by Hugh Walpole
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’ alon
g, 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.