by Hugh Walpole
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, thou
ghts 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.