened, to wait--and waiting it was that sent him mad. + +One action indeed _was_ possible and that was that he should put a close +to his wretched existence. On this close and sterile night such an +action did not appear at all absurd. It had fine elements about it, it +would deal a sure blow at his grandmother and all that family who had +treated him so basely. What a headline for the papers! "Suicide of +member of one of England's noblest families!" Rachel should be, no +longer, annoyed with his unfortunate presence: he would make it, of +course, quite obvious that she had had nothing to do with his sad end. + +He looked about him, with an air of fine melancholy, at the passers-by. +Little they knew of the terrible tragedy that was even now preparing in +their midst! + +He felt almost happy again as he turned this solution over and over +again. Some people would be sorry--Christopher, Lizzie Rand, and Rachel: +above all, it must be heavy upon the consciences of the Duchess and her +wretched children. They had driven him to his death and must bear the +blame to the grave and beyond. + +Very faintly the rolling of thunder could be heard as the storm +approached the town. + +He was standing outside the Oxford Music Hall, and he thought that he +would go inside for a little time that he might avoid the rain ... and +then upon that followed the reflection that it did not matter whether he +was wet or no--he would soon be dead. + +Faintly behind these gloomy resolves some voice seemed to tell him that +if he could only pass safely through this night fortune would again be +kind to him. "Wait," something told him. "Be patient for once in your +life".... But no, to wait any more was impossible. Some fine action, +some splendid defiance or heroic defence, here and now ... otherwise he +would show the world that he had courage, at least, to die. Most of his +impetuous follies had their origin in his conviction that the eyes of +the world were always upon him. + +He paid his money and walked into the circle promenade. Behind him was a +bar at which several stout gentlemen and ladies were happily +conversational. In front of him a crowd of men and women leaned forward +over the back of the circle and listened to the entertainment. + +On the stage, in a circle of brilliant light, a thin man with a +melancholy face, a top hat and pepper-and-salt trousers was singing-- + + "Straike me pink and straike me blue, + Straike me purple and crimson too + I'll be there, + Lottie dear, + Down by the old Canteen." + +"Now," said the gentleman, "once more. Let's 'ave it--all together." + +There was a moment's pause, then the orchestra began very softly and, in +a kind of ecstasy the crowd sang-- + + "Straike me pink and straike me blue, + Straike me purple and crimson too," etc. + +Breton sat down on a little velvet seat near the bar and gloomily looked +about him. Did they only realize, these people, the tragedy that was so +close to them, then would they very swiftly cease their silly singing. +The place was hot, infernally hot. It glowed with light, it crackled +with noise, it was possessed with a glaring unreality. It occurred to +him that to make a leap upon the railing at the back of the circle, to +stand for one instant balanced there before the frightened people, then +to plunge, down, down, into the stalls--that would be a striking finish! +How they would all scream, and run and scatter! ... yes ... + +Against the clinking and chatter of the bar he would hear the voice of +the funny man: "And so I says to 'er, 'Maria, if you're tryin' to prove +to me that it's two in the mornin', then I says what I want to know is +oo's been 'elpin' yer to stay awake all this time? That's what....'" + +It was then that, in spite of himself, he was drawn from his moody +thoughts by the eyes of the girl standing near the bar against the wall. +She was a small, timid, rather pale girl in a huge black hat. She wore a +long trailing purple dress and soiled white gloves, and was looking, +just now, unhappy and frightened. + +He had noticed her because of the contrast that her white face and small +body made with her grand untidy clothes, but, looking at her more +closely, he saw something about her that stirred all his sympathy and +protection. + +Like most Englishmen he was at heart an eager sentimentalist and he was, +just now, in a mood that responded instantly to anyone in distress. + +He forgot for the moment his desperate plans of self-destruction. A fat +red-faced man came from the bar towards her, with two drinks; he was +himself very unsteady and uncertain in his movements and his smile was +both vacuous and full of purpose. He lurched towards her, put his hand +upon her shoulder to steady himself, then, as one of the glasses +spilled, cursed. + +She refused the drink, but he continued to press it upon her. His fat +hand wandered about her neck, stroked her chin, and he was leaning now +so that his face almost touched hers. + +Breton heard him say-- + +"Well, if you won't drink--damme--come along, my dear--let's be goin'." +She shook her head, her eyes growing larger and larger. + +"Nonshensh," he said. "Darn nonshensh." She glanced about her +desperately, but no one, save Breton, was watching them. She caught his +eyes, pitifully, eagerly. + +The man put his arm about her and tried to draw her from the wall. + +"Come," he said. "We'll go home." + +She drew away. He pulled at her hand. "Damn the O----Place. Wash the +matter? You got to come." + +Then he seized her by the arm, and, still lurching from side to side, +began to move away. + +"No, no," she whispered, obviously terrified of a scene, but using all +her strength to resist. Her eyes again met Breton's. + +"That lady," he said, advancing to the stout gentleman, "is a friend of +mine." + +The man looked at him with an expression astonished, simply and rather +puzzled. + +"Wash--wash...?" he said. + +"You'll be so good as to leave that lady alone." + +"Well, I'm b----well damned. Oh! gosh." The stout gentleman +contemplated him with furious amazement. + +"'Oo the b----'ell I'd like to know? Get out or I'll kick yer out." + +The quarrel had by now gathered its crowd. + +The stout gentleman, lurching forward, aimed a blow at Breton which +missed him. + +"Let her alone, do you hear?" cried Breton. + +The stout gentleman, amazed, apparently, at a world that defied all the +probabilities, turned, caught the girl by the body and, dragging her +with him, pushed past his opponent. + +Breton seized him by the waist, turned him round so that, with a little +puzzled gasp, he half fell, half sat upon the cushioned seat against the +wall. + +Then Breton offered the girl his arm and walked away with her, conscious +that an attendant had arrived rather late upon the scene and was now +abusing the stout gentleman, whilst a sympathetic little crowd listened +and advised. + +He walked down the stairs with the girl. "That _was_ decent of you," she +said. "Most awfully----" + +Beyond the doors the world was a hissing, spurting deluge of rain. + +A cab was called and she climbed into it. + +"What about coming back?" she said. He shook his head. + +"Not to-night. You have a good rest. That's what you want." + +"Well, I _am_ done. Meet 'nother night p'raps----" + +"I hope so," he said politely. He raised his hat and the cab splashed +away. + +"Another cab, sir?" said the commissionaire. + +"No, thanks," said Breton, and plunged out into the rain. The air was +fresh and cool. Streams of water danced and spurted on the gleaming +pavements. + +Breton walked along. The little adventure had swept completely from his +mind his earlier desperate decisions. + +There were still things for him to do! Poor little girl ... he was glad +that he had been there! What a fool he had been all these weeks, sitting +there, letting himself go to pieces because the world had gone badly! +What sort of a creature was he? Well, he was some good yet. Just one +twist of the hand and that man had gone down ... Yes, she was +grateful.... Her eyes had shone. + +And what of the candles, his business? Why had he allowed that to drop +when he had made, already, so good a start? He would be in the City +early to-morrow. Business was humming just now. + +And Rachel? Rachel! + +Let him be content to have her as his ideal, his fine beacon to light +him on, to hold him to his work and do the best that was in him! + +After all, things were for the best. They would always have their fine +memories, one of the other. Nothing to spoil that idyll. + +He arrived, soaked to the very skin, at his door. "Funny," he thought, +"how that thunder depresses one. I've been moody for weeks. Air's ever +so much clearer now. God, didn't that old beast tumble?--Poor little +girl--she _was_ grateful though!" + +Then as he opened the door, he remembered what Christopher had, that +evening, told him. + +"To-morrow," he said to himself, in a fine glow of hope and confidence, +"to-morrow I'll get to work and soon stop that wicked old woman's mouth. +Rachel--God bless her--I'll show her what I'm like...." + +He climbed the dark stairs as though he were storming a town. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +MARCH 13th: RACHEL'S HEART + + "When God smote His hands together, and struck out the soul at a + spark, + Into the organized glory of things, from drops of the dark,-- + Say, didst thou shine, didst thou burn, didst thou honour the power + in the form, + As the star does at night, or the fire-fly, or even the little + ground-worm? + 'I have sinned,' she said." + + ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. + + +I + +Meanwhile Rachel had not spoken to Roddy. Bad though the months had been +since that terrible afternoon at Seddon these days that followed the +Duchess's visit were the worst that she had ever known. + +During the weeks that immediately followed Roddy's accident she was +allowed no line for thought. She discovered--and she never forgot the +sharpness of the discovery--that she was the poorest of nurses. +Everything that she did was clumsily and slowly done; she watched Lizzie +Rand with admiration and wonder. Dimly through the absorption that held +her, thoughts of Francis Breton pierced, but always to be instantly +dismissed. + +Before her was simply the amazing, incredible fact that Roddy, the most +active, the most vigorous of human beings, would never stand upon his +feet again. She could see nothing but Roddy, and no service, no +sacrifice, was too stern or too difficult. Meanwhile subtly, almost +unconsciously, she was influenced by Lizzie Rand. It was not strange to +her that Lizzie should have changed so swiftly from hatred to friendship +and affection. Rachel was passionate enough herself to understand that a +woman will go, instantly, to the person who needs her most, even though +she has hated that same person five minutes before. No, the thing that +was wonderful to her was that Lizzie Rand should combine such feeling +with such discipline. + +To watch her as she moved about Roddy's rooms was to deny to her the +possibility of emotion, of anything that could disturb that efficiency. +And yet Rachel knew ... she had seen depths of feeling in Lizzie that +made her own desires and regrets small and puny things. + +But it did not need Lizzie's power to abase Rachel before Roddy. It +would have been enough for her to have remembered what her thoughts and +intentions had been on that day to have brought her on her knees to beg +his pardon, but when she saw the fashion in which he bore his sentence, +his endurance, his stubborn will beating down any temptation to despair, +she recognized that it was very little of Roddy that she had known +before this crisis. + +Then as the weeks passed and the world settled into this new shape and +form, thoughts of Francis Breton returned to her. She had written to him +soon after the accident, but that was for herself, that she might clear +her mind of anything except her husband, rather than for Breton. She had +considered him whilst she wrote that letter, had seen him as someone in +her old, old life, someone who had stirred her then but possessed now no +power to move her. She wanted him to be happy, but wished never to see +him again; once, long ago, there had been a scene in a room and she had +been carried up to strange and dangerous heights and the world had +tossed and stormed about her--but oh! how long ago that was! How younger +she had been then! + +But, as the weeks passed, that scene drew closer to her and life crept +back into its heart. Sometimes, when Roddy was sleeping and she was +sitting there beside him, and, about her, the house slumbered and the +very birds were still, her heart would beat, beat thickly, her cheeks +would flush, and she would remember that, had it not been for a horse +that stumbled, she might be now far away, leading a life that might be +tragedy, but that was, at any rate, Life! + +She would beat the thought down--she would tell herself what, now, from +this distance, she knew to be true, that she would not have been happy +had she gone with Breton. She remembered that even at that supreme +moment in Breton's rooms when he had kissed her for the first time her +swift thought had been "Poor Roddy!" She knew, with an older wisdom than +she had possessed two months ago, that Breton on his side would not have +held her any more than Roddy, in his so different fashion, could hold +her now. Was she to be always thus, wanting something that was not hers? + +During the weeks that had immediately followed the accident she had +thought that, at last, love for Roddy had really come to her. Then, as +the days threaded their way, she knew that it was not so. He was more to +her, much more to her, helpless and courageous, than he could ever have +been under the old conditions. + +But it was not passion--it was care, affection, even love; she loved +him, yes, but she was not in love with him. He held all of her save that +one part that Breton alone, of all human beings, had called out of her. + +But she had learnt discipline during these weeks--down, down she drove +rebellion, memory. She was Roddy's--she had dedicated her life to his +happiness. + +Then they came to London, Lizzie returned to her mother and to Lady +Adela, and Rachel was alone. Life was again very difficult for her. +Roddy was wonderfully cheerful, but Rachel found that she could not do +very much for him. He liked to have her there, but she knew that many of +his friends who could tell him the town gossip, the latest from clubs, +the hunting and racing chatter entertained him more than she did. She +had not, since her marriage, made many friends and she knew that almost +everyone who came to their little house came for Roddy's sake rather +than for hers. She did not mind that--she was glad that he was +happy ... but she wished that he needed her a little more. Roddy urged +her to drive, to see people, to dine and go to the theatre. She went +because she saw that it disturbed him if he felt that she stayed indoors +for his sake, but she did not enjoy her gaiety. When she was out she +wished to hurry back to him and then, when she was with him again, she +often wondered whether her presence made him any happier. Through all +his intercourse with her she discerned a wistful restraint as though he +would like to ask her for something that he had not got and yet was +afraid. When she felt this in him she redoubled her affection towards +him, but she thought that he noticed this and knew her effort. + +Her thoughts went often now to Francis Breton, not as to anyone whom she +would ever see again--but she hoped that he was happy, wondered whether +there was anyone to look after him, wished that he had some friend so +that she might know that he was safe. Her pride did not allow her to +speak to Lizzie Rand about him; they had had one talk when Lizzie had +taken her letter, but that was all. + +Then, as February drew to a close, she was unwell; that was so unusual +for her that she might have been disturbed had it been anything more +material than headaches, strange fits of indifference to everything and +a general failure of energy. She thought that she was indoors too much +and was now in the air as often as her duties to Roddy allowed her. + +But the indifference persisted. Her feelings for Roddy were an odd +confusion; there were times, when she was away from him, and the thought +of him made her heart beat--"This is love--at last." There were times +again when, as she sat beside him, she could have beaten her hands +against the walls for very boredom and for his impenetrable taciturnity +as he read _The Times_ from the Births and Marriages on the front page +to the advertisements on the last and flung her details--"London +Scottish won their game at Richmond--That Fettes man got over three +times," or "I wouldn't give a button for that horse of old Tranty +Stummits they're all so gone on. You mark my words...." "I'd like to see +that new piece of Edwardes'"--"They've got a girl in it who dances on +her nose--jolly pretty she is, too, so Massiter says. He's been five +times and there's a song about moonlight or some old rot that they say +is spiffin'----" How to adjust this horrible stupidity with the courage, +the humour, the affection, even the poetry that she found in him at +other times? + +There were days when she cared for him with a new thrilling emotion, +something that had in it a quality of curiosity as though he were coming +before her as someone unknown and unexpected. There were other days when +she wondered how he could have remained, through all the crisis, so +precisely the same Roddy. + +Meanwhile between all these uncertainties she lost touch with herself. +It was as though her soul flew, like some bird in a strange country, +from point to point, restless, unsatisfied.... + + +II + +Then those few hurried words with Christopher on the afternoon of the +Duchess's visit flung, at an instant, her whole life into crisis. Even +as the words left him she knew that it was up to this that all her days +had been leading, that at last she was, in very truth, face to face with +her grandmother, that the battle between the two of them had commenced. + +She knew, in those few minutes whilst she stood there, motionless, in +that room, other things. She knew--and this was the first sharp +conviction that struck her heart--that, at all costs, whatever else +might come to her, she must not now lose Roddy's love. Strangely, as she +stood there facing her danger, some warm glow heightened her colour as +she felt from this what Roddy really meant to her. She thought then of +Francis Breton, of his danger if her family understood how implicated he +was with her. It was true that she had, not very long ago, contemplated +running away with him, and surely nothing could have implicated him +more than that, but now that he should suffer and yet not have her, +secured, as his reward for his suffering--that, at all pain to herself, +she must prevent. + +Her first impulse after Christopher had left her was to go down +instantly to Roddy and confess everything. Then she paused. + +Perhaps, after all, her grandmother had not spoken? In that case how +cruel to make Roddy miserable with something that was dead and already +remote. In her heart too was terror lest she should precipitate Breton +into some peril. On every side it seemed to her better that she should +wait and discover, perhaps through Christopher, perhaps by her own +intelligence, what exactly had occurred. + +Four days afterwards, on the afternoon of that day that brought Breton +to dine with Christopher, she had not yet spoken. She had taken no steps +at all; despising herself, afraid for Breton, feeling at one instant +that Roddy knew everything, at another that he knew nothing, ill with +this same lassitude that had hung about her now for so many weeks, +determining at one moment that she would confront her grandmother, at +another that she would go instantly and confess to Roddy. + +Yet Rachel hesitated and did nothing. + +On this close and heavy afternoon Rachel sat up in her little +drawing-room, wondering whether she would wait there for possible +callers, or go down to Roddy, who was being entertained at the moment by +Lord Massiter, or, complete confession of surrender to nerves and +general catastrophe, go up to her bedroom, pull down the blinds and lie +there, hunting sleep. + +The day was intolerably heavy. The windows of the little room had all +been flung open and, through the park, figures wearily dragged +themselves and the waters of the lake lay as though they had fallen, +because of this leaden heaviness, from the grey sky. + +She sat there, listening for every sound, starting at every opening or +closing of a door, thinking that were Lord Massiter not there she would +go down now and tell everything to Roddy, yet knowing in her heart that +if Peters were to come now and tell her that his master was alone she +would not move. + +Peters _did_ come, but it was to tell her that Lord John would like to +see her. Uncle John! She scarcely knew whether she hailed him as a +relief or no. + +"Oh! ask him to come up, Peters, at once. Bring tea here. Lord Massiter +will have his downstairs, I expect." + +Had her grandmother told Uncle John anything? Was his visit in +connection with anything that he had heard? Of all the changes that her +marriage had brought her, that she should have slipped away from Uncle +John was one of the saddest. She loved him as dearly as ever, but +restraint had been there between them, struggle against it though they +might. He was, like Roddy, so ineloquent that anything like a situation +was real agony to him; he could never explain his feelings about +anything and he would eagerly agree with you that it was a great pity +that he had any. What had made this trouble between them? Rachel only +knew that now there were so many things in her life which Uncle John +could not understand. At her heart her love for him was as clear and +simple as it had ever been. + +But oh! Uncle John was glad to see her! His picture of her, as she sat +there, her cheeks flushed, in a rose-coloured dress, with the room as +soft and delicate as a shell around her, filled him with delight: +changes had come to him even since their last meeting. The lines in his +forehead seemed to her a little deeper, his eyes were anxious and his +smile less sure and genial. He wore a beautiful white waistcoat and sat +there, with his chest out, his white hair rising into a crest, looking +exactly like a pouter pigeon. + +"Dear Uncle John! I'm _so_ glad!" + +"Well, my dear, I was just passing. Been to some woman who's got a +party in Harley House. War party, of course, there were characters of +the names of different generals and if you won you paid a guinea to the +War Fund--quite a reversal of the ordinary proceedings. I'm sure, my +dear, I don't know why I went. Well, it was so close that I felt I +couldn't walk back, even to 104, without a cup of tea from you. How's +Roddy?" + +"All right. Lord Massiter's been down there chatting to him ever since +three o'clock. Would you like us to go down and have our tea with +_them_, or shall we stay cosily up here by ourselves?" + +"Why, stay up here of course! You're not looking very well, my dear. +You've not been the thing lately, have you? This business with +Roddy?..." (he took her hand and held it)--"Don't you think it would be +a good thing if you went away for a week or two and had a change?" + +"No, Uncle John dear, thank you. I _am_ tired and I _will_ go away later +on, but just now it would only make me anxious and I should worry about +Roddy." + +Tea was brought. She looked at Uncle John and thought that he had heard +nothing. His guileless eyes smiled back at her; all that she could +discern in him was apprehension lest he should say something to +displease her, to make her angry. Bless his heart, he need not be afraid +of that now! + +As she gave him his sugar she felt that some of the old intimate +relationship between them was creeping back. + +"Of course you heard of grandmother's wonderful visit to us the other +day," Rachel said. "Wasn't it amazing? and Christopher says that she was +none the worse--rather the better." + +"Amazing," said Uncle John very solemnly. "Perfectly astonishing. Your +grandmother, Rachel, is an astounding woman. Just when we were all of us +thinking that she was really not quite so well, quite so fit as she used +to be, she comes along and does something that she hasn't done for +thirty years. I confess I was nervous when I first heard of it, but +Christopher reassured me--said it would do her no harm, and it hasn't." + +"It shows what her affection for Roddy is," Rachel said slowly. + +"And for you, dear," Uncle John said timidly. "I know that you +haven't--well, haven't--that is, weren't always very friendly, but I +hope that now you've come to understand her a little more. She's a +difficult woman. She wouldn't be so splendid if she weren't so +difficult." + +He saw those hard lines that he knew of old strike into Rachel's face. +He shrank back himself, afraid that he had, by one ruthless sentence, +lost all the happy intimacy that had returned to them. + +She had risen and walked to the window. "Dear Uncle John," she said, "I +know you'd like us to be friends, bless you. But you may as well give +that idea up, once and for ever. Grandmother and I--the old and the new +generation, you know. There's never been anything but war and never will +be. Besides, she's never forgiven me for marrying Roddy, although she +arranged it all." + +"Oh! my dear!" said Uncle John. + +"No, it is so. I shouldn't be astonished," she continued bitterly, "if I +were to hear that she thinks that I flung Roddy from his horse and +trampled on him. It would be quite likely." + +Then, suddenly, she came back from the window to the sofa where Uncle +John, looking greatly distressed, was sitting. She leaned down, put her +arms round his neck and her cheek next to his. + +"Uncle John dear. Don't you worry about grandmother and me. That's an +old, old story and it can't alter. The case of us two, you and me, is +much more important. I've been a beast, for a long time, Uncle John. +We've got away from one another somehow and it's all been my fault. I've +been a prig and all sorts of horrid things, and I've let things come +between us. Nothing shall ever come between us again--never." + +He kissed her and his fat body thrilled with happiness. Amongst all the +distressing things that this last year had brought him, nothing had been +more distressing than his separation from Rachel; now the old Rachel had +come back to him again. + +They sat on the sofa there and he talked of a number of things in his +old happy, disconnected way. Some of her apprehension lifted from +Rachel, she forgot the closeness of the day and sat there, happier than +she had been for many weeks. Six o'clock struck and he got up to go. + +"Taking your aunt out to dinner. You going anywhere to-night, my dear?" + +"Yes. It's such a nuisance, but Roddy insists on my going. I'd so much +rather stay with him. It's only a silly little dinner at Lady Carloes'. +She's asked a harpist in afterwards! Fancy, harpist!" + +But Uncle John liked Lady Carloes. She was an old friend of his. "Don't +laugh at Lady Carloes, dear. She's a kind creature, and been a friend of +the family's for ever so long--a devoted friend." + +He stopped suddenly. "By the way, something I meant to have told you." +He dropped his voice. "You needn't say anything about it and I don't +want to worry your grandmother. I'm afraid she wouldn't like it. But the +black sheep is to be restored to the fold." + +"The black sheep?" said Rachel, wondering. + +"Yes," said Uncle John. "Your Cousin Frank Breton, my dear. Your Uncle +Vincent and your aunt and I thought that he'd behaved so well, been so +quiet and steady all this time, that really something ought to be done +about him. It's been on my conscience, I can assure you, for a long time +past. Well, I've written to him. I'm going to see him. Of course it's +better to be quiet about it whilst your grandmother feels as she +does--but in time----" + +Rachel's voice was sharp and rather harsh as she said, "Dear Uncle John, +that _is_ kind of you. I'm so glad. Poor Cousin Frank! I always felt it +unfair." + +John looked at her with one of his supplicating, +"Please-don't-be-hard-on-me" glances. + +Rachel really _was_ strange. She seemed to dislike the idea of Breton's +redemption. He had thought that she would have been delighted. + +She kissed him. "Nothing's ever to come between us again," she +whispered. He pressed her hand. + +"I must just look in upon Roddy," he said, and they went down together. + + +III + +The thought that instantly occurred to her was that she must not allow +Uncle John to talk to Roddy about Breton. She saw some innocent word +falling, like a match into a haystack, and starting immediately the most +horrible blaze. + +There were other thoughts behind that--thought of her grandmother's +actions when she heard of this, thoughts of Roddy's probable decision +about it, thoughts that she, Rachel, might prove to be the one person in +the world who had helped to drive Breton out, thoughts intolerable were +they, for a moment, indulged--but now, as she walked, laughing, +downstairs, with Uncle John, her one urgent resolve was to prevent an +immediate scene. + +She need not have feared. Massiter, stout, red-faced, hearty and stupid, +held the stage. He had been holding it since three o'clock and Roddy's +white face showed fatigue, his eyes were half closed and, although he +smiled, his mind, distressed and exhausted, was far away. + +Rachel's glance at him told her that his visitor had been too much for +him. When she saw Roddy like this she longed to have him alone, away +from all the world, to love him and care for him; although, in hard +fact, when he was worn out, Peters was of more value than she. She +looked at him now, loved him and was also afraid; she hated Lord +Massiter, at this moment, and hoped that he would go. + +He talked in his cheerful voice, as though he were addressing an +assembly in the open air. He spoke of the hunting (pretty rotten), of +the musical comedies (absolutely rotten), of our tactics in South Africa +(rotten of course beyond all words), and of farming on his land in the +country (unspeakably rotten), and was cheerful about all these things. +He knew that he had been self-sacrificing and had spent a whole +afternoon in cheering up "that poor devil, Seddon. Got to lie on his +back all his life, poor chap. Active beggar he was too." + +He overwhelmed Lord John, whom he liked but scorned. "Never takes any +decent exercise, John Beaminster. Always about with a parcel of women." +Finally he departed, carrying with him a faint scent of soap and +tobacco, swearing that it was the closest night he'd ever known and +wiping his red forehead with the air of one who rules this country and +is going very shortly to enjoy an excellent meal. + +Soon Uncle John also departed. + +Roddy, alone with Rachel, faintly smiled and then closed his eyes again. + +"Better go and dress, dear. It's gone half-past six." + +"What on earth did he stay all that time for, roaring like a bull?" she +cried indignantly. "Tired you out. Roddy, dear, I don't think I'll go +out to dinner. I'll send a wire to Lady Carloes." + +"No, you must," he said firmly. "It's too late to disappoint her." + +"It's such an appalling night. I'm not feeling awfully well. I don't +think I could stand one of her dinners. There'll be old Lord Crewner, +old Mrs. Brunning and young somebody or other for me, and I believe +Uncle Richard. I simply couldn't stand it." + +"Aren't you well?" He looked up at her sharply. + +"Not very." Their eyes met; she turned hers away. She was desperately +near to tears, near to flinging herself down at his side and hiding her +head and telling him all. "Wait--wait--perhaps he knows nothing ..." + +Still looking away from him she said, "Oh yes! I must go, of course. +It's only this thunder that one feels." + +She bent down, hurriedly, and kissed him. They said good night to one +another and she left the room. + +Later, in the carriage, she saw his white face and was miserable. She +thought of Breton and that made her miserable too. To everyone she +seemed to bring unhappiness. The stifling evening held a hand at her +throat; the carriage moved languidly along--on every side of her she saw +people listlessly moving as though controlled by an enchantment. She +really was ill. "If I don't look out," she thought, "I shall be +hysterical to-night. I shall just have to hold on and keep quiet. I've +never felt like this before. Fancy being hysterical before Uncle +Richard. _How_ surprised he'd be and how he'd disapprove!" + +In Lady Carloes' small and stuffy drawing-room bony Mrs. Brunning and +Lord Crewner were being polite to one another. One would suppose that it +had been Lady Carloes' intention to gather together into a confined +space as many of her grandmother's possessions as possible. Her +grandmother had known Sir Walter Scott and had Lord Wellington to tea +and spent several days in the country with Joanna Baillie. The little +room had an old faded wall-paper covered thickly with prints, miniatures +and fading water-colours. On the many little tables were scattered old +keepsakes, "bijouterie" of every kind, dragon china, coloured stones and +even an ebony box with sea-shells. There were cabinets and glass cases, +several chattering clocks, nodding mandarins and shepherdesses on the +mantelpiece, a faded illustrated edition of Sir Walter's poems and, +finally, three cats with large blue bows and tinkling bells. All these +things added, immensely, to Rachel's distress; on such an evening this +jumble of small objects rose, like the sound of the sea, and threatened +to throttle her. A fire was burning and only the upper part of one +window was open. Rachel felt that she was in real peril of fainting; +that she had never done, but to-night she had the sensation that at any +moment the floor with its old faded carpet would rise slanting before +her and pitch her into the street. Lady Carloes, more hunched together +than usual, her voice thick and husky and her dress of blue satin, +hurried in. Uncle Richard, untouched by the closeness of the evening, +clean and starched and dignified, made his majestic entry; a young man +from the Embassy, so beautifully dressed that he appeared to have spent +his days in the effort to make his personality of less importance than +his studs and his waistcoat buttons, apologized from behind his shining +collar for being the last of the party. They all went down to dinner. + +Rachel felt, as the young man led her downstairs, that at last she knew +what Panic was. Panic was the state of standing, surrounded by ordinary +everyday things and people, waiting for the bolt to fall, the enemy to +advance, danger to spring, but seeing, in actual vision, nothing to +justify terror. She had reached to-night the climax of months of alarm, +and, during these past days, unbroken suspense. She was at the end of +endurance.... + +How was she ever to compass this horrible meal? The young man was +finding her difficult. She was aware that Uncle Richard watched her and +was expecting her to sustain the family ease and dignity. They were at a +little round table, so that he was able to hear all the conversation. + +"Yes," she said desperately. "I quite agree with you. The lack of +enterprise at Covent Garden is shameful. We want more competition...." + +"So I said to her, 'My good woman, if you really imagine that I'm taken +in by your pretending that that's Dresden'..." + +"Herr Becknet is coming in afterwards," old Lady Carloes said. "You'll +like him, my dear. He plays the harp too wonderfully. I've asked a few +friends to come in. Of course the drawing-room isn't very large, but I +hope----" + +The room was swimming before Rachel. A stuffed bird in a glass case +sailed across the table towards her and the fireplace tottered and +staggered. She was just able to gasp: "Lady Carloes--please--it's this +heat or something----" + +There were cries of agitation. The young man gave her his arm into the +passage, she was surrounded by anxious servants; someone fanned her, she +drank water and was conscious of Lady Carloes' blue satin and Uncle +Richard's shirt-front. + +She knew now what she wanted; she pulled herself together and absolutely +refused Uncle Richard's escort. + +"No, I shall be _quite_ all right--really. No, Uncle Richard, I won't +hear of it. It was silly of me to come out really. I've been feeling +this thundery weather all day. No, Lady Carloes, thank you, I'll just go +straight back and go to bed. I won't hear of anyone coming with me, +thanks. No, _really_ I _am_ so sorry, Lady Carloes. I shall be all right +in the morning. Yes, if you'd call a cab, please. No, Uncle Richard, I'd +rather not." + +She was better. She knew what she wanted. At last the cab was there, but +it was not "York Terrace" that she had commanded, but "24 Saxton +Square." + +It was Lizzie whom she needed. + + +IV + +It was a long drive to Saxton Square. She was better now, but still +strangely unwell, and to open both the windows was of no use: not a +breath stirred, the trees, dark and sombre, were of iron, the lamps gave +no radiance and the sky was black. + +She was terribly frightened, frightened because here in the dark of her +carriage, thoughts of Breton attacked her as they had never done before. +She hid her face in her burning hands; her body was shivering. Breton +was before her as he had been in his room. She felt his hands about +her, his breath on her cheek, his mouth was pressed against hers, her +fingers knew again the stuff of his coat and the back of her hand had +touched his neck.... + +And yet, it was at this moment, with those very memories crowding about +her, that she knew definitely and with absolute assurance, that it was +Roddy, and Roddy only in all the world, whom she now loved. + +Her passion for Breton had been a passion of rebellion, of discontent--a +moment perhaps in her education that carried her from one stage to +another. + +She loved Roddy. She could not trace the steps by which her love had +grown, but affection had first been changed into something stronger on +that day when he had been carried back into his house from whose gates +he had passed, that morning, so strong and sure. Pity had been the +beginning of it, admiration of his courage had continued it, this moment +of this stormy night had struck it into flame-- + +And now, perhaps, in another day or so, she would learn that he had done +with her for ever. + +She sat there, huddled, trembling, her eyes burning, her throat dry. + +Oh! why wouldn't the carriage go faster! If only this storm would come +and that terrible sky would break! She knew that Mrs. Rand and Daisy +were away in the country and Lizzie went out very seldom. She would find +her. She _must_ find her. She shuddered to think what she might do were +Lizzie not at home. + +They were there. Yes, Miss Rand was at home: Rachel went in. + +Lizzie was sitting quietly by the open window, reading. She looked up +and saw Rachel in a dress of black and gold, her face very pale, as she +stood there in the doorway. + +"Lizzie dear--Lizzie." Rachel flung off her cloak, stood for a moment +motionless, then without another word, huddled up on to the sofa and, +her face buried in her arm, began to cry. Lizzie came across to her, +took her hand, and sat there without speaking. + +After a long time she said, "Rachel dear. What is it?" + +Rachel clung to her, holding her fiercely. At last, looking up but away +from Lizzie, she said, "Oh! if you hadn't been here. I don't know--I +simply don't know what--I think it's this night. This awful night. It's +so close and the storm is so long coming." + +"Has anything particular happened?" + +"Yes. The Duchess has told Roddy about--about Francis--or I think she +has. Roddy's said nothing to me, but I ought to speak to him, to tell +him.... I've put it off." + +Lizzie said softly. "You must tell him, Rachel. You know that you must. +It's the only thing. I thought it would come to that sooner or later." + +"But it's more than that. I'm not well. I don't know what it is, but +I've never felt like it before, and it makes me more frightened than +I've ever been. To-night I've been more frightened." + +But Lizzie was thinking. + +"Has your grandmother told many people?" + +"I don't know. I know nothing; that's what makes it so hard. It's all +had a climax to-night. There was an awful dinner at old Lady Carloes' +and it was so hot and stuffy that I nearly fainted. I had to leave. And +then, coming here ..." + +Rachel began to tremble again and, creeping close to Lizzie, she held +her tighter. + +"Lizzie ... in the cab coming here ... Francis ... I had such thoughts. +I couldn't have believed...." + +Lizzie's eyes gazed out into the square, far away--not like a Pool +to-night, Mr. Breton. All hard and cruel and even the Nymph has no +softness. + +She kissed Rachel. "It's the night, dear. When the weather's like this +it affects one. London's awful to-night. There'll be such a storm +soon." + +"But it's worse, Lizzie. I seem to-night to have seen myself as I +am--more clearly than before. My priggishness--talking so much about +Truth and then--the things I do. Roddy, Francis, all the same. I've +treated them all badly. I've been true to no one. I'm no good...." + +"Promise me, dear, that you'll tell him--your +husband--everything--to-morrow. Promise me." + +"But Lizzie, perhaps----" + +"No--no--no. Everything. To-morrow." + +"He'll hate me. He'll----" + +"No matter. You must. To-morrow." + +Rachel was silent. Then she looked into Lizzie's face. "Yes," she said, +"I will." + +Then, with a little sigh, she fainted. + + +V + +When she rose to a realization of life again she was lying upon Lizzie's +bed and the storm had broken over the house. Lizzie was holding her +hand; the thunder roared. Coming with stealthy steps closer and closer, +sometimes to creep stealthily away again, sometimes to break, with +crashing splendour, upon their very heads. + +The lightning flung Lizzie's bedroom into pale brilliance and was gone; +Life leapt into vision, then surrendered to the candle flare, then leapt +again. + +Rachel smiled faintly. She felt around her and about her a great peace. +She knew that all her terror had departed; her one thought now was to +return to Roddy and tell him everything. + +She sat up. "How silly of me to faint. It's a thing I've never done in +my life. How _did_ you get me here?" + +"The maid and I carried you in. It's better for you in here." + +"I think I'll go now, Lizzie dear." + +"Wait a little while." + +They stayed in silence. Then they heard the rain that lashed the +windows. + +"Isn't the rain terrific?... Oh! Lizzie, it's all gone, all the terror, +all that awful fright." She added solemnly, "I don't believe I'll ever +feel like that again. It'll never come back--I'm sure of it." + +Rachel sat silently for a moment, then turned and buried her head in +Lizzie's dress. + +"Lizzie dear, I've been so frightened--of something else." + +"Of what?" + +"I'm going to have a child. I've known it for some time. At first I +wasn't sure. Then I knew. I was frightened and miserable. Then, as with +every day I seemed to grow fonder and fonder of Roddy I became glad +about it. Then very happy----" + +"Oh, Rachel dear, I'm _so_ glad!" + +"Yes. But now, with this, about Roddy it's all dreadful again. If he +should turn on me now just when I've begun to care." + +She sat up in bed, her eyes staring, her hands clutching the clothes. + +"Lizzie, if it _should_ come right!--if it _should_! Just think what a +child would mean for him; he's so brave, lying there all day, making +himself amused and interested. I watch him often and wonder where all +that courage comes from. _I_ couldn't have done it.... But now, if the +child's a boy, he'll be able to put all his old strength and keenness +into _him_--and the Place! Think what it will mean to him to have that!" + +"And for you?" asked Lizzie. + +"I believe it's what I've wanted. Oh! if only things are all right with +Roddy, then I can start again and have some decent pride about it all. +I've made _such_ a mess of things so far." + +They talked for a little. Then Rachel got up and dressed. + +"I'm all right now. Everything seems to have cleared. I'll tell Roddy +everything to-morrow, Lizzie dear." + +"Come and see me as soon as ever you can, won't you?" + +"I will." + +Rachel said good night. She held Lizzie's shoulders. + +"Lizzie, you're wonderful. Don't think I don't know how wonderful you +are. I'll never forget what you've been to-night. And if it's all right +to-morrow. Oh! I _am_ going to be happy." + +"That's all right," said Lizzie. "Don't go and get frightened again." + +"I'll never be so frightened as I was to-night--never." + +"I'm afraid you've got dreadfully wet," she said to the cabman. + +"It don't matter, mum--but it _does_ come down." + +Lizzie stood in the doorway and waved her hand. + +The rain slashed the panes and whipped the shining deserted streets. +Very far away the faint whisper of thunder bade the town farewell. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +MARCH 13th: RODDY TALKS TO THE DEVIL AND THE DUCHESS DENIES GOD + + "Que desirez-vous savoir plus precisement?' + Mais le porte-drapeau repondit: + 'Non, pas maintenant ... apres ...'" + + _A l'Extreme Limite._ + ARTZYBACHEV. + + +I + +That afternoon had been a difficult one for Roddy. He felt, lying so +eternally on his back, the vagaries of the English weather. There were +days when the wind was in the park, when sunshine flashed and flung +shadows, when the water of the pond glittered and every duck and baby +thrilled with life. Then it was very hard to lie still, and memories of +days--riding days and swimming days and hunting days--would persecute +him. But there were dark wet hours when his room seemed warm and +cosy--then he was happy. + +On a day of thunder, like this afternoon, his one desire was to get out; +never had he felt the bars of his cage so sharply, with so intense an +irritation as on to-day. + +Massiter broke the chain of his thoughts and he was glad. Four days now +and Rachel had said nothing; many times he had thought that she was +going to speak, but the moments had passed. He had not slept for two +nights--over and over he turned the question as to what he was to do. + +Had he been up and about, some solution would have naturally come, he +thought, but, lying here, thinking so interminably with one's body tied +to one like a stone, nothing seemed clear or easy. + +This was the worst day in the world to make thinking simple. The leaden +sky pressed one down and held one's brain. + +"I'm goin' to have a jolly bad evenin'," said Roddy, "I know I am." + +Massiter was a relief; there was no need to talk whilst Massiter was +there and his fat cheerful body restored one's balance. The same, +sensible world that had once been Roddy's own and had, of late, slipped +away from him, was restored when Massiter was there. Nevertheless one +hour of Massiter was enough. Roddy could detect in Massiter's attitude +that pity moved him to additional cheerfulness, and this was irritating; +then Massiter's clumsy efforts to avoid topics that might be especially +tactless--that also was tiresome. + +Roddy was glad when Rachel and John Beaminster came down and relieved +him, and then the moment arrived when he thought again that Rachel was +going to speak, and perhaps if he had made a movement of affection he +would have caught her, but always when some expression of feeling was +especially demanded of him did he feel the least able to produce it. + +The whole relationship between them depended on such slender incidents; +one word from anybody and there would be no more confusion or doubt; the +situation had the maddening tip-toe indecision of a dream. + +"I'm going to have a bad time to-night," he thought. "It's no use giving +in to the thing." He faced it deliberately; if only he could think +clearly, but the damned weather.... Well, he and Jacob must face the +night as best they could. + +The dog lay flat near the window, moving restlessly under the close air, +but pricking his ears at every movement that Roddy made, ready to come +to him at any instant. + +"That old dog cares for me more than anyone else does--and I only +appreciated him after I was laid up--Rummy thing!" Roddy was conscious +that high above him, somewhere near the ceiling, hovered a Creature, +born of this damnable evening, and that did he allow himself to relax +for a moment, down that hovering Creature would come. Very faintly, as +it were from a great distance, he could catch its whisper in his ear. +"What's the good of this?... What's the good of this? What did you +always say? What would you have said about anyone placed as you are now? +Better for him to get out." + +"Damn you, shut up...." + +He was in great physical pain, the pain that always came to him when he +was tired out, but that was nothing to the mental torture. Twisted +figures--Rachel, Breton, himself, the Duchess--passed before him, +mingling, separating, sometimes coming to him as though they were there +with him in the room. He had not, even on the day that had told him that +he would never get up again, felt so near to utter defeat as he was now. +He had been proud of himself, proud of his resistance to what, with +another man, might have appeared utter catastrophe, proud of his dogged +determination. "To have the devil beat...." To-night this same devil was +going to be too much for him, did he not fight his very hardest, and the +cruelty of it was that this weather took all one's vitality out of one, +drained one dry, left one a rag. + +"Curse you, get out," he muttered, clenching his teeth, then whistled +and brought Jacob instantly to his side. The dog jumped on to the long +sofa, taking care not to touch his master's legs. Then he moved up into +the hollow of Roddy's arm and lay there warm against Roddy's side. + +"What's the use?" The Creature was close to him, his breath warm and +damp like the night air. "She doesn't care for you. You can see that she +doesn't. She's been in love with her cousin for ever so long, only you +didn't know. Wouldn't she have told you that she was a friend of his if +there had been nothing more than that in it? What a fool you are--lying +here all broken up, simply in the way of her happiness, no good to +yourself or anyone else." + +"I wish the thunder would come and smash you up...." Then, more +desperately, "What if that's right? if I were to clear out...." + +"After all," said the Creature, "you've never before seen yourself as +you really are. You thought that you were all right because you could +use your legs and arms. Now you know what you are--You're nothing--only +something that many people must trouble to keep alive--useless--useless! +Why not?" + +Yes, Roddy did see himself to-night, sternly; as in the old days he +might have looked upon someone and judged him unfit, so now he would +confront himself. "It's quite true. You've got nothing--nothing to show, +you've no intellect, you're selfish, you despise all kinds of people for +all kinds of reasons. You've stood a little pain--so can any man. You'd +better get out--no one will know." + +"Yes," said the Creature, very close to him now. "You can do it so +easily. That morphia that you've had once or twice--an overdose. No one +would suppose.... She would never know, and you'd be rid for ever of all +this wrong and you'd free so many people from so much trouble." + +"Jacob, my son," he whispered, "do you hear what they're saying?" + +He went right down, down to the depths of a pit that closed about his +head, filled his eyes with darkness, was suffocating. + +"Yes, he's beaten," he heard them say. "We've succeeded at last. We've +succeeded...." + +But they had not. + +With an effort of will that was beyond any power that he had believed +himself to possess, he pulled himself up. + +"There's one thing you've forgotten." He gasped as he came struggling +up. + +He took the Creature in his hands, wrung its neck and flung it out of +the window. + +"There's one thing you've forgotten. There's my love for her. That's +strong enough for anything. That's reason enough for living even though +she doesn't want it. I'll beat you all with that ... go back to hell, +the lot of you." + + +II + +"I must never let it happen like that again. What a state this weather +can get one into...." + +But he had come back to his senses. His brain was clear; he could think +now. The great point was that it was of no use to think of himself in +this affair. "Rachel, Rachel's the only thing that matters." + +Then upon that came the decision. "That old woman's got to pay for it. +She's been wantin' to give Rachel a bad time. She's tried to. Her +mouth's got to be stopped _however_ old and ill she is!" + +He was fiercely, furiously indignant with her--vanished, it appeared, +all his affection, the sentiment of years. "I've got to defend Rachel +from her, no knowin' _whom_ she's been tellin'." Roddy still found it +impossible to admit more than one idea at a time, and the idea now was +that "he must stop the old lady dead." + +His brain came round now to Breton, and halted there. What kind of +fellow, after all, was he? What, after all, did Roddy know about him +that he could so easily condemn him? + +To-night, fresh from the battle with the Creature, Roddy's view of the +world was painted with new colours. The man had been condemned for +things that his father had done, and one recognized, here in London, how +difficult it was for a fellow to climb up once he had been pushed down. + +Was the man in love with Rachel? Well, Roddy did not know that he could +blame him for that? ... difficult enough, surely, for anyone not to be. +But _was_ he? What, after all, was he like? + +Then swiftly the answer came to him. See the man.... Talk to him ... +know him. He stared at the idea, felt already new energy in his bones +and a surging victory over the lethargy of this awful evening at the +suggestion of some definite action. + +But see him, yes, and see him here and see him soon. His impatience +leapt now hotly upon him; he pulled Jacob's ears. "That's the ticket, +old boy, ain't it? See what kind of a ruffian this is! My word, but +wouldn't the old lady hate it if she knew?" + +But, and at this the room flared with the thrill of it, why not have her +here to meet him? Confront her with him. + +He was cool now. Here was matter that needed careful handling. Still as +vigorous now as in his most active days was his impatience. Was +something in the way, cobwebs, barriers, obstacles of any sort? Brush +them aside, beat them down! + +Here was a plan. Here, too, most happily at hand, was the Duchess's +punishment. + +All these years had the old lady been refusing to set eyes upon her +grandson, therefore, how dramatic would it be were she confronted with +him unexpectedly. Out of the heart of that meeting would come most +assuredly the truth about Rachel. + +There, in a flash, solid, substantial, beautifully compact, +magnificently splendid his plan lay before him. He would have them +there. Rachel, the Duchess, this Breton, all of them there before him. +They should come ignorant, unprepared, Breton first, then Rachel, then +the Duchess. + +Having them there he would quite simply say that someone had been +pouring into his ears a story of friendship to which he might take +objection. + +He would then, very quietly.... But here he paused. Oh! he knew what he +would do. He smiled at the thought of the success of his plan. + +When he had made his little speech to them all there would never again +be any danger of scandal. The old lady would never again have any single +word to say. + +The thought that Rachel might be angry at his deceptive plot did not +disturb him. When she had heard his little speech she would not say +that--and here, suddenly, he knew how deeply, in his heart, he trusted +her. + +But what if, after all, it should be a lie on the old lady's part? Was +he not doing wrong to take things so far without a question to anyone +else, Christopher or Lizzie Rand? + +But this was Roddy. Here both his pride and his impatience were +concerned. He did not wish that the business should pass beyond its +present bounds. He could not go from person to person asking them +whether they trusted his wife. And then he could not wait. Here was a +plan that killed the danger at one blow, something direct, open, with +sharply defined issues. Oh! Rachel should see how he loved her! + +"All these days," he said to Jacob, "I've been worryin' about her, but I +knew--yes, I knew--that she was comin' to me all right." He thought of a +day long before and of Miss Nita Raseley and of a meeting in the garden. +"I'll show her that I can forgive, too, if it's necessary. Not because I +care so little, but, by God, because I care so much. No," he thought, +shaking his head over it, "she doesn't love me, not yet. But she's +beginnin' to belong to me. She's coming." + +There was also the thought that the Duchess was an old, sick woman and +that the scene might be too much for her strength. "Not she," he grimly +decided, "that's the kind of thing she lives on. Anyway, I owe her one. +Didn't do her any harm comin' to me the other day, won't do her any harm +now. _I_ know her." + +His scheme must be carried out at once. He felt that he could not wait a +moment. He would have liked to have had them all there, before him, +to-night. + +"Why, by this time to-morrow, old boy, it will all be straight. Thank +God, my brain cleared, in spite of this damn weather." + +He rang the bell and Peters, large, solemn, but bending a loving eye +upon his master, appeared. + +"Writing things, Peters." + +He wrote swiftly two notes. + +"Very close to-night, sir." + +"Yes, Peters, very." + +"You're looking better, sir ... less tired. Your dinner will be up in a +quarter of an hour. Nice omelette, nice little bird, nice fruit salad, +sardines on toast." + +"Thank you, Peters, I'm hungry as--as anything." + +"Very glad to hear it, sir." + +"I want these two notes sent by hand instantly, do you see?" + +"Yes, Sir Rod'rick." + +"At once." + +"Yes, Sir Rod'rick." + +Roddy lay back and surveyed the black sky. + +"Nasty storm comin' up--look here, Peters, give me that bird book over +there. That big one. Thanks." + +Peters retired. + + +III + +Meanwhile Her Grace had found this close evening very trying. That visit +to Roddy had not harmed her physically, but had made her restless. The +very fact that it had not hurt her, urged her to have more of such +evenings. Having shown them once what she could do she would like to +show them all again, and yet with this new energy was also lethargy so +that she sat, thinking about her adventures, but felt that it would be +difficult to move. + +Then this thundery afternoon really did drag the strength from her. She +allowed her fire to fall into a few golden coals, she allowed Dorchester +to move her from her high-back chair on to a sofa that was near the wide +window, now flung open. She could see roofs, chimneys, towers of +churches, all dingy grey beneath the leaden sky. + +She lay there, a book on her lap, but not reading; she was thinking of +Roddy. For perhaps the very first time in all her life she regretted +something that she had done. Nobody but Roddy could have called this +regret out of her and now, she would confess it to no living soul, but +she lay there, thinking about it, remembering every movement and gesture +of his, seeing always that, at the end, he had wanted her to go, had, as +her sharp old eyes had seen, hurried her away. + +There had been so splendid a chance, she had shown her love for him so +magnificently that he could not but have been touched and moved had she +only left Rachel alone. Ah! that girl! again, again.... The Duchess +looked at the plain roofs that lay dry and sterile beneath the torrid +sky and wished, not by any means for the first time, that she had left +that marriage with Roddy alone. + +Roddy would have married some other girl, Nita Raseley or such, and he +would have been mine ... mine! + +Hard and utterly selfish in all her ordinary dealings with a world that +she professed to despise but really adored, her love for Roddy was a +little golden link to a thousand softnesses and, as she termed them, +weak indulgences. Why had she loved him so? She was like the grim pirate +of some conventional fiction. See him on his dark vessel surveying with +cold and cruel eye the beautiful captives provided by the stricken ship, +on every side of him! See him select, for the very flavour that the +contrast gave him, some ordinary slave from the crowd to whom he shows +weak indulgence! So much blacker, he feels, does this kindness make his +infamies. + +But the Duchess's career as the dark pirate of her period was swiftly +vanishing; the black hulk of her vessel remained, but upon its boards +only the little slave was to be seen, and even he, with furtive eye, +sought his way of escape. + +Yes, on this torrid evening every soul in that vast city, surely, felt +that he was alone, abandoned, in a desert of a world. But the fear that +she was losing even Roddy brought the Duchess very close to panic. She +had not grasped before how resolutely she had been using him to bolster +up life for her, how important his friendly existence was for her. + +Since his marriage that friendliness had grown, with every hour, +weaker. Something she must do now to repair her error of the other day; +she was even ready to pretend affection for her granddaughter if that +would bring Roddy back to her. + +She watched the sky and longed for the threatened storm to break; her +bones were indeed old and feeble to-day, to move at all was an effort +and, with it all, there was a sense of apprehension as though she were +some terrified bird conscious of the hawk's approach, she who had, until +now, been herself the hawk. She remembered the day when she had realized +more poignantly than ever before, that the hour must come--and indeed +was not far away--when she would inevitably meet death. She had loathed +that realization, attempted to defy it, been defeated by it. Now on this +evening, she suspected again the invasion of that same power. But +to-night there was no resistance in her, she lay there, whitely +submitting to the tyranny of any enemy. She could scarcely breathe; +London, like a scaly dragon, flung its hot breath upon her and withered +her defiance. She would have moved away from the window had not those +grey roofs held her, by their ugly indifference, with a terrible +fascination. "I'm going--I'm going--and they don't care. Just like +that--just like that--long after I'm gone." + +The evening slipped away and Dorchester, coming to her, thought that she +was sleeping; she did not disturb her, but ordered her evening meal to +be kept until she should wake. + +The Duchess did sleep. She awoke to find, in the sky above the now +vanishing roofs, a golden glow and in the room behind her the shaded +lamps, the fire burning, and her table spread. + +But she had had a horrible dream; she struggled to recall it and, even +as she struggled, trembling seized her body as the vague horror that it +had left behind it still thrilled and troubled her. + +She could recollect nothing of her dream except this, that she had died, +and that being dead, she was immediately aware that God awaited her. +She could remember her frantic effort to reassert all those earthly +convictions that had been based on the definite creed that the Duchess +existed but _not_ God. She had still with her the sensation of hurry and +dismay, the dismal knowledge that she had only a moment with which to +break down the discoveries of a lifetime and place new ones in her +stead. + +She had, above all, the horrible knowledge that her punishment was +settled, that at last she was in the hands of a power stronger than +herself and that nothing, nothing, nothing could help her. + +She was frightened, but she knew not by what or by whom. She tried to +tell herself that she had been dreaming, that this breathless evening +was responsible, that she would be all right very soon. But she was +seized by that terrible vague uncertainty that had been with her so much +lately, uncertainty as to what was real and what was not. She looked at +the French novel lying upon her lap; that was real, she supposed, and +yet as she touched its pages her fingers seemed to seize upon nothing, +only air between them. + +The fits of trembling shook her from head to foot and yet she could +scarcely breathe, so close and heavy was the night. + +"That was only a dream--only a dream. Suppose it should be true though. +What if I _were_ to die--to-night?" + +Dorchester came to her and was alarmed. + +"Dinner is ready, Your Grace." + +Her mistress did not answer, but lay there, looking through the open +window and shivering. + +"Your Grace will catch cold by that open window. I had better close it." + +"It's stifling--stifling." + +"Will you have dinner now?" + +"No--no. Why do you worry me? I can eat nothing." + +Dorchester was seriously alarmed; an evening like this might very +easily.... She determined to send word round to Dr. Christopher. + +She went away, gave directions about the dinner, saw that her mistress's +bedroom was warm and comfortable. + +She came back. The Duchess was sitting up, colour in her cheeks and her +eyes sparkling. On her lap lay a note. + +"I've had a dream, Dorchester--a horrid dream. I was disturbed for a +moment. I think I will eat something after all." + +"The way she goes up and down!" thought Dorchester. "Must say I don't +like the look of her--not knowing her own mind, so unlike her--Who's the +letter from, I wonder?" + +It was the letter, plainly, that had done it. Sitting up and enjoying +her soup, forgetting that black sky and the Dragon's scaly menace, the +Duchess knew that that dream--that dream about God--had been as silly, +as futile as dreams always are. + +The note, brought to her by Norris and lying now beside her plate, had +told her so. The note of course had been from Roddy. It said: + + "DEAR DUCHESS, + + I don't want to ask anything impossible of you, but, encouraged + by your coming to me the other day and hearing that you took no + harm from your expedition, I am wondering whether to-morrow + afternoon about five you could come again and have tea with me. + There is something about which you can help me--only you in all + the world. If I don't hear from you I will conclude that you + can come--five o'clock. + + Your affectionate friend, + + RODDY." + +That letter showed the perfection of his tactful understanding.... + +No absurd talk about her age, her feebleness, the weather, but simply it +was taken for granted that of course she would be there. Well, of +course, she _would_ be there--nothing should stop her. She was aware +that Christopher, hearing that to-night she had not been so well, would +certainly forbid her to move. He should, therefore, know nothing about +it, nothing at all. His visit would be paid in the morning--she would +have the afternoon to herself--Norris and Dorchester should help her to +the carriage. + +Christopher expected, on his arrival, to find her in a very bad way, +exhausted by the closeness of the evening: it was possible that he might +have to remain all night. He found her in bed, a lace cap on her head, a +crimson dressing-gown about her shoulders, and all her rings glittering +upon her fingers. An old-fashioned massive silver candlestick with six +branches illuminated the lacquer bed, the black Indian chairs, the +fantastic wall-paper. The windows were closed and the dry heat of the +room was appalling. + +She was in her mildest, most amiable mood, had enjoyed an excellent +dinner, laughed her cracked, discordant laugh, was delighted to see him. + +"Sit down, there, close to me. Have some coffee." + +"No, thank you." + +"Dorchester can bring it in a minute." + +"No, really, thank you." + +"Who sent for you?" + +"Lord John." + +"Yes, I thought so. Pretty state of things with them all hanging round +like this waiting for me to die--never felt better in my life." + +"So I see--delighted. I'll go." + +"Not a bit of it. Stay and talk. I feel like telling someone what I +think of things, although you've heard it all often enough before. But +the truth is, Christopher, I _did_ have a nasty dream--a very nasty +dream--and the nastiest part of it was that I couldn't remember it when +I woke up. + +"But it's the weather--I was frightened for a minute although I wouldn't +have anyone else know." + +"But you had a good dinner." + +"Splendid dinner, thank you." + +She lay back in bed and looked at him; delightful to think that she +would play a little game with him to-morrow; he would in all probability +be angry when he knew--that would be very amusing; delightful, too, to +think that, just when she was afraid that she had seriously alienated +Roddy away from her, he should write and say that he needed her. She +would go to-morrow and would be exceedingly pleasant to him and would +reassure him about Rachel.... + +Yes, she had seldom felt so genial. She told Christopher stories of men +and women whom she had known, wicked stories, gay stories, cruel +stories, and her eyes twinkled and her fingers sparkled and her old +withered face poked out above the dressing-gown, with the white hair, +fine and proud beneath the lace cap. + +Once she said to him: "You think all this queer, don't you?" waving her +hand at the bed, the chairs, the paper. "This colour and the odds and +ends and the rest." + +"It's part of you," he said; "I shouldn't know you without them." + +"I love them," she breathed. "I _love_ them. Oh! if I'd had my way I'd +have been born when one could have _piled_ up and splashed it about and +had it everywhere--jewels, clothes, processions--Ah! that's why I hate +this generation that's coming; the generation that you believe in so +devoutly, it's so ugly. It wears ugly things, it likes ugly people, it +believes in talking about ugly morals and making ugly laws...." Then she +laughed--"It's funny, isn't it? I had to use the age I was born into, I +cut my cloth to it, but what a figure I'd have made in any century +before the nineteenth. All the old times were best. You could command +and see that you were obeyed.... None of your Individualism then, +Christopher." + +She was silent for a time and he said nothing. He was thinking about +Breton, wondering where he was, feeling that he should not have let him +go. She said suddenly: + +"Christopher, do you think there's a God?" + +"I know there is." + +"Well, I know there isn't--so there we are. One of us will find that +we've made a mistake in a few years' time." + +He said nothing. At last she began again: + +"You're sure of it?" + +"Quite sure." + +"So like you--and you get a deal of comfort from it, no doubt. But what +kind of a God, Christopher?" + +"A just God--a loving God." + +"How any doctor can say that truthfully! The pain, the crime you must +have seen----" + +"Exactly. I've known, I suppose, of as much misery, as much agony, much +wickedness as most men in a lifetime. I've never had a case under my +notice that hasn't shown the necessity for pain, the necessity for +struggle, for defeat, for disaster. If this life were all, still I +should have had proof enough that a loving God was moving in the world." + +She lay back, smiling at him. + +"You're a sentimentalist of course. I've heard you talk before. You're +wrong, Christopher, badly wrong. I shall prove it before you will." + +"Well," he said, smiling back at her, "we'll see." + +"Oh, yes, you're a sentimentalist of the very worst--I don't know that I +like you the less for it. I'm an old pagan and it's served me all my +life. Ah! there's the thunder!" + +She sat up in bed, her cap pushed back, her skinny arms stretched out in +a kind of ecstasy. "There! That's it! That's the kind of thing I like! +There's your God for you, Christopher." + +A flash of lightning flung the room into unreality. + +"I'd hoped for one more good storm before I went. I've been waiting all +day for this." + +He never forgot the strange figure that she made; she displayed the +excitement of a child presented with a sudden unexpected gift. + +He himself had known many storms, but, perhaps because she now made so +strange a central figure of this one, this always remained with him as +the worst of his life. He had never heard such thunder and, as each +crash fell upon them, he felt that she rose to it and exulted in it as +though she were a swimmer meeting great ocean rollers. + +There was at last a peal that broke upon them as though it had tumbled +the whole house about their ears. Deafened by it he looked about him as +though he had expected to find everything in the room shattered. + +"_That_ was the best," she cried to him. + +At last she lay back tired, and he bade her good night. + +She held his hand for a moment. "I regret nothing," she said, "nothing +at all. I've had a good time." + +But, after he had left her, the sound of the rain had some personal fury +about it that made her uneasy. + +She called to Dorchester. "I think I'd like you to sleep here to-night, +Dorchester. I may need you." + +"Very well, Your Grace." + +"After all," she thought as, the candles blown out, she lay and listened +to the rain, "that dream may come back...." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +CHAMBER MUSIC--A TRIO + + "A place may abound in its own sense, as the phrase is, without + bristling in the least."--_The American Scene._ + + HENRY JAMES. + + +I + +The storm savagely retreating left blue skies, spring, and the greenest +grass the parks had ever displayed, behind it. Roddy, lying before his +window, watched the pond, gleaming like blue grass but crisped by the +breeze into a thousand ripples. Two babies ran, tumbled, screamed and +shouted, and all the many-coloured ducks, the ducks with red bills, the +ducks with draggled feathers, the ducks in grey and brown, chattered +beneath the sun. + +By midday a note had arrived from Breton saying that he would be with +Roddy at half-past four; there was no word from the Duchess. He knew +therefore that his plan had prospered. But, with those morning +reflections that freeze so remorselessly the hot decisions of the night +before, he was afraid of what he had done; he was afraid of Rachel. + +He was afraid of Rachel because he recognized, now that he was on the +brink of this plunge, how much deeper and more dangerous it might be for +him than he had thought. During these last months he had been slowly +capturing Rachel; that capture was the one ambition and desire of his +life. + +But in the very intensity and ardour of his desire he had learnt more +surely than ever the strange contradictions that made her character. His +accident had increased his own age and so emphasized her youth; she was +ever so young, ever so impulsive; her seriousness was the seriousness of +some very youthful spirit, who, guessing at the terrific difficulty of +life, feels that the only way to surmount it is to close eyes blindly +and leap over the whole of it at once. This was what he knew in his +heart--although he would never have put it into words--as her adorable +priggishness. + +She had found her solution and everything must fit into it, but, since +she had finally resolved it, nothing would fit into it at all--and there +was the whole of Rachel's young history! + +To Roddy one thing manifest was that a very tiny blunder might shatter +the bond that was forming between them, and it was eloquent of a great +deal that, whereas before in the Nita Raseley episode, it had been +Rachel who feared the one false step, it was now Roddy. What it came to +was that, in spite of everything, he was still unable to prophesy about +her. She was still unrealized, almost untouched by him, that was partly +why he loved her so. + +Roddy's brain had been alive last night and ready to grapple with +anything; to-day he felt stupid and confused. "We're in for a jolly good +row," he thought, "far as I can see. There's no avoidin' it. Anyway, +some clearin' up will come out of all of it." + +So intent was he upon Rachel that he scarcely considered the Duchess. He +had not very much imagination about people and made the English mistake +of believing that everyone else saw life as he did. He had, for that +very reason, never believed very seriously in the Duchess's passion for +himself; he liked her indeed for her hardness and resented any +appearance of the gentler motions--"She'll like tellin' us all what she +thinks of it"--placed _her_ in the afternoon's battle. He might have +taken it all, had he chosen, as the most curious circumstance, that he +should be "arranging things"--eloquent of the changed order of his life +and of the new man that he was becoming. + +He lay there all the morning, nervous and restless--Rachel had looked in +for a moment and had told him that she was going to see Christopher, +that she might not return to luncheon. He had fancied that, in those +few moments, he had divined in her some especial thrill--"We're all +going to be tuned up this afternoon." + +If he found--and this was the question that he asked himself most +urgently--that Rachel really had, in the competent interpretation of the +term, "deserted" him for Breton, what would be his sensations? Being an +Englishman he would, of course, horsewhip the fellow, divorce Rachel and +lead a misanthropic but sensual existence for the rest of his days. But +here the wild strain in Roddy counted. That is exactly what Roddy would +not do. What was law for the man must be law also for the woman. + +He had, on an earlier day, told her that were he to present her with a +thousand infidelities, yet he would love her best and most truly, and +therefore she must forgive him. Well, that should be true too for +her.... Any episode with Breton seemed only an incident in the pursuit +of her that Roddy had commenced on that day that he had married her. + +And yet was not this readiness on his part to forgive her sprung from +his conviction that she would have told him had she had so much to +confess to him? Let her relations with Breton remain uncertain and +shifting, then she might have found justification for her silence; let +them once have found so definite a climax and she must have +spoken--Roddy had indeed advanced in his knowledge both of her and +himself since two years ago. + +By the early afternoon he was in a pitiable state. Should he send notes +to the Duchess and Breton telling them both that he was too unwell, too +cross, too sleepy, too "anything" to see them? Should he retire to bed +and leave Peters to make his excuses? Should he disappear and tell +Rachel to deal with them? _What_ a scene there'd be between the three of +them! + +His illness had made a difference to his nerve, lying there on one's +back took the grit away, gave one too much time to think, showed one +such momentous issues. + +On the events of this afternoon might hang all his life and all +Rachel's! + +His capture of her was indeed now to be put to the test!... + + +II + +Rachel came into his room at four o'clock. She carried a great bunch of +violets and a paper parcel. + +She smiled across the room at him; a cap of white fur on her head, and +the hand with the violets held also a large white muff. + +"Roddy--I'm coming to have tea with you--alone. You'll be out to +everyone, won't you? But first, see what I've brought you." + +She was dreadfully excited, he thought, as though she knew already the +kind of thing that awaited her. Her smile was nervous, and that +trembling of her upper lip, as though she would, perhaps, cry and +perhaps would laugh but really was not sure, always told him when she +was afraid. + +"See what I've brought you!" She put the violets down upon the table +beside him--"Now! Look!" She undid the paper and held up to his gaze a +deep, gleaming silver lustre bowl, a beautiful bowl because of its +instant friendliness and richness and completeness--"I found it!" she +said, "staring at me out of a shop window, demanding to be bought. I +thought you'd like it." + +She put it on his table, found water and filled it, then arranged the +violets in it. + +"Oh! my dear! it's beautiful!" he said, and then, with his eyes fixed +upon her face, watched her arrange the flowers. But he brought out at +last, "I'm afraid I can't promise to be alone for tea." + +"Oh!" she stepped back from the flowers and looked at him. They faced +one another, the silver bowl between them. She stood, as she always did, +when she had something difficult to face, her long hands straight at her +side, her hands slowly closing and unclosing, her eyes fixed upon some +far distance. + +"Roddy, please!" she said, "I do want to be alone with you this +afternoon. I have a special, very special reason. I want to talk." + +"You see----" he said. + +"No," she cried impatiently. "We _must_ have this afternoon to +ourselves. Tell Peters that you're too ill, too tired, anything. I'm +sure, after all that storm last night, it would be perfectly natural if +you were. Now, please, Roddy." + +"I'm awfully sorry, Rachel dear. If I'd only known. If you'd only told +me last night." + +"I didn't know myself last night. How could I? But now--it's most +awfully important, Roddy. I've--I've something to tell you." + +His heart beat thickly, his eyes shone. + +"Well, they won't stay long, I dare say." + +"Who are they?" + +"Oh! nobody--special. Friends----" + +"Then if they _aren't special_ put them off. Roddy dear, I beg you----" + +"No, Rachel, I can't----" + +"Well--you might----" For a moment it seemed that she would be angry. +Then suddenly she smiled, shrugged her shoulders--at last, moved across +and touched the violets; then, with a little gesture, bent down and +kissed him. + +"Well, my dear, of course you will have your way. But am I to be allowed +to come or are these mysterious friends of yours too private--too +secret?" + +"Not a bit of it. I want you to come." + +"I'll go and take my things off. I hope they'll come soon; I'm dying for +tea, I've had such a tiring day, and last night----" + +"How was last night? You haven't had time to tell me." + +She was by the door, but she turned and faced him. "Oh! I was so silly. +The weather upset me and I went and fainted at Lady Carloes'." + +"Fainted!" His voice was instantly sharp with anxiety. + +"Yes--in the middle of dinner. _Such_ a scene and Uncle Richard thought +I let down the family dreadfully." + +"I hope you went straight to bed--Ah! that was why you saw Christopher +this morning!" + +"Yes, that was why! No, I didn't come straight back last night--I went +round to Lizzie's--I was frightened and felt that I couldn't come back +all alone." + +They were both of them instantly aware that someone else lived at 24 +Saxton Square beside Miss Rand. There was a sharp little pause, during +which they both of them heard their hearts say: "Oh! I hope you aren't +going to let _that_ little thing matter!" + +Then Roddy said--"Well, dear. I'm jolly glad you _did_ go to Lizzie. I +hate your fainting like that. What did Christopher say this morning?" + +"Oh! nothing--I'll tell you later." + +She was gone. + +When she returned Peters was bringing in the tea and they could exchange +no word. The spring was beginning, already the evenings were longer and +a pale glow, orange-coloured, lingered in the sky and lit the green of +the park with dim radiance. Within the room the fire crackled, the +silver shone, the lustre bowl was glowing-- + +Rachel went across to the table, then staring out at the evening light +said, "Roddy, who _are_ your visitors?" + +Peters answered her question by opening the door and announcing-- + +"Mr. Breton, my lady." + + +III + +She took it with a composure that was simply panic frozen into +stillness. She saw him come, straight from the square immobility of +Peters, out to meet her, noticed that he looked "most horribly ill" and +that his eyes cowered, as it were, behind their lashes, as though they +feared a blow--she saw him catch the picture of her, hold her for an +instant whilst his cheeks flooded with colour, then all expression left +him; he walked towards her as though the real Francis Breton, after that +first glance had turned and left the room, and only the lifeless husk of +him remained. + +For herself, after the word from Peters, her mind had flown to Roddy. He +knew everything--there could no longer be doubt of that--but oh! how she +turned furiously now upon the indecision that had allowed to surrender +her courage and her self-respect! With that she wondered what it was +that her grandmother had told him. Perhaps he believed worse than the +truth. Perhaps he thought that nothing too bad.... + +And what, after all, did he intend to do? This meeting had sprung from +some arranged plan and he had, doubtless, now, some end in view. Had he +meditated some vengeance upon Breton? At all costs, he must be +protected. + +Meanwhile Breton had, apparently, taken it for granted that she had +known about his coming. + +"How do you do, Lady Seddon?" he said, shaking her hand. + +"You don't know my husband," she said quietly. "Roddy, this is Mr. +Breton." + +Breton went over to the sofa and the two men shook hands. + +"How do you do?" Roddy said, smiling. "My word, the feller _does_ look +ill!" was Roddy's thought. He did not know what type of man he had +expected to see, but it was not, most certainly, this nervous rather +pathetic figure with the pointed beard, the white cheeks, the blue eyes, +the armless sleeve, that uncertain movement that invited your +consideration and seemed to say, "I've had a bad time--not altogether my +fault. I'm trying now to do my best. Do help me." + +"Just the sort of feller women would be sorry for," Roddy thought. But +he was rather happily conscious that, although he was lying there +helpless on his back, he was on the whole in better trim than his +visitor. + +Breton, before he sat down, turning to Roddy, said, "I was very nearly +wiring to you my excuses, Sir Roderick. I've been most awfully unwell +lately and all that thunder yesterday laid me up. I got sunstroke once +in Africa and I've always had to be careful since." + +"Jolly good of you to come," said Roddy. "Sorry it was such short +notice. But I can never tell, you know, quite how I'll be from day to +day." + +Breton sat down and the two men looked at one another. To Breton, whose +imagination led him to live in an alternation of consternation and +anticipation, the whole affair was utterly bewildering. He had reached +his rooms, on the night before, soaked to the skin, and had found +Roddy's note waiting for him. It had seemed to him then as though it +were, in all probability, some trick of the devil's, but he had of +course accepted it as he accepted all challenges. + +He had supposed that he would be confronted by a raging, tempestuous +husband. He would welcome anything that would bring him again into +contact with Rachel and he always enjoyed a scene. But he had never, +for an instant, imagined that Rachel would be present. The sight of +her took all calmer deliberation away from him because he wished so +eagerly to speak to her and to hear her voice. + +They were sitting with the table between them and they were both of them +conscious first of Roddy, lying so still and watching them from his +sofa, and then of the last time that they had met and of that last kiss +they had taken. But Rachel, with strange relief and also with yet +stranger disappointment, was realizing that Breton's presence gave her +no spark, no tiniest flame of passion. She was sorry for him, she wished +most urgently that no harm should come to him, she would, here at this +moment, protect him with her life, with her honour, with anything that +he might demand of her, but her emotion, every vital burning part of it, +was given to her retention of Roddy. + +She might have felt anger because she had, as it were, been entrapped, +she might have felt terror of the possible results to herself ... she +felt nothing except that she must not lose Roddy. + +"I know now," she said, perhaps to herself, "I know at last what it is +that I have wanted. And, knowing this, if, just grasping it, I should +lose it!" + +"Tea, Mr. Breton--sugar? Milk? Would you take my husband's cup to him? +Thank you so much. Yes, he has sugar----" + +"I was so sorry," Breton said, "to hear of your accident. You must have +had a bad time." + +"Yes," said Roddy, laughing. "It was rotten! But what one loses one way +one gains in another, I find. People are much pleasanter than they used +to be." + +Roddy, as he looked at them both, had something of the feeling that a +schoolboy might be expected to have did he suddenly find that some trick +that he had planned was having a really great success. + +He was strangely relieved at Breton's appearance, he was more sure than +ever of his retention of Rachel, he had, most delightfully up his +sleeve, the imminent appearance of the Duchess. As he looked at his wife +he could see that she was appealing to him not to make it too hard for +both of them. He could, now that he had seen Breton, flatter himself +with something of the same superiority that Rachel had once shown on +beholding Nita Raseley. + +Breton, as the moments passed, felt firmer ground beneath his feet. +Rachel, wondering how she could contrive their meeting, had chosen this, +the boldest way, had begged her husband to invite him, planned to make +him a friend of the house. And yet with all this new confidence, he felt +too that there was something that he missed in Rachel, some response to +his thrill, he could see that she was ill at ease and was relying on him +perhaps, "to carry it off." + +So he carried it off, talked and laughed about his experiences, the +countries that he had seen, things that he had done, and, as always when +he was striving to make the best impression, made the worst, letting +that note of exaggeration, of something theatrical that was dangerously +near to a pose, creep into his voice and his attitude. + +Rachel and Roddy said very little. He stopped, felt that he had been +speaking too much, and, sensitive always to an atmosphere that was not +kindly to him, cursed himself for a fool and wished that he had never +spoken at all. + +There was a little pause, then Roddy said, "That's very interesting. +I've never been to South America, but I hear it's going to be _the_ +place soon. Everyone's as rich as Croesus out there, I believe. +Another cup, Rachel dear, please--Oh! thank you, Mr. Breton." + +Breton brought the cup to Rachel and then stood there, with his back to +Roddy, his eyes upon Rachel's face, trying to tell her what he was +feeling. Quietly Roddy's voice came to them both. + +"There _is_ one little thing--one reason why I wanted you to come this +afternoon, Mr. Breton." + +Rachel got up, her eyes fixed intently upon Roddy's face. "No, Rachel, +don't go. It concerns us all three." Roddy laughed. "I don't want any of +us to take it very seriously. It is entirely between ourselves. I do +hope," he went on more gravely, "that I haven't been takin' any liberty +in arrangin' things like this, but it seemed to me the only way--just to +stop, you know, the thing once and for all." + +Breton had left the table and was standing in the middle of the room. A +thousand wild thoughts had come to him. This was a trap--a trap that +Rachel.... + +The room whirled about him--he put his hand on to the back of a chair to +steady himself, then turned to Rachel, seeking her with his eyes. + +He saw instantly in her white face and eyes, that never left, for an +instant, her husband, that there was nothing here of which she had had +any foreknowledge. + +"It's only," said Roddy, "that somebody came to me, a few days ago, and +told me that you, Mr. Breton, and my wife were on friendlier terms than +I--well, than I would, if I had known, have cared for----" + +Breton started forward. "I----" he began. + +"No, please," said Roddy. "It isn't anythin' that I myself have taken, +don't you know, for a second, seriously. I have only arranged that we +three should come like this because--for all our sakes--if people are +sayin' those things it ought to be stopped. It's hard for me, you see, +bein' like this to know quite _how_ to stop it, so I thought we'd just +meet and talk it over." + +Roddy drew a deep breath. He hated explaining things, he disliked +intensely having to say much about anything. He looked round at Rachel +with a reassuring smile to tell her that she need not really be alarmed. + +She had left the table and stood facing both the men. Full at her heart, +was a deep, glad relief that, at last, at last, the moment had come when +she could tell everything, when she might face Roddy with all +concealment cleared, when she might, above all, meet her grandmother's +definite challenge and withstand it. + +But, indeed, she was to meet it, more immediately and more dramatically +than she had expected. Even as she prepared to speak, she caught, beyond +the door, strange shuffling sounds. + +The door, rather clumsily, as though handled with muffled fingers, +slowly opened. + +Framed in it, leaning partly upon Peters, and partly upon a footman, +staring at the room and its occupants from beneath the sinister covering +of a black high-peaked bonnet, was the Duchess. + +The old lady caught, for a second, the vision of her grandchildren, beat +down from her face the effect that their presence had upon her, then +moved slowly, between her supporters, towards the nearest chair. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +A QUARTETTE + + "Her dignity consisted, I do believe, in her recognition, + always sure and prompt, of the dramatic moment."--HENRY + GALLEON. + + +I + +Rachel came forward: Roddy from his sofa said something. + +She was, it seemed, unconscious of them all, fixing her eyes upon a +large black-leather arm-chair, settling slowly down into it, dismissing +Peters and the footman with "Thank you--That is very kind": then, at +last leaning her hands upon her ebony cane, raised her eyes and smiled +grimly, almost triumphantly, at Roddy. + +He had been aware, at that first glimpse of her in the doorway, that he +was ashamed of himself. He should not have done it. + +She was older, feebler, more of a victim than he had ever conceived her +possibly to be, and in some way the situation that awaited her changed +her entirely from the old tyrant who had sat there talking to him only a +week ago into someone who demanded of one's chivalry, of one's courtesy, +protection. + +Roddy had also caught the light of fierce recognition that had leapt up +into Breton's face as he had realized who it was that stood before him. +Breton must have many old scores to pay.... Roddy was suddenly +frightened of the emotions, the fierce resentments, the angry rebellions +that he had brought so lightly into collision. + +But the smile that the Duchess flung to him had in it no fear. It said +to him: "Oh, young man, _this_ is your little plot, is it? Oh, Roddy, my +friend, _how_ young you are and _how_ little you know me if you think +that I am in the least embarrassed by this little gathering. I'm glad +that you've given me a chance of showing what I can do." + +She dominated the room; she was, from the minute of her appearance, +mistress of the situation. They realized her power as they had never +realized it before. + +Sitting there, leaning forward upon her cane, she remarkably resembled +Yale Ross's portrait. She was even wearing the green jade pendant, and +her black dress, her bonnet, her fine white wrists, a gold chain with +its jangling cluster of things--a gold pencil, a card case, a netted +purse--these flung into fine relief the sharp white face lit now with an +amused, an ironic vitality. + +She was old, she was ill, she was being trodden down by generations +hungrier than any that she had ever known, but she was as indomitable as +she had ever been. + +She looked about the room; her glance passed, without any flash of +recognition, without sign or signal that she had realized his presence, +over the fierce figure of her grandson. + +"Well, my dear," she said to Rachel, "I'm sure this is all very pleasant +and most unexpected. Let's have some tea." + +"I'm afraid," said Rachel, "that it's been standing some time. Let me +ring for some fresh." + +"No--I like it strong. It used always to be strong when I was younger. +This new generation likes things weak, I believe." + +Rachel, looking at her grandmother, felt nothing of Roddy's compunction. +She did not, even now, grasp entirely Roddy's intention; she had no sure +conviction of the climax that he intended; but she _did_ know that here, +at last, was her chance; she should lift, once and for all, out from all +the lies and confusion that had shrouded them, her attempts at courage +and honesty, attempts that had wretchedly, most forlornly failed. + +Breton should know, Roddy should know, the Duchess should know, and she +herself should never again go back. + +Breton did not move from the corner where he was sitting; he waited +there, his hand pressing hard upon his knee. + +Roddy said, "Most awfully good of you, Duchess, to come out again. I +wouldn't have dared to ask you to come if Christopher hadn't said that +last time did you no harm." + +"Only for you, Roddy," she answered him almost gaily, "and Rachel of +course. To-day's a nice day. All that thunder has cleared the air." + +What her voice must have seemed to Francis Breton, coming back to him +again after so vast a distance, bringing to him a thousand memories, +scenes and faces that had been buried, a whole world of regrets, and +disappointments. + +Rachel gave her her tea; brought a little table to her side. + +"Thank you, my dear. How _are_ you, Rachel? You're not looking very +well. Richard, who came in to see me this morning, told me that you were +ill at dinner last night. He seemed quite anxious." + +"It was nothing, thank you, grandmamma. That thunder always upsets me. I +was sorry to interfere with Lady Carloes' dinner-party." + +"Not much of a party from what Richard told me. And she had in a harpist +afterwards. Why a harpist? Poor Aggie Carloes! Always done the wrong +thing ever since she was a child. Yes, her little drawing-room's so +stuffy, they tell me--must have been intolerable last night." + +It was for all three of them a quite unbearable situation. Roddy had +never, even when he was a boy of sixteen, been afraid of her; now at +last he understood what the power was that had kept her family at her +feet for so many years, indeed, he seemed now to perceive in all of +them--in Breton, in Rachel, as well as in the Duchess--a strain of some +almost hysterical passion, that, held in check though it was, for the +moment, promised to flare into the frankest melodrama at the slightest +pretext. + +Anything better than this pause; he plunged. + +"You won't forgive me, Duchess," he said abruptly. "I believe I've done +a pretty rotten thing. I didn't intend it that way. I only meant just to +clear everything up and make it all straight for everybody, but if I've +been unpardonable just say so and give it me hot." + +He paused and cleared his throat. "I wonder if you'd mind, Rachel," said +the Duchess, "passing me that little stool that I see over there--that +little brown stool. Just put it under my feet, will you? Thank you." + +Roddy desperately proceeded. + +"It's only this. You said the last time you came that you had +heard--that you knew--that you were afraid that Rachel and your +grandson, Mr. Breton, were--had been--seein' too much of one another. +You just put it to me, you know--Well," he went on, trying to make his +voice cheerful and ordinary and failing completely, "lyin' on one's back +one gets thinkin' and broodin', specially a feller who hasn't been used +to it, like me. I got worried--not because I didn't trust Rachel--and +Mr. Breton, of course, all the way, because I do; but simply that, you +know, it's rotten for a feller to be lyin' helpless on his back, +thinkin' that people are talkin' about his wife--you know how malicious +people are, Duchess--and I thought it jolly well must be stopped, don't +you know, and I wanted it stopped quick and straight and clean, and I +didn't see how it was goin' to be stopped unless I'd got us all friendly +together here and just squashed it, all of us. And so--well, to +speak--well, here we are.... And," he concluded, trying to smile upon +everyone present, "I do hope it's all right. It didn't seem then a poor +sort of thing to do, but somehow gettin' you all here as a surprise...." +He broke off, made noises in his throat, and felt that the room was of a +burning heat. + +He remembered, vaguely, that he had designed this meeting as a +punishment to the old lady; he had only succeeded, however, in revealing +his own cowardice; the first glimpse of her had made a poor creature of +him. Oh! how he wished himself now well out of it! And yet, behind that +thought was the knowledge of the little speech that he was soon to make +and the way that, with it, he would win Rachel and hold her for ever! +After all, it came to that, absolutely: Rachel was the only thing in all +the world that mattered. + +The Duchess flung upon him a kindly satiric glance, then, turning from +him, bent her sharp little eyes upon Rachel, leaning forward upon her +cane so that it appeared that it was now only with Rachel that she had +any concern. + +"Had I known that my few careless words!"--She broke off with a little +impatient gesture. + +"Ah! Rachel, my dear, I'm truly sorry. My stupidity...." + +But Rachel, her eyes upon Roddy, had got up, had moved across to Roddy's +sofa, and stood there, above him. Her eyes moved, then, slowly to her +grandmother. + +"There was no need," she said, her voice low and trembling, "for this. +If I'd done, as I should, it couldn't have happened. I'm responsible for +all of it and only I. Roddy _has_ got you here on false pretences, +grandmamma. If you'd rather go now...." + +"Thank you," the Duchess said, "I'd much rather stay. It amuses me to +see you all together here." + +"Then," said Rachel, "I'll say what I ought to have said +before. Roddy," turning passionately round to him, "you shall +have everything--everything--from the very beginning. Mr. +Breton--Francis--will agree that that's what we should have done--long +ago." + +Breton made a movement as though he would rise, then stayed. + +"Aren't we, my dear Rachel," said the Duchess, "making a great deal of a +very small affair?" + +But Rachel, speaking only to Roddy, sinking her voice and bending a +little down to him, began, "Roddy, one thing you've got to know--it's +been from the beginning only myself that was to blame. Francis"--she +paused, for an instant, over the name--"Francis, please," as he moved +again from his corner, "let _me_ tell Roddy...." + +She went on then more firmly, turning a little round to her grandmother +again: "Roddy, I don't want to defend myself--it's the very last thing I +can try to do--I only want to tell you--all three of you--exactly the +truth. You know, Roddy, that when I said I'd marry you it wasn't a +question of love between us at all. We had that out quite straight from +the beginning. I was awfully young: I wanted safety and protection and +so I took you. You rather wanted me, and grandmother wanted you to marry +me, and so there you were too. Then I met my cousin--I'd heard about him +since I'd been a baby and he'd heard about me. We had a lot in common, +tastes and dislikes--all kinds of things. We met and he stirred in me +all those things that you, Roddy, had never touched. I had found +marriage wasn't the freedom I had thought that it would be. I was fond +of you, you were fond of me, but there was something always there +jogging both of us--just putting us out of patience with one another. +Things got worse. You never could explain what you felt. I tried, but +the whole trouble wouldn't go into words somehow. + +"Francis and I wrote to one another a little and then one day--as +grandmamma has so kindly told you--(here her voice was sharp for a +moment)--I went to his rooms." Rachel stopped. She was looking straight +in front of her, her hands clenched. She seemed to dive deep for +courage, to remain for an instant struggling, then to rise with it in +her hands. Her voice was strong and unfaltering. "We found that we loved +one another. We told each other ... it seemed to Francis then that the +only thing was for us to go away together. But I refused. Odd though it +may seem, Roddy, I cared for you then more than I'd ever cared for you +before, and I think it's gone on since then, getting stronger always. I +wouldn't go and I wouldn't see Francis again and we weren't to write +again--unless I found that our living together, Roddy--you and I--was +hopeless. Then I said I'd go to him." + +Her voice sank and faltered--"There did come a day when I thought +that--we couldn't get on any longer. You know what finally ... Lizzie +Rand found out. She knew that I intended to go away with Francis. She +fought to prevent it--she was splendid about it, splendid! We +quarrelled, and in the middle of it, came your accident.... I wrote +afterwards to Francis and told him that it was all over--absolutely--for +ever. Since then--only once...." She broke off, recovered: "Since then +there's been nothing--no letter, no meeting--nothing. My whole life now +is wrapped up in you, Roddy, and Francis knows that. I've told you the +whole truth!" She turned from him, fiercely, round to her grandmother. +"I don't know what _you_ told Roddy, what you made him believe--you've +wanted, always, to harm me with Roddy if you could. At least, now, you +can't tell him more than I've done." + +The Duchess stared first at Rachel, then at Roddy. She had behaved from +the beginning as though Breton did not exist. + +Some of her amiability had left her. Her lips were tightly drawn +together as she listened and her rings tapped one against the other. + +"This is all rather tiresome," she said sharply. "Very like you, Rachel, +to do these things in public. You get that from your mother. But you're +strangely lacking in humour. It all comes from my own very unfortunate +remark the other day. Not like you, Roddy dear, to arrange this kind of +thing. Stupid ... distinctly--I'm sure now, however, that you're +satisfied. Rachel's certainly been very frank--and now perhaps we might +leave it." + +It was then that Francis Breton came forward into the middle of the +room, his face grey with anger, something suddenly unrestrained and +savage in his eyes so that the room was filled with a wind of angry +agitation. + +He stood in front of his grandmother, but turned his head, sharply, now +and again, round to Roddy. So agitated was he that his words came in +little gasps, flung out, in little bundles together, and strangely +accented as though he were speaking in a language that was strange to +him. + +The sarcastic smile came back into the old lady's eyes and she leaned +forward on her stick again, looking up into his eyes. + +"I didn't know--I didn't know--that we were going to meet like this. You +didn't know either or you wouldn't have come, but I've been waiting for +years for this. It's been nice for me, hasn't it, to sit by whilst +you've done everything to make things wretched for me, to ruin me, to +push me back to where...." + +Roddy's voice interrupted. + +"Mr. Breton, I think you forget----" + +Instantly Breton stopped. He forced control upon his voice, he +stammered, "I'm ashamed--I oughtn't to have--But sitting there--not +being allowed to speak--you must excuse me----" + +He turned round to Roddy. "You must think me the most complete +blackguard. It's only a climax to everything that's happened since I +came back. I don't want to defend myself, but it isn't--it isn't all so +simple as just talking about it makes it look. You're the kind of man to +whom everything's just black or white--you do it or you don't--but +I--I've never found that. I've been in things without knowing I've been +in them. I've done things that would have turned out straight for any +other fellow, but they've always been crooked for me. Something always +blinds me just when I need to see straightest. That's no excuse, but +it's an awful handicap. + +"I won't hide or pretend about it. Why should I? I loved Rachel. We've +only met so little--really only that once in my rooms--that you can't +grudge us that. We had things--heaps of things--in common long before +we knew one another. It wasn't like any ordinary two people meeting, and +I knew so well that she could make all the difference to my life that I +took the chance of knowing her even though she wasn't ever going to +belong to me. I don't think I ever really believed that I'd be the man. +I know now that she's yours altogether and you ought to have her--now +that I've seen you I know that. And last night when I faced the fact +that I'd have to go all my life without her I realized what she told me +long ago, that it was much better just to have my idea of her and not to +have had my regret about having spoiled anything for her. I've no +confidence in myself, you see. If I thought I were the kind of man just +to carry her off and make her happy for ever and ever, then I suppose +I'd have been bolder about her long ago, but I know, even if she didn't +belong to you at all, that I should be afraid that I'd spoil her life +just as I've always spoiled my own. + +"I expect this is all very confused. It's all so difficult and you don't +want long explanations, but I'm only trying to say that you needn't ever +have any fear again that I'm going to step in or try to have any part in +her. We've got our things together that nobody can take from us. We've +seen each other so little that most people would say it wasn't much to +give up. But things don't happen only when you're together...." He +stopped suddenly, seemed to stand there confused, turned and flung a +fierce, defiant look at his grandmother--exactly the glance that an +angry small boy flings at someone in authority who has seen fit to +punish him--then went back to his corner and stood there in the shadow, +watching them all. + +Even as he finished speaking he had realized finally that his +relationship with Rachel was over, closed, done for. He had known it on +that afternoon in the park--He had realized it perhaps again in the +heart of the storm last night, but now, when he had seen the soul +pierce, through Rachel's eyes, to her husband, he knew that Roddy, one +way or another, had at last won her. + +Moreover, to anyone as impressionable as Breton, Roddy's helplessness, +his humour, his bravery had, on the score of Roddy alone, settled the +matter. Breton had his fierce moments, his high inspirations, his noble +resolves!... Now, as he looked this last time upon Rachel, his was no +mean spirit. + +Rachel drew a sharp breath and looked at Roddy with wide eyes, flooded +with fear. He had heard now everything that they had to say; although +she had watched him so closely she could not say what he would do. As +she saw the two men there before her she felt that she knew Francis +Breton exactly, that she could tell what he would say, how he would see +things, what would anger him or surprise him. + +But about Roddy she was always uncertain: she was only now, very slowly, +beginning to know him, but she was sure that if Roddy were to beat her +she would care for him the more, but if Francis Breton were to beat her +she would leave him for ever. + +A flush meanwhile was rising over Roddy's neck, up into his face, to the +very roots of his hair. + +"It's rather beastly," he said, speaking very slowly and trying to +choose his words, "all this talkin'. I might have known, if I'd been +able to think about it, what it would be like, but there, I never did. I +had a kind of idea that we'd all get it over sort of in five minutes and +then have tea, don't you know, and all go away comfortably. I don't feel +now that you've rightly got all that everybody thinks about it. It was +very decent of you, Mr. Breton, to say exactly--so plainly, you +know--how you felt. But I don't want to talk a lot--I can't you know, +anyhow. + +"It's only this. I wanted the Duchess to hear me say, amongst ourselves, +that I know _all_ about it, that we _all_ know all about it and that +there isn't anything for anyone to talk about because there isn't +anything in it, and if I hear of anyone sayin' a word they've just got +to reckon with me. Rachel and I know one another and, Mr. Breton, I hope +you'll go on bein' a friend of ours and come and see us often. Of course +you and Rachel have a lot in common and it's only natural you should +have. + +"Now Duchess, you can just tell anyone who's talkin' that Mr. Breton is +welcome here just as often as he pleases and he's a friend of mine and +my wife's--and they can jolly well shut their mouths. Thank God, all +_that's_ over." + + +II + +But he was very swiftly to realize that it was _not_ all over. Sharply, +quivering through the air like an arrow from a bow, came the Duchess's +words. + +"Good God, Roddy, are you completely insane?" + +She was twisted, distorted with anger, she seemed to take her rage and +fling it about her so that the chairs, the tables, Roddy's innocent +little sporting sketches and even the case of birds' eggs were saturated +with it. + +The gleaming park, the peaceful evening sky, the sharp curve of an +apricot-tinted moon, these things were blotted out and the noises of the +town deadened by this indignant fury. Rachel had known it in other days, +to Breton it evoked long-distant nursery hours, to Roddy it was +something utterly new and unsuspected. For the first time in his life he +caught a shadow of the terror that had darkened Rachel's young days. + +To the Duchess it was simply that she now clearly discovered that she +was the victim of an elaborate plot. The three of them! Oh! she saw it +all! and Roddy, Roddy--who had been the one living soul to whom her hard +independence had made concession! This came, the definite climax to the +year's accumulations, the final decision flung at her, before she died, +by those two--Rachel and Breton--from whom, of all living souls, she +could endure it least. + +With her rage rose her fighting spirit. She would show them, these young +fools, the kind of woman that an earlier and a finer generation than +theirs could produce! + +They had more there before them than one old woman, sick and ailing, and +they should see it. + +Her voice shook a little, but she gave no other sign, after that first +challenge: her little eyes flamed from the mask of her face like candles +behind holes in a screen. + +"This is your sense of fun, Roddy, I suppose," she said. "You always +_were_ lacking in that. I've told you so before. As you asked me here I +suppose you're ready for my opinion. You shall have it. I'll only ask +you to cast your eye over any friend of ours: see what you would say if +this--this idiotic folly committed by someone else had come to your +ears. I suppose you'd arranged this, the three of you. Well, you shall +know what I think. Your tenderness to Rachel is magnificent--she has +obviously reckoned on it, knew that her frankness would serve her well +enough. You've already been more patient with her than men would have +been in my day. I only hope that your patience may not be too severely +tried.... + +"As for my grandson, to whom you have so tenderly entrusted Rachel, your +acquaintance with him is quite recent, is it not? I am sure that if you +were to enquire of any man at one of your clubs he would give you quite +excellent reasons for my grandson's long unhappy absence from his +relations and his country. At any rate you don't know him as well as I +do. I could tell you, if you asked me, that it is a long time now since +any decent man or woman has sought his society. Do you suppose that his +family have not the best of reasons for trying to forget his +existence--an attempt that he makes unpleasantly difficult? + +"Have you heard _nothing_, Roddy? Do you really want a man who has been +kicked out of society for the most excellent reasons, who has disgraced +his name as no member of his family has ever disgraced it before him, +for your wife's lover? If she must have one...." + +Rachel, trembling, had come forward, Roddy had cried out, but quietly, +stronger than either of them, Breton had faced her. She had not, +throughout the afternoon, looked at him nor spoken one word to him. Now, +her anger carrying her beyond all physical control, she was compelled to +meet his gaze. + +He stood very quietly beside her chair, looking at the three of them. +"My grandmother is wrong," he said, "I am not quite as deserted as she +thinks. Just before I came here this afternoon Uncle John called upon +me. I had half an hour's very pleasant talk with him: he told me that, +although his mother had not altered her opinion of me, Uncle Vincent and +Aunt Adela and himself considered that I had earned"--he smiled a +little--"forgiveness. He hoped that I would understand that--while my +grandmother was alive--I could not be invited to 104 Portland Place, but +that he thought that I would like to know that they had realized +my--well, improvement, and that he hoped that we would be friends. I +said that I should be delighted." + +The Duchess spoke to him then, her voice shaking so that it was +difficult to catch her words. + +"John--came--said that--to _you_?" + +"Yes. It was a curious coincidence that to-day----" + +Her eyes had dropped. She murmured to herself: + +"John ... John ... Adela ... behind my back ... Adela ... Vincent----" + +They were all silent. She sat there, her head down, leaning on her +hands, brooding. Her anger seemed to have departed, her fire, her fury +had fled: she was a very old woman--and the room was suddenly chilly. +Before her were Rachel and Breton: they faced the ancient enemy. But as +Rachel stood there, realizing that there had flashed between them the +climax of all their lives together, yes, and a climax of forces greater +and more powerful than anything that their own small histories could +contain, she had no sense of drama nor of revenge nor of any triumphant +victory. A little while before she had been almost insane with anger.... +Now something had occurred. Rachel only knew that the three of +them--Roddy, Francis and herself--were young and immensely vigorous, +with all life before them; but that one day they would be old, as this +old woman, and would be deserted and sick and past anyone's need of +them. + +"Oh! I wish we hadn't! I wish we hadn't!" she thought. + +In that moment's silence they all might have heard the sound of the +soft, sharp click--the click that marked the supreme moment of their +relationship to the situation that had, for all of them, been so long +developing-- + +Breton surrendered Rachel, Roddy received her, and, beyond them all, the +Duchess definitely abandoned her world. + +For them all, grouped there so closely together, the heart of their +relations the one to the other had been revealed to them. + +Other dramas, other comedies, other tragedies--This had claimed its +moment and had passed.... + +After the silence the Duchess said, "My family--I no longer...." She +stopped, collected, with all her will, her words, then in a low voice +said, looking at Breton, "I owe you, I suppose--an apology. I owe that +perhaps to you all. My children are wiser in their own generation. I no +longer understand--the way things go--all too confused for my poor +intelligence." She pulled herself together as an old ship rights itself +after a roller's stinging blow. "This has lasted long enough.... We've +all talked--My family are--wiser--it seems." + +But she could not go on. "Please, Roddy," she said at length, "I think +it's time--if you'd ring." + +"I'm sorry----" he said and then stopped. + +Soon Peters and a footman appeared. She leaned heavily upon them and, +staring before her at the door, slowly went out. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +RACHEL AND RODDY + + "Tell me, Praise, and tell me, Love, + What you both are thinking of? + O, we think, said Love, said Praise, + Now of children and their ways." + + WILLIAM BRIGHTY RAND. + + +I + +Breton had gone; the room was empty. + +Rachel came and, kneeling on the floor, hid her face in Roddy's coat. He +put his hands about hers. + +His only desire now was that there should be peaceful silence. His +hatred for scenes had always been with him an instinct, natural, alert, +untiring, so that he would undertake many labours, forgo many pleasant +prizes, if only emotional crises might be avoided. + +This afternoon had showered upon him a relentless succession of +reverberating displays, he had perceived one human being after another +reveal quite nakedly their tumultuous feelings. It was, for him, +precisely as though the Duchess, Rachel, Breton had stripped there +before him and expected him to display no astonishment at their so +doing--that he should have been the author of the business made it no +better; he reflected that he had even looked forward with excitement to +the affair. "If I had only known how beastly...." + +He was ashamed--ashamed of his own action in provoking these things, +ashamed of his own lack of understanding, ashamed to have watched the +sharpened tempers of his friends. + +He would never, Heaven help him, take part in any such scene again! + +But out of it all one good thing had come--he had got Rachel! As she +had looked across the room, meeting his eyes, he had known that at last +his long pursuit of her was at an end.... + +It never occurred to him that most husbands, after such a declaration as +Rachel had just made, would have stormed, reproached, ridden, for a long +time to come, the high horse of conscious superior virtue. + +It did not seem odd to him that at the very moment of Rachel's +confession he should feel more sure of her than he had ever been before. +At last the Nita Raseley debt was paid off. At last he knew, beyond +question, that Rachel loved him. Best of all, perhaps, he had seen +Breton and felt his own superiority. + +That being so, he wanted no words about the matter. He would like to lie +there on his sofa, with her hands enclosed in his and nothing said +between either of them--very pleasant and quiet there in the dusk. He +hoped that he would never again have to explain anything or speak to +anyone about his feelings--no, not even to Rachel. + +Then he discovered that she was sobbing as she knelt there, and his face +crimsoned with confusion and alarm. Rachel, the proudest woman he had +ever known, kneeling to him, crying! + +He tried to lift her, pressing her hands. + +"Rachel dear ... Rachel."--Her words came between her sobs. + +"I should have told you ... long ago ... I tried to--I did +indeed ... but it was because I was frightened ... because I ... Oh! +Roddy! you'll never trust me again!" + +He was burning hot with the confusion of it: he was almost angry both +with himself and her. + +"Please, Rachel ... please ... don't ... it's all over, dear. There's +nothing the matter." + +"It's fine of you ... to take it like that ... But you'll never forgive +me, really, you can't--It isn't possible. This very afternoon ... I was +going to tell you--if all this ... hadn't happened. You'll be different +now--you must be ... just when I want you so much." + +He glanced in despair about the room. He looked at the sporting prints +and the case of birds' eggs and at last at Rachel's photograph. How +proud and splendid she was there! This dreadful abasement! + +He stroked her hair. + +"See here, old girl--we've had a rotten afternoon, haven't we? Awfully +rotten--never remember to have spent a worse. All my fault, too--poor +old Duchess!... but look here, it's all right now. I understand +everythin' and--and--dash it all--do stop cryin', Rachel, old girl." + +"It's been bad enough," she said, her voice steadier now, "the +way I've been to you all this time, but I thought--at least--I was +honest--I've tried--I've made a miserable failure--But, Roddy, you +need--never--never--be afraid of anything again--I'm yours altogether, +Roddy, to do anything with.... + +"All about Francis--I was mad somehow--It was grandmamma--feeling she +had driven me into marrying you. And then Nita ... and then I didn't +know you a bit--all there was in you--but now," and she raised her eyes +and looked at him, "I love you with all my heart and soul and strength." + +He bent down his head and rather clumsily kissed her. + +"You know, Rachel, I was a bit frightened myself this afternoon--thought +you might be angry because I took you by surprise. You bet, if I'd known +what it was going to be like ... Well, thank the Lord, it's done, and +we'll never have another like it--I'll see to that. Scenes are rotten +things, aren't they?--I always loathed 'em even when I was tiny--so did +the governor.... If he had me up for lickin' all he ever said was, 'Down +with your bags!' That was all there was about it." + +She leant her cheek against his. + +"You've forgiven me all, everything--absolutely?" she asked. + +"There isn't any forgiveness in it," he answered. "It's all the other +way, if it's anythin'.... You see, I've been thinkin' a lot while I was +lyin' here. When there was that business over Nita I said you should +always be free just as I told you I ought to be. Well, since--since I +got that old tumble--I haven't any right to hold you at all. I'm just an +old log here, no good, anyway, and only a nuisance. And if I thought I +was keepin' you tied I'd be miserable. You see, I know you're fond of me +now. I've got that.... Don't let's talk any more about it. You've got me +and I've got you--and we aren't afraid of any old woman in the world." + +He held her closely to him, his arms strong about her. + +"There's something else to tell you." + +"Something else?" + +"Yes. We're going to have a child, you and I, Roddy. And now that you've +forgiven me it's all right--but that's partly what's made me afraid all +these last weeks. As it is, you've got me, got me, got me, safe for ever +and ever!" + +"Well, I'm damned!" said Roddy. + +She could feel his hand trembling upon hers. + +"Oh," she whispered, "I was frightened this afternoon--terrified. I +thought you'd never see me again." + +Roddy was turning things over in his mind. + +"A kid ... my word. Just the thing. A boy ... it'll be jolly for the +Place and I can teach him a lot. It'll be somethin' to go back to the +house for. Gosh! There's news!" + +His eyes wandered round the room. + +"Good thing I kept all those eggs--nearly broke 'em up too. They're a +jolly fine collection. I'd have prized 'em like anything if they'd come +to me when I was small." He caught her hand so fiercely that she gave a +little cry. + +"What a day! We'll have to see about the shootin' down at Seddon again, +old girl ... Lord, what an afternoon!" + + + + +CHAPTER X + +LIZZIE BECOMES MISS RAND AGAIN + + "So she put the handkerchief, and the pin, and the lock of hair + back into the box, turned the key, and went resolutely about + her everyday duties again."--Mrs. Ewing. + + +I + +Lizzie was waiting for Lady Adela. She had finished her work for the +day, had come from her own room to Lady Adela's and now stood at one of +the high windows looking down upon the April sunshine that coloured the +dignities of Portland Place. + +The room was spacious and lofty, but curiously uncomfortable and +lifeless. High book-cases with glass shutters revealed rows of +"Cornhill" and "Blackwood" volumes, a long rather low table covered with +a green cloth held a silver inkstand, a blotting-pad, pens and a +calendar. There were stiff mahogany chairs ranged against the wall and +old prints of Beaminster House (white-pillared, spacious with sloping +lawns) and Eton College chapel faced the windows. + +This was where Lady Adela spent several hours of every morning and she +had never attempted to "do" anything with it. A large marble clock on +the mantelpiece ticked out its sublime indifference to time and change. +"We're the same, thank God," it said, "as we've always been." + +Lady Adela had told Lizzie that she would come in from a drive at +quarter to four and she would like then to speak to her. + +Lizzie's eyes were fixed upon Portland Place, deserted for the moment +and catching in its shining surface some hint of the blue sky above it. +There was a great deal just then to occupy her thoughts. Ten days ago, +in the middle of a little dinner-party that Lady Adela was giving, +upstairs the Duchess had had a stroke. Lizzie had, of course, not been +there, but, coming next morning she had been told of it. Her Grace was +soon well again, no unhappy effects could be discovered, she had not, +herself, been apparently disturbed by it, but it had rung, like a +warning bell, through the house. "The beginning of the end.... We've +been watching, we've been waiting--soon these walls will be ours again," +said the portraits of those stiff and superior Beaminsters. + +News ran through the Beaminster camp--"The Duchess has had a stroke.... +The Duchess has had a stroke." + +But, for many weeks now, Lizzie had been aware that some crisis had +found its hour. Rachel and her husband, Lady Adela and Lord John, even +the Duke and Lord Richard had been involved. It was not her business to +ask questions, but every morning that saw her sitting down to her day's +work saw her also wondering whether it would be her last in that +house.... + +Lady Adela, however sharply she may have changed in herself, had never +permitted her relationship to Lizzie to be drawn any closer. When Lizzie +had returned from that terrible Christmas at Seddon, Lady Adela had +asked her no questions, had shown no sign of human anxiety or +tenderness. She had never, during all the years that Lizzie had been +with her, expressed gratitude or satisfaction. She had, on the other +hand, never bullied nor lost her temper with her. She had separated +herself from all expression or human emotion. And yet Lizzie liked her. +She would miss her when their association ended: yes, she would miss +her, and the house and the whole Beaminster interest when the end came. + +She wondered, as she stood at the window, whether that old woman +upstairs were suffering, what her struggle against extinction was +costing her, how urgently she was protesting against the passing of time +and the death of her generation. Flying galleons of silver clouds caught +the sun and Portland Place passed into shadow; the bell of the Round +Church began to ring. "Poor old thing," thought Lizzie; she would not +have considered her thus, a year ago. + +Lady Adela came in; she reminded Lizzie of Mrs. Noah in her stiff wooden +hat, her stiff wooden clothes, her anxiety to prevent any mobility that +might give her away. She looked, as she always did, carefully about the +room, at the "Cornhills" and "Blackwoods," at the marble clock, at the +prints of Beaminster House and Eton College Chapel, a little as though +she would ascertain that no enemy, no robber, no brigand, no outlaw, was +concealed about the premises, a little as though she would say--"Well, +these things are all right anyway, nothing wrong here." + +"I'm sorry, Miss Rand," she said. "I hope that I haven't kept you." + +"No, thank you, Lady Adela, I have only just finished." + +Lady Adela sat down; they discussed correspondence, trivial things that +were, Lizzie knew, placed as a barrier against something that frightened +her. + +At length it came. + +"Miss Rand, I wonder whether--the fact is, my mother has just decided +that she wishes to be moved to Beaminster House. I must of course go +with her. I hope that this will not inconvenience you. You can, if you +prefer not to leave your mother, come down every day by train; it only +takes an hour. Just as you please...." + +Lizzie's heart was strangely, poignantly stirred. The moment had come +then; the house was to be deserted. This could only mean the end. She +herself would never return here, her little room, the large solemn +house, that walk from Saxton Square, the Round Church, the Queen's Hall, +Regent's Park.... + +But she gave no sign. + +Gravely she replied: "I think I'd better come down with you, Lady Adela, +if you don't mind. My mother has my sister. Perhaps I might come up for +the week-ends." + +"Yes. That would be quite easy. The other places, you know, are let, +but Beaminster has always been kept. The Duke has been there a good +deal. It reminds me ... I was there for some years as a girl." + +Lizzie realized that Lady Adela was very near to tears; she had never +before seen her, in any way, moved. She was distressed and +uncomfortable. It was as though Lady Adela were, suddenly, after all +these years, about to be driven from a position that had seemed, in its +day, impregnable. + +"Oh! don't, please don't, now!" was Lizzie's silent cry. "It will spoil +it all--all these years." + +Lady Adela didn't. Her voice became dry and hard, her eyes without +expression. + +"We shall go down, I expect, on Monday if Dr. Christopher thinks that a +good day." + +"I hope that the Duchess----" + +"My mother's very well to-day--quite her old self. I have just been up +with her. It is odd, but for thirty years she has never expressed any +interest in Beaminster. Now she is impatient to be there." + +"One often, I think, has a sudden longing for places." + +"Yes. I shall be glad myself to be there again." + +"This house?" + +"Oh! we shall shut it up--for the time Lord John will come down to +Beaminster with us. I have spoken to Norris, but to-morrow morning, if +you don't mind, we will go through things." + +"Certainly." + +"The house has not been shut for a great number of years--a very great +number. During the last thirty years through the hottest weather my +mother was here. + +"It will seem strange ..." Her voice trembled. + +"Is there anything more this afternoon?" Lizzie turned to the door. + +"No, I think not. Except--perhaps ..." Lady Adela was in great +agitation. Her eyes sought Lizzie, beseeching her help. + +"Miss Rand--I think it only right to say. I'm afraid one cannot--in the +nature of things--it's impossible, I fear, to expect--my mother to live +very much longer." Her voice caught in a dry strangled cough. "Dr. +Christopher has warned us. After my mother's death my life, of course, +will be very different. I shall live very quietly--a good deal in the +country and abroad, I expect. + +"I shall not, of course, have a secretary." + +"I quite understand," said Lizzie quietly. + +"I want you to know, Miss Rand," Lady Adela continued, "that although +during all these years I have seemed very unappreciative.... It is not +my way--I find it difficult to express--But I have, nevertheless, been +very conscious--we have all been--of the things that you have done for +me, indeed for the whole house. You have been admirable; quite +admirable." + +"I have been very happy here," said Lizzie. + +"I am very glad of that. I must have seemed often very blind to all that +you were doing. But I should like you to know that it is more--it is +more--than simply your duty to the house--it is the many things that you +have done personally for me. You have not yourself been, I dare say, +aware of the effect that your company has had upon me. It has been very +great." + +Lizzie smiled. "I've loved the house and the work. It has meant a very +important part of my life. I shall never forget it." + +Their embarrassment was terrible. After a moment of struggle Lady +Adela's voice was hard and unconcerned again. "You know, Miss Rand, +that--when the time comes for this change--anything that I, or any of +us, can do ... I do not know what your own plans may be, but you need +have no fear, I think." + +"Thank you very much, Lady Adela. That is very kind." + +There was a little pause--then they said good night. + +As Lizzie went down the great staircase, on every side of her, the +stones of the house were whispering, "You're all going--you're all +going--you're all going." + +Her heart was very sad. + + +II + +As she passed the Regent Street Post Office Francis Breton came out of +it. They had not met often lately, but she was conscious that ever since +that interview in Regent's Park, they had been very good friends. Her +absorption with Rachel and affairs in the Portland Place house had +assisted her own resolution and she had thought that she could meet him +now without a tremor. Nevertheless the tremor came as she caught sight +of him there and, for a moment, the traffic and the shouting died away +and there was a great stillness. + +He was very glad to see her. He stood on the post office steps looking +richer and smarter than she had ever known him. He wore a dark blue suit +and a black tie and a bowler hat--all ordinary garments enough--but they +surrounded him with an air of prosperity that had not been his before. +He seemed to her to gleam and glitter and shine with confidence and +assurance. One hurried glimpse she had had of him some weeks before, +miserable, unkempt, almost furtive. She was glad for his sake that all +was well with him, but he needed her more when he was unhappy.... + +But he was delighted. "Miss Rand. That's splendid! Are you going back to +Saxton Square now? The very thing! I've been wanting badly to see you!" +It was always, she thought, in little hurried and occasional walks that +they exchanged their confidences. There was not much to show for all the +elaborate palace that she had once been building--snatches of +conversation, clutches at words and movements, even eloquent +interpretation of silences--well, she was wiser than all that now! + +But, when they started off together, she found that she was caught up +instantly into that fine assumption of intimacy that was one of his most +alluring qualities. Radiant though he was he still needed her; he was +more eager to talk to _her_ than to anyone else even though he had +forgotten her very existence until he saw her standing there. + +"I am glad to see you. I should have come down and tried to find you, +anyway, in a day or two. I've been through a rotten time--really +rotten--and one doesn't want to see anyone--even one's best friends--in +that sort of condition, does one?" + +"That's just the time your _real_ friends--if they're worth +anything--want to see you. If they can be of any use----" + +"But you'd been such a tremendous help to me. I was ashamed to come to +you any more. Besides, you'd showed me, in a way, that I ought to get +through on my own without asking help from anyone. You'd taught me that +I did try." + +She saw that he was shining with the glory of one who had come, +rather mightily, unaided through times of stress. A pleasant +self-congratulatory pathos stirred behind his words. "It _was_ a bad +time--but it's all right now. And I expect it was good for me," was +really what he said. + +"I do want to tell you," he went on eagerly, "about Rachel. It's all +been so strange--wonderful in a way. After that talk I had with you in +the park I was absolutely broken up. Oh! but done for! I simply went +under. I tried to go back to some of that old set I've told you about +before, but the awful thing was that Rachel wouldn't let me. Thinking of +her, wanting her when all those other women were about. It simply wasn't +possible.... + +"It got worse and worse. I thought I'd go off my head. Then--do you +remember that awful thunderstorm we had?" + +"Yes," said Lizzie, "I remember it very well." + +"That night was a kind of climax. I'd dined with Christopher, then got +wandering about--it was horribly close and heavy--got into some music +hall. I suppose I'd been drinking--anyway, I had suddenly a kind of +vision, there in the music hall. I thought Rachel was dead, that I'd +lost her altogether. And then--it's all so hard to explain--but when I +came to myself I seemed to understand that the only way I could keep her +was by giving her up.... I've got it all muddled, but that was what it +came to." + +"You were quite right," said Lizzie. + +"Well, then--what do you think happened? The very next day my uncle, +John Beaminster, came to see me--yes, came himself. Talked and was most +pleasant and wanted to be friends. At the same time--now just listen to +this--came a note from Seddon asking me to go and see him. I went, found +Rachel there. Apparently my delightful grandmother had been telling him +stories about Rachel and me, and he wanted to put things straight. As +though this weren't enough, right upon us, without a word of warning, +dropped my grandmother herself!" + +He stopped that he might convey fully to Lizzie the drama of the +occasion. + +There was, in his words, just that touch of absurdity and exaggeration +that she had noticed at her very first meeting with him. He was always +too passionately anxious to thrill his audience! + +"There _was_ a scene! You can imagine it! We all tried to behave at +first, although of course it was immensely difficult. I don't think +Seddon had in the least realized the kind of thing it would be. Then +she--the old tyrant--could contain herself no longer and burst out +concerning me, the blackguard I was and the rest of it. She was furious, +you see, at Seddon taking my friendship with Rachel so quietly. He was +_splendid_ about it! + +"Well, when she burst out about all the family cutting me and everybody +casting me out, the opportunity was too good. I _couldn't_ help it. I +had to tell her that Uncle John had been round that very afternoon to +see me and that the family was holding out its arms." + +"What happened?" said Lizzie, as he paused. + +"She collapsed--altogether, completely. She never said another word--she +just went." + +"You shouldn't have done it!" Lizzie cried, turning almost furiously +upon him. "Oh! it was cruel--she was so old and all of you so young and +strong." + +"Yes!" he answered her--"But think of the years that I've waited--the +times she's given me, the suffering----" + +"No," interrupted Lizzie, quiet again now. "If you're weak enough to be +pushed down by anybody like that, then you're weak enough to sink by +your own fault, whether there's anyone there or no. She's been hard in +her time, I dare say, but everything's left her now and she's ill and +lonely. It was wrong of all of you. I shouldn't have thought Sir +Roderick----" + +"He only wanted things to be straightened out," Breton said eagerly. "He +didn't _intend_ to have a scene. But I expect you're right, Miss Rand, +as you always are. I've been a brute, the most howling cad. But there's +one thing--I don't think it's hurt my grandmother. She likes those +scenes, and she's been none the worse since." + +"She's been much worse," said Lizzie gravely. "She's dying--She's going +down to Beaminster on Monday." + +He stopped. "Oh! but I'm sorry ... That's dreadful ... I'd no idea. I'm +always responsible----" + +He had sunk to such depths that she was compelled to raise him. + +"I don't think you need be disturbed, Mr. Breton. Something of the sort +would have been certain to happen very soon. She would have found out in +any case ... and there were other things, I know. Rachel----" + +"Ah!" he broke in, eager again and almost cheerful. "That was the +wonderful thing. When I saw her there first with Seddon--I'd never met +him before, you know--I felt angry and impatient. I wanted to carry her +off--away from everybody. And then, when Seddon began to speak I lost +all sense of Rachel's belonging to me. She seemed older, ever so far +away from him, and he was so fine, so splendid about it all that I +felt--I felt--well, that I'd do anything in the world for both of +them--but never anything that could separate them or make him unhappy." + +"You can't separate them now," said Lizzie, "nobody can." + +"No. It was just finished--our episode together that wasn't really an +episode at all if you consider the little that we saw one another.... +Besides, I've never got near Rachel, and I felt in some way that the +nearer I got to her the farther away she was. Why, the only time that I +kissed her she was the farthest away of all!" + +They were walking up the grey, peaceful square. + +"You don't mind my telling you all this, do you, Miss Rand? You've seen +it all from the beginning. But I'm odd in a way.... + +"Uncle John coming to me, Seddon being friendly to me, the family taking +me back ... that seems to have made all the difference to me. Although +I'd never confess it, even to myself, I know that if Rachel and I had +gone off together I'd never have been happy. You see, we're both alike +that way. We're restless, one half of us, but oh! we're Beaminster the +other, and even Rachel, who's been fighting the family all her days, has +one part of her that's happy to be married to Seddon and to be quiet and +proper and English. That's why neither I nor Seddon ever could hold +her--because to be with me she'd have had to give up the other. If she +had a child, that might----" + +"She's going to have a child!" said Lizzie. + +He stopped and stared at her. + +"Miss Rand!... Is that certain?" + +"Quite." + +"Ah, well, Seddon's got her all right. They'll be happy as anything." He +sighed. "You know, Miss Rand, Rachel and I have been fighting the old +lady, and we seem to have won ... but I'm not sure whether, after all, +she hasn't!" + +On the step he paused. + +"I'm sticking to Candles, I've got work. I'm recognized again. I've got +that little bit of Rachel that she gave me and that nobody else can +have, and--I've got you for a friend--Not so bad after all!" + +He laughed, opened the door for her, and then as they stood in the dark +little hall he said: + +"All along you've been _such_ a friend for me. I want someone like +you--someone strong and sensible, without my rotten sentiment and +impulses. We'll always be friends, won't we?" + +He held her hand. + +"Always," she said, smiling at him. + +But, perhaps, to both of them there came, just then, sighing through the +dark still hall, a breath, a whisper, of that hour when life had been at +its intensest, that hour when Breton had held Rachel in his arms, that +hour when Lizzie had dressed, with trembling hands, for the theatre.... + +For Breton his place once again in the world, for Lizzie work and peace +of heart, but once on a day life had flamed before both of them and they +would never forget-- + +"Well, good night, Mr. Breton." + +"Good night, Miss Rand." + +When he had gone, she stood in the hall a moment. + +Their little dialogue had closed, with the sound of a closing door, a +stage in her life. She would never be the same as she had been before +that episode. It had shown her that she was as romantic as the rest of +the world. It had made her kinder, tenderer, wiser. And now once again +she was independent--once again her soul was her own. She could be, once +more, his friend, seeing him with all his faults, his impetuosities, his +weak impulses. + +Her place was there for her to fill. It was not the place that she would +once have chosen. But she had regained her soul, had once more control +of her spirit. She was free. + +There stretched before her a world of work, of thrilling and +ever-changing interest. There were Rachel and Rachel's baby.... + +"You seem in very good spirits, Lizzie," said Mrs. Rand as she came in. +"I'm sure I'm very glad because it's too tiresome. Here's Daisy gone +off...." + + +III + +Afterwards she said to her mother: + +"I'm going down to Beaminster on Monday. I'm afraid I shall be away some +time." + +"Oh! Lizzie!" said Mrs. Rand reproachfully. "Well, now--That _is_ a +pity. Why must you?" + +"The Duchess is going and Lady Adela must go with her and I must go with +Lady Adela." + +"Dear, dear. Whatever shall we do, Daisy and I? Daisy gets idler every +day. It's always clothes with her now.... I suppose we shall manage." + +"I shall come up for week-ends." + +"What a way you speak of it! Of course you don't care! If you went away +for years you wouldn't miss us, I dare say. I can't think why it is, +Lizzie, that you're always so hard. Daisy and I have got plenty of +feeling and emotion and your father, poor man, had more than he could +manage. But I'm sure more's better than none at all, where feelings are +concerned." + +"I suppose," said Lizzie, speaking to more than her mother, "that if +everyone had so much feeling there'd be nobody to give the advice. +Feelings don't suit everybody." + +"You're a strange girl," said Mrs. Rand, "and you're like no one in our +family. All your aunts and uncles are kind and friendly. I don't suggest +that you don't do your best, Lizzie. You do, I'm sure--and nobody could +deny that you've got a head for figures and running a house. But a +little heart...." + +"I've come to the conclusion I'm better without any," Lizzie laughed. "I +expect I'm more like you and Daisy, mother, than you know----" + +"Well, you're a strange girl," said Mrs. Rand again, "and I never +understand half you say." + +Lizzie came to her and kissed her. + +"You always miss me, you know, mother, when I'm away, in spite of my +hard heart." + +"Well, that's true," said Mrs. Rand, looking at her daughter with wide +and rather tearful eyes. "But I'm sure I don't know why I do." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE LAST VIEW FROM HIGH WINDOWS + + "Not without fortitude I wait ... + ... I, in this house so rifted, marr'd, + So ill to live in, hard to leave; + I, so star-weary, over-warr'd, + That have no joy in this your day." + + _Francis Thompson._ + + +I + +Rachel, on the morning of April 28th, received this letter from Lady +Adela: + + "BEAMINSTER HOUSE, + + _April 27th._ + + MY DEAR RACHEL, + + Mother suddenly last night expressed an urgent wish to see you. + She has not been at all well during the last few days and Dr. + Christopher, who has been here since last Saturday, says that + if you can come down and see her he thinks that it would be a + comfort to her. She is sleeping very badly, but is wonderfully + tranquil and seems to like to be here again. + + If you can come down to-morrow afternoon I will send to meet + the 5.32 at Ryston. That is quicker than going round to + Munckston. If I don't hear I conclude that you are coming by + that train. + + My love to Roddy. + + Your affectionate aunt, + + ADELA BEAMINSTER." + +Rachel showed the letter to Roddy. + +"I'm so glad," she said, "I've been hoping that she'd send for me. I've +felt, ever since that day, that I should never be easy again if I +hadn't the chance to tell her that I see now that I--that we--were +wrong." + +"She's never answered my letter," said Roddy. "Perhaps she wasn't well +enough to write. Yes, I'm glad you're going, Rachel." + +She was moved by many emotions, the old lady dying, the house in whose +shadow she had spent so many of her timid, angry, adventurous young +years, the thrill that the thought of her child gave her now at every +vision of the world, the knowledge that in Roddy she, at last, had +someone in her life to whom, after every absence, however short, she was +eager to return--these things shone with new, wonderful lights around +her journey. + +The April evenings were lengthening and the dusks were warm and scented. +The little station lay peacefully in the heart of green fields; across +the sky, washed clean of every colour, a dark train of birds slowly, +lazily took their flight, trees were dim with edges sharp against the +sky-line, a dog barking in the distance gave rhythm to the stillness. +Rachel, driving through the falling dark, felt, as she had felt it when +she was a small child, the august colour and space and dignity of the +first vision of the great house, white as a ghost now under the first +stars, speaking to her with the old voice, fountains that splashed in +gardens, the river that ran at the end of the sloping lawns, the chiming +clock that rang out the hour as she drove up to the door. + +Aunt Adela, Uncle John, Dr. Chris, Lizzie, they were all there, and +their presences made less chill the dominating reason for their +assembly. + +Over all the house the shadow fell. The wide, high rooms, the long +picture gallery, the comfortless grandeur of a house that had not found, +for some years, many human creatures to lighten it, these echoed and +flung forwards and backwards the note of suspense, of pause, of +impending crisis. + +But Rachel spent one of the happiest evenings of her life with Uncle +John and Christopher. She knew that Uncle John had had a short but +terrible interview with her grandmother, that he had been charged with +treachery and dishonour and every traitorous wickedness. + +A week ago, when he had told her this, he had been the picture of +despair and shame. "I hadn't meant her to know. She wasn't to come into +it at all. And then that she should meet him at Roddy's on that very +afternoon.... There's nothing bad enough for me." But he had added with +a strange note of defiance so unlike the old Uncle John: "I had felt it +my duty, Rachel ... to speak to Francis. I had felt it the right thing +to do. I had felt it very strongly." + +Then he had been overwhelmed, now he was once more at peace, and +tranquil. + +"It's all right," he told Rachel. "I've been forgiven. I think she's +forgiven all of us. + +"She wouldn't listen when I wanted to tell her how sorry I was. She +seems now not to care." + +"She's never forgiven anyone anything before," said + +Rachel. + +"Hush, my dear, I don't think you ought to say that. We've never +understood her, any of us. She's always been beyond us. You'll realize +to-morrow, Rachel, how wonderful, how _wonderful_ she is!" + +But he was very happy. He had his old Rachel back, the old Rachel whom +he had expected never to see again. She sat between him and Christopher, +at dinner, no longer fierce and ironical, with sudden silences and swift +angers, but affectionate, sympathetic, happy. + +"Mother will see you to-morrow," Adela told her. "She's glad that you've +come. The morning's rather a bad time for her. Could you stay for the +whole day?" + +"Of course," Rachel said. + +At the end of the evening she went up to Lizzie's room; when midnight +rang from the tower they parted, but first, Rachel said: + +"Lizzie, I wonder whether you realize what you've been--to all of us--to +me of course ... but to the others--to the whole family." + +"Oh! Nonsense!" + +"Roddy was speaking about it yesterday. He said that you were the most +wonderful person in all the world for making all the difference without +saying or doing anything--by just being there." + +"Oh, Roddy thinks everybody----" + +"But this is what I'm coming to. You can't yourself know how much +difference you make to everyone. But there's just this.... Roddy feels +and I feel that when--He--comes (of course it'll be a boy) we'd rather +have you for his friend than anyone in the whole world. You will--you +will be, won't you?" + +"My dear--I should _think_ so. I'll whack him and bath him and snub him +and teach him his letters--anything you like." Then she added, rather +gravely: + +"There's one thing, Rachel, I've wanted to say for some time. I want you +to know definitely, that all wounds are closed now, everything's +healed--about Mr. Breton, I mean. I was afraid that you might think I +still cared.... That's all ended, closed up, that little episode. + +"You needn't be afraid, Rachel. I'm happier, I'm freer than I've ever +been in my life.... Good night, my dear. Your friendship is more to me +than any number of heart-burnings.... I was always meant to be +independent, you know...." + + +II + +It was very strange to Rachel, who had been, on so many, many evenings, +to that other room, to pause now outside this new door, to knock with +the house solemn and still around her, to hear Dorchester's voice, then, +with the old hesitation and--yes--with some of the old fear, to enter. + +She had considered what she would say. Coming down in the train she had +turned it over and over--her apology, her submission, her cry: "See, I'm +different--utterly different from the Rachel whom you knew.... I was a +prig of the very worst. I deserved everything you thought of me. Just +say you forgive me even though you can't like me." This was the kind of +thing that, in the train, had seemed possible enough; now, with the +opening of the door and that sharp recurrence of the old thrill, she was +not at all sure that she wanted to be submissive and affectionate. "I +don't feel fond of her--nothing could make me--there are too many +things...." + +Space and silence saluted Rachel. Two great mirrors ran from floor to +ceiling, high windows flooded the room with light and everything seemed +to be intended only for such a situation as this--the very house, the +grounds, the colour of the day had arranged themselves, in their purity +and air and silence, about the central figure. The Duchess lay in a long +low chair before the window; she was wrapped in white shawls and thick +rugs covered her body; Dorchester, the same stern, unbending Dorchester, +said gravely to Rachel, "Good afternoon, my lady. I hope that you are +well," then moved into another room. + +The Duchess had not stirred at the sound of the closing doors, nor at +Dorchester's voice, nor at Rachel's approach. She was gazing out, beyond +the windows, to the expanse of sunlit country, fields that sloped +towards the river, an orchard, white with blossom, running down the +hill, its colour, dazzling, almost visibly trembling against the sky. + +Rachel had only seen her in the Portland Place rooms, with the china +dragons, the gold ornaments, the red lacquer bed, the blazing +wall-paper. It had seemed then that she must have those things around +her, that she needed the colour and extravagance to support her flaming +passion for life, so curbed and shackled by disease. + +Their absence made her older, feebler, more human, but also grander and +more impressive. Rachel had always feared her, but despised herself for +her fear; now she was in the presence of something that made her proud +to be afraid. + +She thought that she might be asleep, so she moved, very quietly, a +chair forward near the window and, sitting down, waited. The only sound +in all the world was the steady splash--splash--splash of the fountain +below, the only movement the stealthy creeping of the long shadows, +flung by white boulder clouds, across the shining fields. + +Suddenly, without turning her head, the Duchess spoke. + +"Very good of you, Rachel. I hoped that you would come." + +Her voice was weak, her words indistinct as though she were speaking +through muffled shawls, but, nevertheless, behind them the presence of +the old dominating will was to be discerned, but now it was a will +quiescent, struggling no longer for power. + +"I would have come before if you had sent for me. I'm so glad that you +did." + +"I can't talk for very long, my dear, and I don't suppose that you want +to spend hours in my company any more than you've ever done. No, you +needn't protest. We're neither of us here for compliments.... But +there's something that I must say to you. Christopher allows me half an +hour." + +"I hope you're better--that being here has done you good." + +"Better? Nonsense. I don't want to be better. That's all over and done +with. I had another stroke three days ago and the next one will finish +me. So don't pretend. You used to be honest enough. I've asked you to +come because I want to speak to you about Roddy." + +"He wrote," Rachel said. + +"Yes. I got his letter. I couldn't reply. I can't write myself and I +won't have anyone else do it for me. Besides, there was nothing to write +about. He said he was sorry about that little conversation we all had +together the other day." + +"And I--" Rachel began eagerly, "I was so sorry. I've been longing to +tell you--it was all wrong, but Roddy has no imagination. He didn't +realize in the least----" + +"Ah, my dear. I expect I know Roddy a great deal better than you do. +He'll do the same sort of thing to you, one day. He's got the devil in +him and will always have it, however much you coddle him or let him lie +there thinking over his sins. Do you suppose I'd have been so fond of +Roddy all these years if I hadn't known him capable of such little +revenges? I liked it. There was no need to write to me and he knew +it--but I'm afraid you influence him a good deal." + +Rachel coloured. "I hope----" + +"Oh yes, you do, and that's exactly why I wanted to see you." + +She turned then and, very carefully, very slowly, her eyes searched +Rachel's face. + +"I let him marry you, you know. I thought it would be good for you. If +I'd guessed the effect that you'd have had upon him I'd have prevented +it." + +Rachel's anger was rising. + +"What effect?" + +"He's begun to worry about other people--a fatal thing with a man like +Roddy who was meant to do things, not think about them. But, anyway, +that's all too late now.... Waste of time discussing it.... What I +wanted you for is this----" + +Her eyes left Rachel's face and returned to the window. + +"You're the one person now that influences him and you will always be +so. I can see ahead well enough. Poor Roddy ... and he might have been a +fine man. All the same, I admire him for it; there are things about you +I could have liked if I'd wanted to find them, but we've been fighting +from the beginning until now--when it's the end ..." She caught her +breath, stayed for an instant struggling for words, then went on: + +"We can call a truce now. We don't like one another, but just at the +moment you're moved a little because I'm feeble and shall be dead in a +fortnight. That disturbs you.... It needn't. Some months ago a moment +did come when I realized that I should die soon. I hated it--I fought +and struggled with all my might ... but now that it has come it doesn't +matter. Nothing matters. I regret nothing. I've had my time. I hate the +new generation, the manly woman and the soft man with all this +sentimental nonsense about caring for other people. Think of yourself, +fight for yourself, keep up your pride--that's the only way the world's +ever been run. You're a sentimentalist and you're making one of +Roddy.... Nonsense it all is.... But all this isn't what I really wanted +to say." She turned back and her eyes, as again they held Rachel, were +softer. + +"Roddy's been my only weakness. I've loved that boy and he's far too +good and fine for a wobbler like yourself. That's why I hated it the +other day. I couldn't bear that he should see me beaten by the pair of +you, both of you thinking yourself so noble with your fine +confessions--not that I believe a word that you said--but it was clever +of you. You _are_ clever and know how to manage men. + +"Yes, that hurt me, but afterwards I loved him all the better, I +believe. I'd rather he hadn't written me that soppy letter, but that was +your doing, of course.... But listen. After I'm gone, I want Roddy to +think of me kindly. He's going to think very much what you make him. +It's in your hands. You, when you've got past this sentimental moment, +will hate the memory of me. It's natural that you should and I'm sure I +don't mind. But I want you to leave Roddy alone. If he likes to think of +me kindly, let him. Don't blacken his mind to me. I wish to feel--my +only weakness I do believe--that Roddy will be fond of my memory. That +rests with you." + +She stopped with a little final movement of her head as though, having +said what had been in her mind for a long while, she was finished, +absolutely, with it all, and wanted no word more with any human being. + +Rachel answered quietly: "You've said some rather hard things. You +mustn't feel that I'd ever try to make Roddy think badly of you. That's +not fair.... I'm not very proud of myself, but you don't understand me. +You've always been determined not to--and perhaps, in the same way, I've +not understood you. We're different generations, that's what it really +is. + +"But over Roddy we _can_ meet. I didn't love him when I married him, but +I do now, and we're going to have a child.... That will make us both +very happy, I expect. You love Roddy and I love him. You needn't be +afraid that I'll harm his memory of you." + +Her voice was trembling and she was very near to tears. She would have +liked to have said something that would have offered some terms of peace +between them, something upon which, afterwards, she might look back with +comfort. For her that hostility seemed, in the face of death, so small +and poor a thing. + +But no words would come. + +Her grandmother, in a voice that was very weak, said: + +"Thank you, Rachel; that's a great relief to me. That's good of +you ... and now, my dear, I think Christopher would say that I'd talked +enough. Good night." + +Rachel knew that this was their last meeting, that here was the absolute +conclusion of all the years of warfare that there had been between them. + +There was nothing to say.... She bent down and kissed the dry cheek, +waited for an instant, but there was no movement. + +"Good night, grandmamma," she said. "I hope that you'll be better +to-morrow," then softly stole away. + + +III + +The Duchess lay very still, watching the shadows as they crept across +the fields. They were evening shadows now, for the sky, pink like the +inside of a shell, had no clouds upon its surface. + +She would not get up again; this evening should be the last to see her +gaze upon the world. It was too fatiguing and all energy had flowed from +her, leaving her without desire, without passion, without regret, without +fear. Very dreamily and at a great distance figures and scenes from her +past life hovered, halted, and passed. But she was not interested, she +had forgotten their purpose and meaning, she did not want to think any +more. + +The splashing of the fountain was phantasmal and very far away. + +The long black shadow crept up the field. She watched it. At the top of +the red ridge of field, against the sky-line, very sharp and clear, was +a gate, golden now in the sun. When the shadow caught it she would go to +bed ... and she would never get up again. + +She waited lazily, indifferently. The gate was caught; the last gleams +of the sun had left the orchard and the evening star glittered in a sky +very faintly green. + +She touched a bell at her side and Dorchester appeared. + +"I'll go to bed, Dorchester." + +"Very well, Your Grace." + +"I shan't get up again. Too much trouble." She turned away from the +window and closed her eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +RACHEL, RODDY, LORD JOHN, CHRISTOPHER + + "'Everybody came in to dinner in the best of spirits.... + Everything was discussed.'"--_Inheritance._ + + +I + +The Duchess of Wrexe died on the morning of May 2nd at a quarter-past +three o'clock. The evening papers of that day and the morning papers of +the next had long columns concerning her, and these were picturesque and +almost romantic. She appealed as a figure veiled but significant, hidden +but the landmark of a period--"Nothing was more remarkable than the +influence that she exercised over English Society during the thirty +years that she was completely hidden from it"--or again, "Although +disease compelled her, for thirty years, to retire from the world, her +influence during that period increased rather than diminished." + +It must be confessed, however, that London Society was not moved to its +foundations by the news of her death. People said, "Oh! that old woman; +gone at last, I see. She's been dying for years, hasn't she? Quite a +power in her day ..." Or, "Oh, the Duchess of Wrexe is dead, I see. I +must write to Addie Beaminster. Don't expect the family will miss her +much--awful old tyrant, I believe ..." or "I say, see Johnnie +Beaminster's old lady's gone? She kept the whip-hand of _him_ in his +time.... Damned glad he'll be, I bet." + +Two years earlier and it would not have been thus, but now there was the +War (daily the relief of Mafeking was frantically anticipated) and fine +regal majesty, sitting dignified in a solemn room, irritated the world +by its quiescence. + +"What we're needing now is for everyone to get a move on. No use sitting +around." A few carefully selected American phrases can very swiftly +kill a great deal of dignity and tradition. + +In the Beaminster camp itself there was an unexpressed disappointment. +They had grown accustomed to thinking of her as a fine figure, sitting +there where, rather fortunately, they were not compelled to visit her, +but where, nevertheless, she had a grand effect. They had known, for a +long time now, that she was not so well, but they had expected, in a +vague way, that she would go on living for ever. They had been making, +during the last two years, a succession of enforced compromises and now +the crisis of her death showed them how far they had gone without +knowing it. + +"Things will never be the same as they were...." And in their hearts +they said, "We're getting old--we aren't wanted as we once were." + +Meanwhile there was a fine funeral down at Beaminster. The Queen was +represented, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, all the +heads of all the old families in England, artists and one or two very +distinguished actor-managers (who looked far more sumptuous than anyone +else present).... Everyone was there. + +Christopher detected Mrs. Bronson and wondered what the Duchess would +think of it if she knew: Brun, also, although Christopher did not see +him, flashed upon them from the Continent, was present, neat and solemn +and immensely observant. It was all admirable and worthy of the best +English traditions. + +"She was a fine figure," said the Prime Minister, who had known her and +disliked her intensely. "We shall never see her like again," but his +sigh was nearer relief than regret. + + +II + +Christopher, three days after the funeral, went to have tea with Roddy +and Rachel. He was a man of great physical strength and had never had +"nerves" in his life, but he was feeling, just now, tired out. He had +not realized, in the least, during all these years, the part that that +old woman played in his life, and he found that his whole scheme of +things was now disorganized and without vitality. It was vitality that +she had given him, a tiresome, troublesome, irritating vitality perhaps, +but, nevertheless a fire, an energy, a driving curiosity. + +He would capture it again, his eagerness to investigate, to assist, to +prophesy, but it would never any more be quite the same energy--everyone +with whom she had had anything to do would find life now a little +different.... + +Some weeks before her death Roddy had sent for him. "I'm awfully upset, +Christopher," he said and then he had told him about the scene in his +rooms and had begged to know the truth. "I hear she's much worse--she's +had a stroke--I wrote to her and she hasn't answered me. Christopher, +tell me truthfully, was it her comin' to me that day and all the kick-up +and everythin' that made her so much worse?" + +Christopher had reassured him--"Quite honestly, if she'd asked my leave +to let her go out that afternoon I'd not have granted it. But as it +turned out she wasn't a bit the worse. I saw her directly +afterwards--she told me all about it. She was rather grimly pleased. +Mind you, it marked, I think, a kind of crisis. As she put it to me she +saw that afternoon that the whole scheme of things had gone out of her +hands and that the new generation didn't want her--But I think she was +glad to have it settled for her, she was tired of it all, her struggle +to keep it had been much earlier. + +"She just wasn't going to bother any more and she might have gone on in +that sort of way for years." + +But although he had thus reassured Roddy he was not, in his heart, so +certain. He seemed to see a long chain of events (he dated his own +observation of them from the time of Rachel's coming out), that had led +both Rachel and the Duchess to the climax of their actual challenge one +to another. It was not that that meeting in Roddy's house had been of +itself so important, it was rather that the fates had selected it as a +definite culmination of the struggle. That meeting stood for a sharp +visualization of much more than the personal conflict. + +She had been glad to go, he did not in any way see her death as a +tragedy, but her departure had marked the opening of a new period, a new +personal history for the remaining characters, ultimately perhaps a new +social epoch for everybody-- + +Meanwhile he was happy about Roddy and Rachel for the first time since +their marriage and, as he was a man who lived in the lives of his +friends, their happiness meant his own. + +He found Lord John with Roddy, Rachel was with Aunt Adela, but "would be +back for tea." Lord John, rather solemn and awkward in black clothes, +was demanding comfort and assistance from his friends. His trouble was +that he did not miss his mother as fundamentally as he desired, and +that, at the same time, life was now most terribly different. His +brothers, Vincent and Richard, had instantly after the funeral adapted +themselves, with gravity and assurance, to the new conditions. + +Lord John had never adapted himself to anything, but had fitted his +stout body into the soft places that life had offered to him and had +been placidly grateful for their softness. Only once had he shown energy +of his own initiative and that had been in the matter of his nephew +Francis, and of that now he did not dare to think. + +He could never, so long as he lived, forget the slightest detail of that +horrible quarter of an hour with his mother when she discovered his +iniquity--and yet, even now, he felt, obscurely but obstinately, that he +had done right. Nevertheless he would never again take life into his own +hands: upon that he was absolutely resolved. What he needed now was +reassurance from his friends. He had always before found that life +arranged itself about him in a comfortable way and he confidently +expected that it would do so now, but meanwhile he must have kind looks +and words from somebody. He was a man who hailed with joy the +opportunity of bestowing affection upon a friend who was not likely, at +a later time, to rebuff him. He had never been quite sure of Rachel--she +was so strange and uncertain--but upon Roddy, helpless, good-natured, +and a man of his own world, he felt that he could rely. He spent +therefore many hours at Roddy's side, rather silent, smiling a great +deal, playing chess with him, sticking little flags on the War Map. + +At times, as he sat there, he would think of his mother, of the Portland +Place house shortly to be sold, of a world altered and alarming, and +then he would wonder how long the time would be before he might again +take up his old habits, his old houses, his old comforts, and then his +fat cheerful face would gather wrinkles upon its surface. "It's after a +thing like this that a feller gets old--Richard and Adela and I--We'll +have to make up our minds to it." + +Christopher found them busied with the map, discussing the probable hour +of Mafeking's relief. Lord John looked at Christopher a little +anxiously, perhaps _he_ was going to be down upon _him_! But Christopher +was a very quiet and genial Christopher. He sank down into a chair with +a sigh of comfort, waved his hand to them. + +"Don't you mind me. I'm tired to death. Was up all last night with a +case----" + +"You see," said Roddy, "there's Ramathlabama. Well--Plumer lost a lot o' +men there and they say his crowd have had fever too and there ain't much +to hope for there--now Roberts----" + +But Lord John's attention was distracted. He wished to be quite sure +that Christopher did not regard him with severity. + +"You look fagged out, Christopher." + +"I am!" said Christopher, smiling. + +"I'm feeling a bit done up, too. Think I'll take Adela abroad somewhere +for a little." + +"I should," said Christopher. "Excellent thing for both of you." + +"Now where do you suggest?" + +"Oh, anywhere different from London. Go on a cruise----" + +"Adela's a bad sailor--wretched. I'm not very good myself." + +They discussed places. Christopher was more than friendly. There had +been occasions when he had been the stern family physician and had +treated Lord John with some severity. Now there was implied a new +comradeship as though they had passed through perils together and would +have always between them in the future a strong bond of friendship. + +John felt that the atmosphere at this moment was so friendly and +comforting that he would not risk the disturbance of it. + +He got up. + +"Think I'll be going on, Roddy. Don't like leaving Adela alone. Rachel +will be on her way here now, so I'll be getting back." + +He was staying with Adela at a quiet little hotel in Dover Street. + +"Well, good-bye for the moment, Christopher. Adela'd be very glad if +you'd come in and see her. Come and have lunch with us to-morrow." + +"Thanks, I will." + +He stood, for a moment, looking out upon the park, warm and comfortable +under the sun. He thought of Rachel. He had regained the old Rachel the +other night at Beaminster--dear Rachel! + +Rachel, Roddy, Christopher--how nice they all were! There was, he felt, +a new feeling of security amongst them all. Yes, he really _did_ +believe that life, now, was going to be very comfortable and safe and +easy.... + +"So long, Roddy." + +He beamed happily upon them and went. + +Jacob, the dog, came in from his afternoon walk, very grave, paying no +attention to Christopher, but going at once and lying, full length, near +Roddy's sofa, his head between his paws, his eyes fixed upon his master. + +"What's happened to all your other dogs?" asked Christopher. "They must +be missing you very badly." + +"Oh, they're down at Seddon, got a jolly good man there whom I can +trust--don't think they miss me. _This_ beggar would though. Funny +thing, Christopher--when I was goin' about and all the rest of it I +thought nothin' of this dog, couldn't see why Rachel made such a fuss of +it--now--why I don't know how I'd ever get on without it, so +understandin' and quiet with it all too. Nothin' like a trouble of some +sort for showin' who's worth what, whether they're dogs or people...." + +"I hope the funeral did Rachel no harm," Christopher said. + +"Not a bit of it. She'd had a last interview with the old lady and knew, +after that, she'd never see her again. In a way she hasn't felt it, but +in a way too I believe she'd like to have all the old time over again +and see whether she couldn't manage it better ... she said to me she'd +never understood the old woman until that last talk with her, not that +there was much love lost between 'em even then. Was Breton there?" + +"No--He scarcely could go, in the circumstances." + +"Funny feller, Breton. What puzzles me is what did he go and give up +Rachel so easily for? I couldn't tell you why, but that day he came here +I was as sure as I was lyin' here that whatever there was between them +was finished. I wouldn't have said what I did, seemed to take it so +quietly, if I hadn't seen in a minute it was all over." + +"Ah, you don't know Francis," said Christopher. "It's all romantic +impulses that set him going--Rachel romantic impulse on one side, +getting back to the family romantic impulse on the other. He knew if he +went off with her that getting back to the family would be over for ever +as far as he was concerned. He knew that he'd never cease to regret +it.... John Beaminster coming to him gave him what he'd been waiting +for, longing for. He seized it----" + +"Yes, but it was more than that," said Roddy slowly. "It all lies with +Rachel. He never got close to her any more than I've done. I know now +that she's fond of me, but it's by the child I'll hold her and by my +helplessness, nothin' else. And she'll have her wild moments when myself +and everythin' about me will seem simply impossible, just as if she'd +gone off with Breton she'd have had her comfortable domestic sort of +longin's and hated _him_ and everythin' about _him_. I believe Breton +knew--just as I knew--that never tryin' to hold her was the way to keep +her, and he'd have _had_ to have her if he'd gone off with her.... + +"Anyway, Rachel wouldn't be so adorable if there wasn't a lot of her +that no one man could master. But I've been given all the tricks in the +game by bein' laid up like this--just when I thought I'd lost all worth +havin' in life and never a chance of a kid again!... Funny thing, Life! + +"But she's mine! Christopher, and no one can take her. Breton's got his +idea of her; there _is_ a bit of her that he stirred that I never could +touch, but it don't matter--she's the most wonderful creature on this +earth and I'm the luckiest beggar." + +"She'll be quieter," said Christopher, "now that the Duchess is gone. +They were always conscious of one another...." + +"And now there'll be the kid instead. If he's a boy I swear he shall be +the best rider, the best sportsman in this bloomin' old world--not that +I'd mind a girl, either. I'd like to have a girl--just the time for a +woman nowadays. Whichever way it is I'll be contented. Not, you know," +he added hastily, "that I'm going to be a sort o' blessed angel with +domestic bliss and never wantin' to get off this old sofa and the +rest--not a _bit_ of it--it's damned tryin' and I curse hours together +often enough. Peters has the benefit of it. I wasn't born an angel and I +shan't die one...." + +"Nobody wants you to," said Christopher. + +"Well, you needn't worry. But it's funny how I get talkin' +nowadays--never used to say a word--now I gas away.... Well, cheers for +the new generation, cheers for young Roddy Secundus.... Long life to +him!" + +"There's one thing," said Christopher, looking at him. "Whatever +inspired you, that day you had the scene here, to behave to Frank Breton +as you did? To give them both carte blanche--it wouldn't be the way of +most husbands confronted with such a question--it was the _only_ way for +Rachel ... but how did you know her well enough? You'll forgive my +saying so, your method as a rule is to drive straight in, let fly all +round, and then count the bits." + +"If you love anybody," said Roddy, with confusion and hesitation, "as +much as I love Rachel you become wonderfully understandin'.... Look +here," he broke off, "don't let's talk any more rot. Just drop all jaw +about feelin's and such. There's been an awful lot of it lately." + +He would say no more; they got the war map and, very happily for the +next quarter of an hour, moved flags up and down its surface. + +Then came Rachel and, after her, tea. They were a quiet but very happy +company during the next half-hour. + +"How's Aunt Adela?" asked Roddy. + +"Very well, considering," said Rachel. "Of course she's confused and +lost her bearings rather. She misses the Portland Place house more than +anything, I think--she was there so long. But Uncle Vincent was right; +it would have been very bad for her if she'd stayed in it.... She's +quiet and depending a lot upon Lizzie----" + +When tea was ended Rachel said, "Dr. Chris, I've got something to say to +you. I'm going to tear you away from Roddy for five minutes if you'll +come upstairs." + +"Well, that's a nice sort of thing----" protested Roddy. + +"I won't keep him." She took him up to the little drawing-room and as +they sat there by the window together he thought of that day when he had +told her the Duchess was downstairs with Roddy. They had all travelled a +long way since then. + +"There's a favour I want you to grant me." + +"Anything in the world." + +"It's about Francis--" She gave him the name with a little hesitation +and with an air of restraint as though about the very whisper penalties +could linger. + +"You're the best friend that he's got--the best friend any man could +have--and I want you to care for him, to look after him, to watch over +him. I know," she went on hurriedly, "that you always have done that, +but I want you to feel now that you're doing it a little for my sake as +well as your own. I want you to be the one link that I've still got with +him." + +"But Roddy asked him----" began Christopher. + +"Oh yes! I know--Roddy was splendid. But of course that can't be. We +can't meet, at any rate for years. Besides, that time is so utterly done +with. There's only Roddy now for me in all the world. But I know, +better, I expect, than you think, how weak Francis is, how much he +depends upon what the people whom he cares for say to him--and so I want +you----" + +"But of course," Christopher said. "He knows that he can count on me +whatever happens--he's always known that." + +He stopped and waited for her to continue; he saw that she had more to +say. + +"It's so strange," she said, staring, her eyes deep and black seeing +into sacred places that were known only to her, "how grandmother's +death has cleared, amazingly, the air. The motive for almost everything +has gone. I didn't see--I hadn't the least idea--how all my thoughts and +actions and wishes and impulses came from my sense of opposition to her. +Francis saw that--knowing that we both hated her--and that was why I was +so difficult with Roddy, because I thought that grandmother had arranged +the marriage and had him under her thumb--I had no idea of the kind of +person Roddy was." + +"Nor had I--nor had anyone," said Christopher. + +"That whole affair with Francis was in idea--always--more than in fact. +I knew, and I believe that he knew, that it was simply a piece of wild +rebellion on my part; and on his--well, he's like that, romantic, +rebellious, responding in a minute to everything, but wanting, really, +all the time to be safe and proper. That day we met in his rooms, we +both knew, at heart, that something was missing--something one had to +have if one was going to break away altogether. He was always a rebel by +force of circumstances, never by real inclination." + +She put her hand on Christopher's knee and drew very close to him. +"Chris dear, I'm terrified now when I think of how near I was to +absolute, complete disaster. If it hadn't been for Roddy's accident and +for Lizzie ... Lizzie's been to all of us everything in the world. + +"Do you remember once telling me about Mr. Brun's Tiger? I've often +thought of it since and it seems to me now that to all of us--for Roddy +and Francis and Lizzie and me--the moment of our consciousness came. +Ever since that day when they carried Roddy back to Seddon each one of +us has had to wait, just holding ourselves in.... But, you know, Dr. +Chris, that's the secret of the whole matter. It wasn't I, or Breton, or +even Lizzie or Roddy that defeated grandmother--it was simply Real Life. +First the War, then Roddy's accident--Roddy's accident most of all. We +had, all five of us, been leading sham lives, then suddenly God, Fate, +Providence, what you will, steps in, jerks us all back, takes away from +all of us what we thought we wanted most, puts us in line with the real +thing--our Tiger, if you like. Grandmother simply couldn't stand it. +Lizzie and Roddy are real--half of Breton and me, and most of +grandmother unreal--Well, Lizzie and Roddy have just put things straight +quietly.... Grandmother's generation saw things 'through a glass +darkly'--They're gone. It's all going to be 'face to face' now." + +Christopher looked at her, smiling. She was so young, so adorably young +with her seriousness. + +She broke in--"What rot I'm talking! It only comes to this, that I wish +now, like anything, that I'd been nicer to grandmamma. One sees things +always too late.... I'd like to have another try, to begin with +grandmamma again, to be more tolerant, to hate her less. But I expect in +the end it would be the same. She'd have had me tied up, without a will +of my own, without a word to say!... that was her idea of controlling us +all. It's over, it's done with--no one, I expect, will have her kind of +power again.... But she was fine! I only see now how fine she was! + +"No one, I expect, will have her kind of power again...." + +Now she stood away from Christopher, looking at him and also beyond him, +as though she were finally, once and for all, surveying, cataloguing +that same power-- + +"She wasn't terrible, she wasn't fine, she wasn't really anything except +a kind of peg for all sorts of traditions to hang on to. In herself she +was just a plucky, theatrical, obstinate old woman. It was simply the +idea of her that frightened us all. I remember the first time that I saw +Yale Ross's picture of her--He'd caught all the ceremony and the terror. +It was then that I had the first faint suspicion that she didn't, in +herself, live up to the picture in the least. + +"I suppose," she went on, coming up closer to him, "that that's why no +one will ever be like her again--because no one will ever be taken in so +completely by shams again, never by the empty shell of anything. But +that's just how she influenced us--all of us. Myself, you, Lizzie, +Roddy, Francis ... we were all mixed up in it-- + +"And then the first moment that we really came into contact with her she +wasn't anything--wasn't simply there. Do you know, Dr. Chris, seeing her +now, just an old sick woman, conscious that everyone was escaping her, I +almost love her!... I do indeed!" + +She sprang up and stood before him and laughed, crying-- + +"I'm grown up, Dr. Chris, I'm grown up! It's taken a time, but it's +happened at last! Meanwhile I shall be the most perfect wife, the most +perfect mother, and when the Tiger is restive there'll be the youngest +Seddon to put it all into. Oh! What a child that child will be! Roddy +and his impatience, me and my tempers----" + +She laughed and for an instant her old fierce defiance was there then, +as though some spirit had flashed, before his eyes, through the window +into space and freedom it was gone. She herself proclaimed its +dismissal. + +"It's gone--it's all gone--Dr. Chris. I'm the happiest woman in +England!" + +But even as she spoke her eyes were wistful; half-seen, half-recalled, +eloquent with a colour, a flame that was too fierce for her present +world, hung before her the memory of a moment when, in a darkened room, +she had caught a letter to her lips, had sunk upon her knees before a +passion whose face she had scarcely seen but whose voice she had +heard and still now, in her new life, remembered. She had had her +moment ... the last strains of its dying music were still in her ears. +She caught her breath, then, turning, dismissed it; and, standing back +from Christopher, gave him her last word-- + +"But look after Francis. Be with him as much as you can.... He needs all +that you can spare--He's got to be--he's simply _got_ to be--the success +of the family!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +EPILOGUE--PROLOGUE + + "Third Apparition--A Child Crowned ..." + + _Macbeth_. + + +I + +Late on the evening of May 17th Christopher heard of the relief of +Mafeking. It was too advanced an hour, he understood, for the town to +display its triumph that evening. Let Christopher wait. + +The following night Brun, whom he had not seen for many months, +appeared. The clocks had struck nine and Christopher was finishing his +dinner, when the little man, shining and dapper, pleased and impersonal, +was shown in. + +"Hullo!" cried Christopher; "thought you were abroad somewhere." + +"I saw you at the Duchess's funeral. Of course I was there. What do you +suppose? Meanwhile come out now and see your fine people make +manifestations." + +"Is there a noise?" + +"A noise! _Mon Dieu!_ But come and look!" + +They went out together. Harley Street was silent and deserted and above +it a night sky, scattered with stars, was serenely still. But, beyond +the further roofs and chimneys, golden light hovered and a confused +murmur, like the buzzing of bees, hummed upon space. + +Through Oxford Street a great crowd of people was passing, but it was a +crowd hurrying to find some other crowd. Oxford Street was plainly not +the meeting-place. There was a good deal of shouting and singing; young +men, five abreast, passed, girls with "ticklers" and whistles screamed +and laughed and sang; merry bells were ringing, lights flared in the +windows and now and again a rocket with a whiz and a shriek flashed +into the sky and broke with a little angry splutter into coloured stars. + +They crossed into Bond Street, down which other people were hurrying; +sometimes a roaring echo of a multitude of discordant voices would be +carried to them and then would be hidden again as though some huge door +in front of them were swinging to and fro. + +At the end of Bond Street, suddenly, as they might turn the corner of +some sea road and, instantly, be confronted with the crash of a plunging +surf, they met the crowd. + +"Look out!" cried Brun, clutching hold of Christopher's arm. "We don't +want to get drawn into this!" + +Although they had apparently been walking quietly down Bond Street with +no crowd about them, they now were pursued, upon all sides, by people. +They raised themselves on to a doorstep, hanging there, bending their +feet forward, and feeling that if the crowd in front of them were for a +moment to give way down they would go! + +Meanwhile, along Piccadilly, towards the clubs and Hyde Park Corner, a +thick mass of human beings was pressing. This gathering seemed, of +itself, to lack all human quality. + +A face, a voice, a hand, a cry----these things might now and again, as +fish flash in a stream, detach themselves; sometimes a light from a +flaring window or an illumination would fling into pale, unreal relief a +bundle of faces that represented, at that instant, a piece of human +history, but sank instantly back again into chaos. + +One might fancy that this was no crowd of human beings, but some new, +unknown creature, dragging its coils from the sluggish bed of some +hidden river, stamping to destruction as it went. + +Then as though one were watching a show, with a click, the human element +was back again. There two girls, their hats pushed aside, their hair +half uncoiled, their cheeks flushed, their eyes partly bold and partly +frightened, were screaming: + +"Oo're yer 'itting? Don't again then. Good old England! Gawd save----" + +It was not on the whole a crowd stirred only by national joy and pride. +It may, in its units, when it first left its many homes, have announced +its intention of giving "a jolly 'ooray" for our splendid country and +our Beloved Queen, but, once in a position from which there was no +returning, once in the hands of a force that was stronger than any felt +before, it had forgotten the country and its defeats and successes. Only +two courses open. Either admit fear, feel that the breath of you is +slowly but quite surely in process of being crushed out of you, feel +that your arms and legs are being torn from you, that your ribs are +being smashed into powder and that your heart is being pressed as flat +as a pancake, let then panic overwhelm you, fight and scream to get out +and away from it, see yourself finally falling, trampled, kicked, your +face squashed to pulp, your eyes torn out, your breath strangled in your +body ... so much for Fear. Or, on the other hand arouse Frenzy! + +Be above and beyond your body, scream and shout, rattle rattles and blow +whistles, trample upon everything that is near you, smack faces with +your hand, pull off clothing and scatter hats and bonnets, scream aloud, +no matter what it is that you are screaming, let your voice exclaim that +at length, at length, you, a miserable clerk on nothing a week, in the +City, are, for the first time in your existence, the Captain of your +soul, the ruthless master of a wretched, law-making tyrannous world.... +So much for Frenzy! + +Either way, be it Frenzy or Fear, the Country has not much to say to it +at all. With every moment it seems that from the Circus more bodies, +more arms and legs are being pressed and crushed and packed; with every +moment the clanging of the bells is louder, the fire in the sky higher +and wilder, the singing, the screaming, the oaths and the curses are +nearer, the defiance that loss of individuality gives. + +"Let's get back," said Brun. He turned, but, at that moment, someone +from behind him cried, "Oo are yer shoving there?" He was pushed, with +Christopher, half falling, half clutching at arms and shoulders, forward +into the street. + +They righted themselves, Brun fastened upon Christopher's arm, shouting +into his ear, "We'd better go along with the crowd for a bit. We'll get +a chance of cutting up Half Moon Street. Can't do anything else." + +They were pressed forward. Now, received into the bosom of the crowd, +they were conscious both of the human element and of the stronger +composite spirit that was mightier than anything human, a creation of +the City against whose walls they were now so riotously shouting. + +Next to Christopher was a young man in evening dress; his hat had +disappeared, his collar was torn, sweat was pouring down his forehead +and at the top of his voice he screamed again and again: + +"Good old England! Good old England! Good old Bobs! Good old Bobs!" +Squeezed up against Christopher's arm was a stout body that looked as +though it had once belonged to some elderly gentleman who liked white +waistcoats and brass buttons. From somewhere, in obvious connection with +these buttons, came a weak, breathless voice: "You'll excuse me hanging +on so, sir. It's familiar--not my way--but this crowd ..." + +A girl, with crimson face, leant against Christopher, put her arm round +his neck, tickled his face with a feather; she screamed with laughter: +"Oo-ray! Oo-ray--Oo-bloody-ray!" + +"Look out, you swine!" somebody shouted. + + "And 'e shouted out, did Bobs + Come along, you stinking nobs, + We will show you--" + +Around them, above them, below them there tossed a whirlpool of noise, +something outside and beyond the immediate sounds that they were making. +Bells, voices, shouts that seemed to have no human origin, the very +walls and stones of the City crying aloud. + +Then, opposite the entrance to Half Moon Street another crowd seemed to +meet them. There was pause. "Get out of it!" "Go the other way." "Damn +yer eyes, step off it." "Go back, carn't yer?" + +It was then that for the briefest moment and for the first time in his +life Christopher was afraid. Someone was pressing into his back until +surely it would break, some other was leaning, and driving his chest in, +driving it so that the breath flooded his face, his eyes, his nose. +Colours rose and fell; someone's evil breath burnt upon his cheeks. +Light flashed before him in broad, steady flares. + +"Brun, Brun," he cried. + +"All right," a voice from many miles away answered him. + +He was seized with the determination to survive. They thought that they +could "down" him, but they should see that they were mistaken; his rage +rising, he was no longer Dr. Christopher of Harley Street, but something +savage, lawless beyond even his own control. He drove with his arms; +curses met him and someone drove back into him and a ridiculous face +with staring eyes that stupidly pleaded and a nose that was white and +trembling and a mouth that dribbled at the corners came up against his. + +"Keep back, can't you?" someone shouted. + +"Brun, Brun," he called again, and then was conscious that bodies were +giving way before him. His hand met a stomach covered with cloth and +little hard buttons, and then coming against a woman's arm soft and +warm, Christopher had instantly gained possession of his soul once more. + +"Hope I didn't hurt you," he heard himself saying, then, some barrier of +legs and bodies yielding, found that he was flung out, away, stumbling, +in spite of himself, on to his knee. + +He caught someone by the arm, and it was Brun. + +"Good Lord!" said Christopher. + +"It's all right," answered Brun. "We're in Half Moon Street. We're out +of it." + + +II + +Somewhere in the peaceful retirement behind the clubs they surveyed one +another and then laughed. Brun--the dapper perfect Brun--had a bleeding +cheek, a torn waistcoat, and a large and very unbecoming tear in his +trousers. He was half angry and half amused--finally a survey of +Christopher, with mud on his nose and his collar hanging from one button +and revealing a fat red neck, restored his good temper. + +"You'd better come back with me," said Christopher, "and be cleaned up." + +They went back to Harley Street and half an hour later were sitting +quietly in easy chairs, with the house as though it were made of +cotton-wool, so silent and hidden was it, about them. + +Both men were excited; Christopher had been changed by the events of the +last few weeks, and Brun, if he had not been so personally involved, had +seen enough to excite his most eager curiosity and speculation. + +Brun's sharp little eyes, flashing across the tip of his cigar, sought +Christopher's large comfortable face, fell from there over his large +comfortable body, down at last to his large comfortable boots. + +"Well ... First time I've seen a Continental crowd in England." + +"Continental?" + +"Always your Englishman, however excited and of whatever rank, knows +there are things a gentleman doesn't do. Those people to-night had not +that knowledge. Very interesting," he added. + +Christopher peacefully smoked, his body well spread out in the chair, +his broad rather clumsy-looking fingers clutching devotedly at his +pipe. + +"So you were at the funeral the other day?" + +"I was. I expect I mourned her more sincerely than any of you. I'd never +seen her, but she meant a lot to me--as a symbol. And I like symbols +better than human beings." + +He pulled his body together with a little jerk and leaned forward: +"Christopher, do you remember, a long while ago, going into a gallery in +Bond Street and meeting Lady Adela Beaminster there and Lady Seddon? It +was just after Ross's portrait was first shown." + +"I remember," said Christopher, nodding his head. "You were there." + +"I was. I was there with Arkwright the African explorer man. I only +mention the day because Arkwright was interested in Lady Seddon, wanted +to know all about her, and I talked a bit, I remember. My point to him +was that there was a situation between that girl and her grandmother +that would be worth anybody's watching. I followed it myself for a while +and then I lost it. But you're a friend of the family--tell me, +Christopher, what happened between those two." + +"Nothing," Christopher said, laughing. + +"Oh, nonsense," Brun answered. "They were all in it. Something went on. +Then Seddon had that accident ... Breton was in it." + +But Christopher only smiled. + +"Well, if you won't--_n'importe_--I have my own idea of it all. That +girl was a fine girl, and the old woman was fine too-- + +"But how they must have hated one another!" + +He chuckled; then sitting back in his chair, his little eyes on the +ceiling, he said almost to himself--"Once, years ago, when I was very, +very young and romantic--almost--just for a year or two I loved your +Shelley. He was everything--I could quote him by the page.... He's gone +from me now, or most of him has, but there was one line that seemed to +me then the most romantic thing I had ever read and has remained with +me always. It went--'And we'll have fires out of the Grand Duke's +wood'--It's in the letter to Maria Gisborne, I think--I've quite +forgotten what the context is now--it's all pretty trivial and +unimportant, but those were the days when I made pictures--I saw it! +Lord, Christopher, how it comes back! The wood, very thick, very large, +very black, no sun--very still, and the great house behind it, huge and +white, with long gardens and green lawns and peacocks, and the Grand +Duke, with his powdered wig, and diamond-buckled shoes, his gorgeous +suit, his jewelled sword, his snuff and his wine, his silly little +dried-up yellow face. + +"Then the rabble--dirty, smelling, ill-conditioned fellows--breaking +through the silence, tearing up the Wood, knocking down the palace, +hanging the Grand Duke from a tree, last of all, setting the whole thing +into the most splendid blaze!... Oh! of course that wasn't Shelley's +context--_his_ was all about boiling a kettle or something--but that's +the way I saw it--just like that." Nothing stirred Brun like the sound +of his own voice and now he was getting very excited indeed and was +waving his hands. + +"Yes," said Christopher placidly. "Very dramatic. What does it all +mean?" + +"Well, this. It seems to me that that's just what's been happening over +here. Your Duchess is dead and instead there is to-night's crowd. The +Grand Duke is gone and all that was his--now for the fires!" + +Christopher, filling his pipe, paused, and then, his voice grave and +serious: "Romantics aside, Brun, for a minute. Do you remember your +Tiger idea you delivered to me once? I've often thought of it since. You +said then that the reason why the Duchess and her times--the Grand Duke +and his wood--had got to go was because their policy had been to give +the Tigers of the world no liberty--to pretend indeed that they weren't +there, and that now the time had come when every man should declare his +Tiger, should give it liberty and, whether he restrained it or no, +acknowledge its existence.... Well, now--what I want to know is this. +What to your thinking is going to come of it all? I'm old-fashioned. I +like the old settled laws and customs and the rest of it, and yet I'm +not afraid of this new Individualism; but what I expect and what you +expect to come of it all are sure to be mightily different things." + +"They are," said Brun, laughing. "You see, Christopher, as I've often +said to you before, you're a sentimentalist--people matter to you; +you're concerned in their individual good or bad luck. Now none of that +is worth anything to me. I observe from the outside--always. What I want +to see is less muddle, more brain, less waste of time, more progress. I +believe the loosing of the Tiger is going to bring that about. That's +why I welcome it--I don't care one little damn about your +individual--let him be sacrificed every time for the general wisdom. +Your Duchess, she was good for her age. Now she is against progress. She +vanishes. That crowd of to-night has swept her away.... There'll be a +chaos here for a time--people like the Ruddards will mix things up; a +woman like Mrs. Strode will destroy as many good people as she can. But +the time will come; out of that crowd that we got into to-night a world, +ruled by brain, by common sense, by understanding, not by sentiment and +confusion, will arise.... May I not be with the good God!" + +"'Sentiment and confusion,'" said Christopher, smiling. "That's me, I +suppose." + +"Well, you _are_ sentimental," said Brun. "You're stuffed with it." + +"Do you yourself ..." asked Christopher, "is there no one--no one in the +world--who matters to you?" + +"Nobody," said Brun. "No one in the world. I think I like you better +than anybody; you're the honestest man I know and yet one of the most +wrong-headed. Yes, I like you very much; but it would not be true to say +that it would leave any great blank in my life if you were to die. +Women! Yes, there have been women! But--thank the good God! for the +moment only. The Heart--no--The Brain--yes----" + +"Well, then," said Christopher, "that's all clear enough. It isn't very +wonderful that we differ. People are to me everything. Love the only +power in the world to make change, to work miracles; I don't mean only +sensual love, or even sexual love, but simply the love of one human +being for another, the love that leads to thinking more of your +neighbour than yourself--self-denial. + +"Self-denial; the only curb for your Tiger, Brun. I've been watching it +in a piece of private history, all this last year and a half. There +might have been the most horrible mess; self-denial saved it all the +time. You'll say that all this is so vague and loose that it's worth +nothing." + +"Not at all," said Brun politely. "Go ahead." + +"Well, then, the reason why I, old-fashioned and Philistine as I am, +hail the passing of the Grand Duke with joy--and I cared for the old +woman, mind you--is just this. I see some chance at last for the plain +man--not the clever man, or the especially spiritual man or the wealthy +man--but simply the ordinary man. When I say Brotherhood I don't mean +anything to do with associations or meetings or rules--Simply that I +believe in an age when a man's neighbour will matter to a man more than +himself, when it won't be priggish or weak to help someone in worse +plight than yourself, when it will simply be the obvious thing ... when, +above all, there'll be no jealousy, no getting in a man's way because he +does better than you, no knocking a man down because he sees the +world--this world and the next--differently. That's my Individualism, my +Rising City, and if you had watched the lives of a few friends of mine +during the last year or two as I've watched them you'd know that 'Love +thy neighbour as thyself' is the fire that's going to burn all the +Grand-Ducal woods in the world in time." + +Brun laughed. "You'll be taken in horribly one of these days, +Christopher." + +"You speak as though I were a chicken," Christopher broke out +indignantly. "Man alive, haven't I lived all these years? Haven't I seen +the poorest and rottenest and feeblest side of human nature time and +time again? But this I know: That it's losing the thing you prize most +that pays, it's the pursuit, the self-denial, the forgetting of self +that scores in the material, practical world as well as the spiritual, +heavenly one. That's where the Millennium's coming from. Brains as well +perhaps, but souls first." + +"We'll see," said Brun. "A bit of both, I dare say. Anyhow, it's the +next generation that's going to be interesting. All kinds of people free +who've never been free before, all sorts of creeds and doctrines smashed +that seemed like Eternity. The old woods flaming already. _Apres la +Duchesse!..._ But as for your Love, your Brotherhood, Christopher, I've +a shrewd suspicion that human nature will change very little. +Unselfishness? Very fine to talk about--but who's going to practise it? +Every man for his own hand, now as ever." + +"We'll see," answered Christopher. "I'm not clever at putting things +into words. If I were to go along to the man in the street and say, +'Look here, I've made a discovery--I've got something that's going to +make everything straight in the world,' and he were to say, 'What's +that?' and then I were to answer, 'Self-denial. Unselfishness--Love of +your neighbour,' he would, of course, instantly remind me that Someone +greater than myself had made the same remark a few thousand years ago. +He'd be right.... There's nothing new in it. But it's coming new to the +world just because the laws and conventions that covered it are +breaking. The Tiger in Every Man and Self-denial to curb it ... That's +my prophecy, Brun." + +Brun gave himself a whisky-and-soda. "No idea you were such a talker, +Christopher.... But I'm right all the same." + +He held up his glass. + +"Here's to the Tiger in the next generation." He drank, then held it up +again. "And here," he cried, "to the memory of the last Great lady in +England!" + + +III + +When Brim had gone it seemed that he had left that last toast of his in +the air behind him. + +Christopher was haunted by the thought of the Duchess, he felt her with +him in the room; she stirred him to restlessness so that at last, +desperately, he took his hat and went out. + +His steps took him, round the corner, to Portland Place; here all was +very quiet, a few cabs in the middle of the street, a few lights in the +windows, the silver field of stars, in the distance the sky golden, +fired now and again into life as a rocket rose shielding beneath its +glow all that stirring multitude. Sounds rose--a cry, a shout, +singing--then died down again. + +He was outside No. 104. He thought that he would ring and see whether +Mrs. Newton were in; perhaps she had gone to bed, it was after eleven, +but, if she were there, he would take one last look at the Portrait +before it was packed up and sent down to Beaminster. + +Mrs. Newton unbolted the door and smiled when she saw him--"I was just +going to bed--There's only myself and Louisa here--and the watchman." + +"I won't keep you, Mrs. Newton," he said. "The fancy just took me to +look at some of the pictures once more before they're packed up. Lady +Seddon told me that a good many of them were to be packed up to-morrow; +they won't look quite the same at Beaminster." + +"No, that they won't, sir," said Mrs. Newton. "I shall miss the old +house. Just to think of the years; and now, all of us scattered!" + +She lit a lamp for him and he went up the stone staircase, found the +long drawing-room, and there, on the farther wall, the Portrait. + +The furniture, shrouded in brown holland, waited like ghostly watchers +on every side of him. The huge house, always a place of strange silences +and vast disturbances, multiplied now in its long mirrors and its air of +cold suspense as though it were waiting for something to happen, showed +its recognition of death and death's consequences. + +But the Portrait was alive! As he held the lamp up to it the face leapt +into agitation, the eyes were bent once again sharply upon him, the +mouth curved to speak, the black silk rustled against the chair. + +A host of memories crowded the room, he was filled with a regret more +poignant than anything that he had felt since her death. + +"She _was_ fine! I miss her more than I had any notion that I would! She +stirred one up, she made one alive!" + +He put the lamp upon the floor and sat down for a minute amongst the +shrouded furniture. + +His mind passed from Brun's generalizations to the little bundle of +people whom he knew--Rachel, Francis, Roddy, Lizzie Rand. To all of them +the Tiger's moment had come; and out of it all, out of the stress and +suffering and struggle, Rachel's child was to be born--instead of the +Duchess the new generation. Instead of this old house, the hooded +furniture, the anger at all freedom of thought, the jealousy of all +enterprise, the slander and the malice, an age of a universal +Brotherhood, of unselfishness, restraint, charity, tolerance ... + +Perhaps after all, he _was_ an old, sentimental fool. There had always +been those at every birth and every death who had had their dreams of +new human nature, new worlds, new virtues and moralities.... + +He looked his last at the Portrait-- + +"I'm nearly as old as you. I shall go soon. But I miss you ... you'd be +yourself surprised if you knew how much!" + +He took up the lamp and left her.... He said good night to Mrs. Newton +and closed the door behind him. + +Standing on the steps of the house he looked about him. Portland Place +was like a broad river running silently into the dark trees at the end +of it. There was a great rest and quiet here. + +Southwards the sky flamed, the noise of a great multitude of people came +muffled across space with the rhythm in it of a beating song. Rockets +slashed the sky, broke into golden stars; the bells from all the +churches in the town clashed and, from some great distance, guns +solemnly booming rolled through the air. + +Christopher, standing there, smiled as he thought of Brun's little +picture. + +Brun springing up, of course, at the right moment, to point his moral. +Brun, who appeared, like some Jack-in-the-box, in city after city, with +his conclusion, his prophecy, neat and prepared. + +"And we'll have fires out of the Grand Duke's Wood..." + +There was the Wood, there the mob, there the Grand Duke, dead and +buried-- + +Christopher shrugged his shoulders; whatever Brun might say human beings +were more than summaries, prophecies, conclusions. + +As he looked towards the trees and felt a little breeze caress his face +with, he could swear, some salt of the sea, he thought of the human +beings who were his friends--Rachel, Roddy, Lizzie, Francis. + +And then it seemed to him that, out of the trees, down the shining +surface of Portland Place, a figure came towards him--the figure of +Rachel's child. + + + * * * * * + + +NOVELS BY HUGH WALPOLE + +_STUDIES IN PLACE_ + + THE WOODEN HORSE + MARADICK AT FORTY + THE GODS AND MR. PERRIN + +_TWO PROLOGUES_ + + THE PRELUDE TO ADVENTURE + FORTITUDE + +_THE RISING CITY_ + + 1. THE DUCHESS OF WREXE + 2. THE GREEN MIRROR + (_In preparation_) + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUCHESS OF WREXE*** + + +******* This file should be named 33086.txt or 33086.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/3/0/8/33086 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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