Delphi Collected Works of Hugh Walpole (Illustrated)

by Hugh Walpole

  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 r
estraint. 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?