by Hugh Walpole
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 h
er, 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 impli
cated 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.