by Hugh Walpole
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, linger
ed 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 Cr[oe]sus 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 nothin
g 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.