by Hugh Walpole
“Now Duchess, you can just tell anyone who’s talkin’ that Mr. Breton is welcome here just as often as he pleases and he’s a friend of mine and my wife’s — and they can jolly well shut their mouths. Thank God, all that’s over.”
II
But he was very swiftly to realize that it was not all over. Sharply, quivering through the air like an arrow from a bow, came the Duchess’s words.
“Good God, Roddy, are you completely insane?”
She was twisted, distorted with anger, she seemed to take her rage and fling it about her so that the chairs, the tables, Roddy’s innocent little sporting sketches and even the case of birds’ eggs were saturated with it.
The gleaming park, the peaceful evening sky, the sharp curve of an apricot-tinted moon, these things were blotted out and the noises of the town deadened by this indignant fury. Rachel had known it in other days, to Breton it evoked long-distant nursery hours, to Roddy it was something utterly new and unsuspected. For the first time in his life he caught a shadow of the terror that had darkened Rachel’s young days.
To the Duchess it was simply that she now clearly discovered that she was the victim of an elaborate plot. The three of them! Oh! she saw it all! and Roddy, Roddy — who had been the one living soul to whom her hard independence had made concession! This came, the definite climax to the year’s accumulations, the final decision flung at her, before she died, by those two — Rachel and Breton — from whom, of all living souls, she could endure it least.
With her rage rose her fighting spirit. She would show them, these young fools, the kind of woman that an earlier and a finer generation than theirs could produce!
They had more there before them than one old woman, sick and ailing, and they should see it.
Her voice shook a little, but she gave no other sign, after that first challenge: her little eyes flamed from the mask of her face like candles behind holes in a screen.
“This is your sense of fun, Roddy, I suppose,” she said. “You always were lacking in that. I’ve told you so before. As you asked me here I suppose you’re ready for my opinion. You shall have it. I’ll only ask you to cast your eye over any friend of ours: see what you would say if this — this idiotic folly committed by someone else had come to your ears. I suppose you’d arranged this, the three of you. Well, you shall know what I think. Your tenderness to Rachel is magnificent — she has obviously reckoned on it, knew that her frankness would serve her well enough. You’ve already been more patient with her than men would have been in my day. I only hope that your patience may not be too severely tried....
“As for my grandson, to whom you have so tenderly entrusted Rachel, your acquaintance with him is quite recent, is it not? I am sure that if you were to enquire of any man at one of your clubs he would give you quite excellent reasons for my grandson’s long unhappy absence from his relations and his country. At any rate you don’t know him as well as I do. I could tell you, if you asked me, that it is a long time now since any decent man or woman has sought his society. Do you suppose that his family have not the best of reasons for trying to forget his existence — an attempt that he makes unpleasantly difficult?
“Have you heard nothing, Roddy? Do you really want a man who has been kicked out of society for the most excellent reasons, who has disgraced his name as no member of his family has ever disgraced it before him, for your wife’s lover? If she must have one....”
Rachel, trembling, had come forward, Roddy had cried out, but quietly, stronger than either of them, Breton had faced her. She had not, throughout the afternoon, looked at him nor spoken one word to him. Now, her anger carrying her beyond all physical control, she was compelled to meet his gaze.
He stood very quietly beside her chair, looking at the three of them. “My grandmother is wrong,” he said, “I am not quite as deserted as she thinks. Just before I came here this afternoon Uncle John called upon me. I had half an hour’s very pleasant talk with him: he told me that, although his mother had not altered her opinion of me, Uncle Vincent and Aunt Adela and himself considered that I had earned” — he smiled a little— “forgiveness. He hoped that I would understand that — while my grandmother was alive — I could not be invited to 104 Portland Place, but that he thought that I would like to know that they had realized my — well, improvement, and that he hoped that we would be friends. I said that I should be delighted.”
The Duchess spoke to him then, her voice shaking so that it was difficult to catch her words.
“John — came — said that — to you?”
“Yes. It was a curious coincidence that to-day — —”
Her eyes had dropped. She murmured to herself:
“John ... John ... Adela ... behind my back ... Adela ... Vincent — —”
They were all silent. She sat there, her head down, leaning on her hands, brooding. Her anger seemed to have departed, her fire, her fury had fled: she was a very old woman — and the room was suddenly chilly. Before her were Rachel and Breton: they faced the ancient enemy. But as Rachel stood there, realizing that there had flashed between them the climax of all their lives together, yes, and a climax of forces greater and more powerful than anything that their own small histories could contain, she had no sense of drama nor of revenge nor of any triumphant victory. A little while before she had been almost insane with anger.... Now something had occurred. Rachel only knew that the three of them — Roddy, Francis and herself — were young and immensely vigorous, with all life before them; but that one day they would be old, as this old woman, and would be deserted and sick and past anyone’s need of them.
“Oh! I wish we hadn’t! I wish we hadn’t!” she thought.
In that moment’s silence they all might have heard the sound of the soft, sharp click — the click that marked the supreme moment of their relationship to the situation that had, for all of them, been so long developing —
Breton surrendered Rachel, Roddy received her, and, beyond them all, the Duchess definitely abandoned her world.
For them all, grouped there so closely together, the heart of their relations the one to the other had been revealed to them.
Other dramas, other comedies, other tragedies — This had claimed its moment and had passed....
After the silence the Duchess said, “My family — I no longer....” She stopped, collected, with all her will, her words, then in a low voice said, looking at Breton, “I owe you, I suppose — an apology. I owe that perhaps to you all. My children are wiser in their own generation. I no longer understand — the way things go — all too confused for my poor intelligence.” She pulled herself together as an old ship rights itself after a roller’s stinging blow. “This has lasted long enough.... We’ve all talked — My family are — wiser — it seems.”
But she could not go on. “Please, Roddy,” she said at length, “I think it’s time — if you’d ring.”
“I’m sorry — —” he said and then stopped.
Soon Peters and a footman appeared. She leaned heavily upon them and, staring before her at the door, slowly went out.
CHAPTER IX
RACHEL AND RODDY
“Tell me, Praise, and tell me, Love, What you both are thinking of? O, we think, said Love, said Praise, Now of children and their ways.”
William Brighty Rand.
I
Breton had gone; the room was empty.
Rachel came and, kneeling on the floor, hid her face in Roddy’s coat. He put his hands about hers.
His only desire now was that there should be peaceful silence. His hatred for scenes had always been with him an instinct, natural, alert, untiring, so that he would undertake many labours, forgo many pleasant prizes, if only emotional crises might be avoided.
This afternoon had showered upon him a relentless succession of reverberating displays, he had perceived one human being after another reveal quite nakedly their tumultuous feelings. It was, for him, precisely as though the Duchess, Rachel, Breton had stripped there
before him and expected him to display no astonishment at their so doing — that he should have been the author of the business made it no better; he reflected that he had even looked forward with excitement to the affair. “If I had only known how beastly....”
He was ashamed — ashamed of his own action in provoking these things, ashamed of his own lack of understanding, ashamed to have watched the sharpened tempers of his friends.
He would never, Heaven help him, take part in any such scene again!
But out of it all one good thing had come — he had got Rachel! As she had looked across the room, meeting his eyes, he had known that at last his long pursuit of her was at an end....
It never occurred to him that most husbands, after such a declaration as Rachel had just made, would have stormed, reproached, ridden, for a long time to come, the high horse of conscious superior virtue.
It did not seem odd to him that at the very moment of Rachel’s confession he should feel more sure of her than he had ever been before. At last the Nita Raseley debt was paid off. At last he knew, beyond question, that Rachel loved him. Best of all, perhaps, he had seen Breton and felt his own superiority.
That being so, he wanted no words about the matter. He would like to lie there on his sofa, with her hands enclosed in his and nothing said between either of them — very pleasant and quiet there in the dusk. He hoped that he would never again have to explain anything or speak to anyone about his feelings — no, not even to Rachel.
Then he discovered that she was sobbing as she knelt there, and his face crimsoned with confusion and alarm. Rachel, the proudest woman he had ever known, kneeling to him, crying!
He tried to lift her, pressing her hands.
“Rachel dear ... Rachel.” — Her words came between her sobs.
“I should have told you ... long ago ... I tried to — I did indeed ... but it was because I was frightened ... because I ... Oh! Roddy! you’ll never trust me again!”
He was burning hot with the confusion of it: he was almost angry both with himself and her.
“Please, Rachel ... please ... don’t ... it’s all over, dear. There’s nothing the matter.”
“It’s fine of you ... to take it like that ... But you’ll never forgive me, really, you can’t — It isn’t possible. This very afternoon ... I was going to tell you — if all this ... hadn’t happened. You’ll be different now — you must be ... just when I want you so much.”
He glanced in despair about the room. He looked at the sporting prints and the case of birds’ eggs and at last at Rachel’s photograph. How proud and splendid she was there! This dreadful abasement!
He stroked her hair.
“See here, old girl — we’ve had a rotten afternoon, haven’t we? Awfully rotten — never remember to have spent a worse. All my fault, too — poor old Duchess!... but look here, it’s all right now. I understand everythin’ and — and — dash it all — do stop cryin’, Rachel, old girl.”
“It’s been bad enough,” she said, her voice steadier now, “the way I’ve been to you all this time, but I thought — at least — I was honest — I’ve tried — I’ve made a miserable failure — But, Roddy, you need — never — never — be afraid of anything again — I’m yours altogether, Roddy, to do anything with....
“All about Francis — I was mad somehow — It was grandmamma — feeling she had driven me into marrying you. And then Nita ... and then I didn’t know you a bit — all there was in you — but now,” and she raised her eyes and looked at him, “I love you with all my heart and soul and strength.”
He bent down his head and rather clumsily kissed her.
“You know, Rachel, I was a bit frightened myself this afternoon — thought you might be angry because I took you by surprise. You bet, if I’d known what it was going to be like ... Well, thank the Lord, it’s done, and we’ll never have another like it — I’ll see to that. Scenes are rotten things, aren’t they? — I always loathed ’em even when I was tiny — so did the governor.... If he had me up for lickin’ all he ever said was, ‘Down with your bags!’ That was all there was about it.”
She leant her cheek against his.
“You’ve forgiven me all, everything — absolutely?” she asked.
“There isn’t any forgiveness in it,” he answered. “It’s all the other way, if it’s anythin’.... You see, I’ve been thinkin’ a lot while I was lyin’ here. When there was that business over Nita I said you should always be free just as I told you I ought to be. Well, since — since I got that old tumble — I haven’t any right to hold you at all. I’m just an old log here, no good, anyway, and only a nuisance. And if I thought I was keepin’ you tied I’d be miserable. You see, I know you’re fond of me now. I’ve got that.... Don’t let’s talk any more about it. You’ve got me and I’ve got you — and we aren’t afraid of any old woman in the world.”
He held her closely to him, his arms strong about her.
“There’s something else to tell you.”
“Something else?”
“Yes. We’re going to have a child, you and I, Roddy. And now that you’ve forgiven me it’s all right — but that’s partly what’s made me afraid all these last weeks. As it is, you’ve got me, got me, got me, safe for ever and ever!”
“Well, I’m damned!” said Roddy.
She could feel his hand trembling upon hers.
“Oh,” she whispered, “I was frightened this afternoon — terrified. I thought you’d never see me again.”
Roddy was turning things over in his mind.
“A kid ... my word. Just the thing. A boy ... it’ll be jolly for the Place and I can teach him a lot. It’ll be somethin’ to go back to the house for. Gosh! There’s news!”
His eyes wandered round the room.
“Good thing I kept all those eggs — nearly broke ’em up too. They’re a jolly fine collection. I’d have prized ’em like anything if they’d come to me when I was small.” He caught her hand so fiercely that she gave a little cry.
“What a day! We’ll have to see about the shootin’ down at Seddon again, old girl ... Lord, what an afternoon!”
CHAPTER X
LIZZIE BECOMES MISS RAND AGAIN
“So she put the handkerchief, and the pin, and the lock of hair back into the box, turned the key, and went resolutely about her everyday duties again.” — Mrs. Ewing.
I
Lizzie was waiting for Lady Adela. She had finished her work for the day, had come from her own room to Lady Adela’s and now stood at one of the high windows looking down upon the April sunshine that coloured the dignities of Portland Place.
The room was spacious and lofty, but curiously uncomfortable and lifeless. High book-cases with glass shutters revealed rows of “Cornhill” and “Blackwood” volumes, a long rather low table covered with a green cloth held a silver inkstand, a blotting-pad, pens and a calendar. There were stiff mahogany chairs ranged against the wall and old prints of Beaminster House (white-pillared, spacious with sloping lawns) and Eton College chapel faced the windows.
This was where Lady Adela spent several hours of every morning and she had never attempted to “do” anything with it. A large marble clock on the mantelpiece ticked out its sublime indifference to time and change. “We’re the same, thank God,” it said, “as we’ve always been.”
Lady Adela had told Lizzie that she would come in from a drive at quarter to four and she would like then to speak to her.
Lizzie’s eyes were fixed upon Portland Place, deserted for the moment and catching in its shining surface some hint of the blue sky above it. There was a great deal just then to occupy her thoughts. Ten days ago, in the middle of a little dinner-party that Lady Adela was giving, upstairs the Duchess had had a stroke. Lizzie had, of course, not been there, but, coming next morning she had been told of it. Her Grace was soon well again, no unhappy effects could be discovered, she had not, herself, been apparently disturbed by it, but it had rung, like a warning bell, through the hous
e. “The beginning of the end.... We’ve been watching, we’ve been waiting — soon these walls will be ours again,” said the portraits of those stiff and superior Beaminsters.
News ran through the Beaminster camp— “The Duchess has had a stroke.... The Duchess has had a stroke.”
But, for many weeks now, Lizzie had been aware that some crisis had found its hour. Rachel and her husband, Lady Adela and Lord John, even the Duke and Lord Richard had been involved. It was not her business to ask questions, but every morning that saw her sitting down to her day’s work saw her also wondering whether it would be her last in that house....
Lady Adela, however sharply she may have changed in herself, had never permitted her relationship to Lizzie to be drawn any closer. When Lizzie had returned from that terrible Christmas at Seddon, Lady Adela had asked her no questions, had shown no sign of human anxiety or tenderness. She had never, during all the years that Lizzie had been with her, expressed gratitude or satisfaction. She had, on the other hand, never bullied nor lost her temper with her. She had separated herself from all expression or human emotion. And yet Lizzie liked her. She would miss her when their association ended: yes, she would miss her, and the house and the whole Beaminster interest when the end came.
She wondered, as she stood at the window, whether that old woman upstairs were suffering, what her struggle against extinction was costing her, how urgently she was protesting against the passing of time and the death of her generation. Flying galleons of silver clouds caught the sun and Portland Place passed into shadow; the bell of the Round Church began to ring. “Poor old thing,” thought Lizzie; she would not have considered her thus, a year ago.