CHAPTER XII
DEFIANCE OF THE TIGER--I
I
Rachel sat in the train with Aunt Adela and Uncle John: they were ontheir way to Trunton St. Perth, Lord Massiter's country house. It was aJuly day softened with cool airs and watered colours; trees and fieldswere mingled with sky and cloud; through the counties there was the echoof running streams, only against an earth fading into sky and a skybending and embracing earth, sharp, with hard edges, the walls andtowers that man had piled together showed their outlines cut as with asword.
Over all the country in the pale blue of the afternoon sky a great moonwas burning and the corn ran in fine abundance to the summit of thehills.
Rachel, as the train plunged with her into the heart of Sussex, wasgazing happily through the window, dreaming, almost dozing, feeling inevery part of her a warm and grateful content. Opposite to her AuntAdela, gaunt and with the expression that she always wore in trains asof one whose person and property were in danger, at any instant, oftotal destruction, read a life of a recently deceased general whosewidow she knew. Uncle John, with three illustrated papers, wasinterested in photographs of people with one leg in the air and theirmouths wide open; every now and again he would say (to nobody inparticular), "There's old Reggie Cutler with that foreign woman--_you_know"--or "Fancy Shorty Monmouth being at Cowes after all this year--youknow we heard----"
Rachel had been having a wonderful time--that was the great fact thatran, up and down, through her dozing thoughts. Yes, a wonderful time. Itwas surely, now, a century ago, that strange period when she haddreaded, so terribly, her plunge.
That day, after her visit to the Bond Street gallery, when it had allseemed simply more than she could possibly encounter, those talks withMay Eversley (who, by the way, had just announced herself as engaged toa middle-aged baronet) when the world had frowned down from a vast,incredible height upon a miserably terrified midget. Why! the absurdityof it! It had all been as easy, simply as easy as though she had beenplunged in the very heart of it all her life.
Followed there swiftly upon that the knowledge that Roddy Seddon was tobe, for this same week-end, at Lady Massiter's. Rachel did not pretendthat, ever since that _Meistersinger_ night at the opera she had notknown of his attentions to her--impossible to avoid them had she wished,impossible to pretend ignorance of the meaning that his inarticulatesentences had, of late, conveyed, impossible to mistake the laughinghints and suggestions of May and the others.
She did not know what answer she would give did he ask her to marry him.At that concrete suggestion her doze left her and, sitting up, staringout at the wonderful day into whose heart muffled lights were nowcreeping, she asked herself what, indeed, was her real thought of him.
He was to her as were Uncle John and Dr. Christopher--safe, kind,simple. He appealed to everything in her that longed for life to beclear, comfortable, without danger. She loved his happiness in allout-of-door things--horses and dogs and fields and his little place inSussex. Ever since that visit to Uncle Richard's fans she had suspectedhim of other appreciations and enthusiasms, perhaps she might in timeencourage those hidden things in him.
Above all did she find him true, straight, honest. Lies, littlemannerisms, disguises, these were not in him, he was as clear to her asa mirror, she would trust him beyond anyone she knew.
He did not touch in any part of him that other secret, wild, unreallife of hers, and indeed that was, in him, the most reassuring thing ofall.
The Rachel who was in rebellion, to whom everything of her London life,everything Beaminster, was hateful, whose sudden memories and instincts,whose swift alarms and fore-warnings were so shattering to everyclinging security that life might offer--this Rachel knew nothing ofRoddy Seddon.
He was there to take her away from that, to drive it all into darkness,to reassure her against its return, and marriage with him would meanrelease, security, best of all freedom from her grandmother who knew, sowell, that life in her and loved to play with that knowledge. Her colourrose and her eyes shone as she thought of what this so early escape fromthe Portland Place house would mean to her. Already, in her firstseason, to be free of it all--to be free of humbug and deception--Oh!for that would she not surrender everything in the world?
Roddy, as she pictured him, with his clean life, his love of nature, hiskindliness, seemed, just then, the safest refuge that would ever beoffered to her.
And at that, without reason, she saw before her her cousin FrancisBreton. Several times she had met him since that first occasion atLizzie Rand's. Once again at Lizzie's and twice in Regent's Park whenshe had been walking with May.
Yes--that was all. Thinking of it now the meetings appeared to heralmost infinite. Between each actual encounter intimacy seemed to leapin its progress, and although, on at least two of them, he had onlywalked with her for the shortest period, yet, always with them, she wasconscious of the number of things that, between them, did not need to besaid--knowledge that they shared.
In all this there was, with her, a confusion of motives and sensationsthat, at present, refused to be disentangled. For one thing there was,in all of this, a furtiveness, a secrecy, that she loathed. Againstthat was the persuasion that it would be the finest thing in the worldfor her to bring him back into the Beaminster fold, not, of course, thathe should remain there (he was far too strong and adventurous for that),but that, accepted there, he could use it as a springing-off board forsuccess and fortune. Let her once, as the situation now was, say a wordto Uncle John or the others, and that of course was the end....
She knew, quite definitely, that now she wished that she had never methim.
He had been, during these weeks, the only influence that had drawn thatother Rachel to the light. It was always that other Rachel that methim--someone alarming, rebellious, conscious of unhappiness, andapprehensive, above everything, that in some hidden manner she was beinguntrue to her real self.
At such moments it was as though she had blinded some force within her,muffled it, stifled it, because her way through the world was easierwith it so muffled, so stifled.
At some future time, what if there should leap out upon her that muffledfigure, bursting its bonds, refusing any longer to be silenced,proclaiming the world no easy, comfortable place, but a battle, afierce, unresting war?
When she thought of Breton it was as though she knew herself for acoward, as though he had threatened to expose her for one, and as though(and this was the worst of all) something in her was eager that heshould--
Against this there was the peace, the security that Roddy could offerher....
Beaminster security, perhaps--nevertheless....
They were at Trunton St. Perth. The little station glittered in theevening air. It was all suddenly thrilling. Who would be there? Whatmight not happen before Monday?
II
In the high beautiful hall where they all stood about and had tea shecould see who they were. There was a girl whom she had met on severaloccasions this season, Nita Raseley, there was a large florid cheerfulperson who was, she discovered, Maurice Garden, the well-known andpopular novelist, there was his wife, there was a thin intellectualcousin of Lady Massiter's, Miss Rawson, old and plain enough for hercleverness to have turned to acidity, Roddy Seddon and, of course, Lordand Lady Massiter.
Lord Massiter was large and florid like the novelist, and when theystood together by the fireplace foreign customs and languages weresuddenly absurd, so English was the atmosphere. Lady Massiter was alsolarge, but she had the kind and warm placidity that makes some women thetype of all maternity. She would be, Rachel felt, a sure resource in alltime of trouble and she would also be entirely unsatisfactory as anintimate personal friend. She would, like philanthropists and clergymen,love people by the mass, never by the individual.
Nita Raseley was pink and white, with large blue eyes that confided ineveryone they looked at. Her laugh was a little shrill, her clothes verybeautiful, and men liked her.
So there they all were
.
She had said good day to Roddy and then had moved away from him,governed by some self-consciousness and the conviction that NitaRaseley's blue eyes were upon her.
It was all very cheerful and very English as they stood talking there,and the doors beyond the hall showed through their dark frames greenlawns and terraces soaked in evening light. It was all very, verycomfortable.
As she dressed for dinner Rachel had her windows open, so hot was thenight, and she could watch the evening star that shone with a wonderfulbrilliance above a dark little wood that crowned a rise beyond thegardens. She had a maid who was very young indeed; this was her firstplace, but she had, during the three months, learnt with great quicknessand had attached herself to her mistress with the most burning devotion.She was a silent, unusual girl and kept herself apart from the rest ofthe servants.
Rachel as she sat before her dressing-table could see in that mirror thedark reflection of the twilit garden.
"It's a lovely place, Lucy----"
"Yes, Miss Rachel."
"Are you glad to get away from London?"
"It has been hot there these last weeks."
Rachel met in the glass the girl's black eyes. They were searchingRachel's face.
"Lucy, would you rather live in London or in the country?"
"I don't mind, Miss Rachel." Then after a little pause: "I hope I'vegive satisfaction these last weeks?"
"Why, yes, of course."
"Then I hope, miss, that you'll allow me to stay with you whether--inLondon or the country."
The colour mounted to Rachel's cheeks.
"I hope there'll be no need for any change," she said.
She found when she came down to the drawing-room that Monty Carfax hadarrived. Monty Carfax was the chief of the young men who were, just atthat time, entertaining London dinner-tables. About half a dozen ofGod's creatures, under thirty and perfectly dressed, with faces liketombstones and the laugh of the peacock, went from house to house inLondon and mocked at the world.
They belonged, as the mediaeval jesters belonged, each to his own court,and Monty Carfax, certainly the cleverest of them, was attached to theBeaminster Court and served the Duchess by faith, if not by sight.
Rachel hated him and always, when she found herself next to him, wrappedherself in her old farouche manner and behaved like an awkwardschoolgirl.
She was terribly disappointed at discovering that he was going to takeher into dinner to-night; he knew that she disliked him and felt it acompliment that a raw creature fresh from the schoolroom should fail toappreciate him; on this occasion he devoted himself to the elderlyMassiter cousin on his other side--throughout dinner they happilyundressed the world and found it sawdust.
Rachel meanwhile found Maurice Garden her other companion. He geniallyenjoyed his dinner and talked in a loud voice and prepared the answersthat he always gave to ladies who asked him when he wrote, whether hethought of his plots or his characters first, and "she did hope hewouldn't mind her saying that of all his books the one----"
He frankly liked these questions and was taken by surprise when Rachelsaid:
"I've never read any of your novels, Mr. Garden, so I won't pretend----"
He asked her what she did read.
"Have you ever read anything by an author called Peter Westcott?"
"Westcott? Westcott?... Let me see ... Westcott?... Well now--One of theyoung men, isn't he?"
"Yes. He wrote a book called _Reuben Hallard_."
"Ah yes. I remember about _Reuben Hallard_--had quite a little successas a first book. He's one of your high-brow young men, all for Art andthe rest of it. We all begin like that, Miss Beaminster. I was like thatmyself once----"
She looked at him coolly.
"Why did you give it up?"
"Simply didn't pay, you know--not a penny in it. And why should therebe? People don't want to know what a young ass thinks about life if hecan't tell a story. All young men think the same--green leaves, moonsand stars and lots of symbols, you know--all good enough if they don'texpect people to pay for it."
"I think _Reuben Hallard's_ a fine book," she said, "and so are some ofthe others. After all, everyone doesn't want only a plot in a book."
He looked at her with patronizing kindness. "Well, you see if your Mr.Westcott doesn't change. Every writer wants an audience whatever he maypretend, and the best way to get a audience is to give the audience whatit wants. It needs unusual courage to sit on a packing-case year afteryear and shave in a broken looking-glass----"
She looked round the table. Everyone was happy. The butler was fat andhad the face of a Roman emperor, the food was very, very good, NitaRaseley and Roddy laughed and laughed and laughed--
Suddenly Rachel's heart jumped in her body. Oh! she was glad; glad thatRoddy cared for her and would look after her, because otherwise shedidn't know what violence she might suddenly commit, what desperationsshe might not engage upon, what rebels and outlaws she would notsupport--
What Outlaws! And then, looking beyond the thickly curtained windows,she could fancy that she could see one gravely standing out there on thelawn, standing with his one arm and his pointed beard and his eyesappealing to be let in.
Then there was an ice that was so good that Peter Westcott and FrancisBreton seemed more outcast than ever.
III
After dinner, when the men had come into the drawing-room, they all wentout into the gardens. It was such a night of stars as Rachel had neverseen, so dense an army that all earth was conscious of them; the sky wassheeted silver, here fading into their clouded tracery, there, at fairypoints drawing the dark woods and fields up to its splendour with linesof fire. The world throbbed with stars, was restless under the glory ofthem--God walked in all gardens that night.
At first Nita Raseley, Monty Carfax, Rachel and Roddy went together,then, turning up a little path into the little wood that rose above thegarden, Rachel and Roddy were alone.
They found the trunk of a tree and sat down--Behind them the trees werethin enough to show the stars, below them in a dusk lit by thatglimmering lustre that starlight flings--a glow that would be flame wereit not dimmed by distance immeasurable--they could see the lawns andhedges of the garden and across the dark now and again some white figureshowed for an instant and was gone. The house behind the shadows rosesharp and black.
Roddy looked big and solid sitting there. Rachel sat, even now uncertainthat she did not see Francis Breton in front of her, looking down, asshe did, into the shadowy garden.
"I hope," she said abruptly, "that you don't like Monty Carfax."
"I've never thought about him," he said. "He's certainly no pal ofmine--why?"
"Because I hate him," she said fiercely. "What right has he got to_exist_ on a night like this?"
"He's always supposed to be a very clever feller," Roddy said slowly."But I think him a silly sort of ass--knows nothin' about dogs orhorses, can't play any game, only talks clever to women----"
"I can't bear that sort of man and I don't like Mr. Garden either. He'sso fat and he loves his food."
"So do I," said Roddy quite simply. "I love it too. It was a jolly gooddinner to-night."
She said nothing and then, when he had waited a little, he saidanxiously:
"I say, Miss Beaminster, we've been such jolly good friends--all theseweeks. And yet--sometimes--I'm afraid you think me the most awfulfool----"
She laughed. "I think you are about some things, but then--so am I abouta good many things--most of your things----"
"Look here, Miss Beaminster--I wish you'd help me about things I'm anass in. You can, you know--I'd be most awfully glad."
"What," she said, turning round and facing him, "are the things youreally care about?"
"The things? ... care about?"
"Yes--really----"
"Well! Oh! animals and bein' out in the open and shootin' and ridin' andfishin'--any old exercise--and comin' up to town for a buck every nowand again, and then goin' back and seein' no one
, and my old placeand--oh! I don't know," he ended.
"You wouldn't tell anyone a lie, would you, about things you liked anddidn't like?"
"It wouldn't be much use if I did," he said, laughing. "They'd find meout in a minute----"
"No, but would you? If you were with a number of people who thought artthe thing to care about and knew nothing about dogs and horses, wouldyou say you cared about art more than anything?"
"No," he said slowly. "No--but sometimes, you see, pictures and musicand such do please me--like anything--I can't put into words, but Imight suddenly be in any old mood--for pictures, or your uncle's fans,or dogs or the Empire or these jolly old stars--Why, there, you see Ijust let it go on--the mood, I mean, till it's over----" Then he addedwith a great sigh, "But I am a dash fool at explainin'----"
"But I know you wouldn't be like Mr. Garden or Mr. Carfax--justpretending not to like the thing because it's the thing not to. Or likeAunt Adela, who picks up a phrase about a book or picture from someclever man and then uses it everywhere."
"I should never remember it--a phrase or anythin'--I never can rememberwhat a feller says----"
"Oh! I know you'd always be honest about these things. I feel youwould--about everything. It's all these lies that are so impossible: Ithink I've come to feel now after this first season that the only thingthat matters is being straight. It is the only thing--if a person justgives you what they've got--what _they've_ got, not what someone else issupposed to have. May Eversley used to say that people's minds are likesoup--thick or clear--but they're only thick because they let them getthick with other people's opinions--you don't mind all this?" she said,suddenly pausing, afraid lest he should be bored.
"It's most awfully interestin'," he said from the bottom of his heart.
"There are some men and women--I've met one or two--who're just made upof Truth. You know it the minute you're with them. And they'll havepluck too, of course--Courage goes with it. Our family," she ended, "areof course the most terrible liars that have ever been--ever----"
"Oh! I say----" he began, protesting.
"Oh! but yes--they run everything on it. My uncle Richard ran throughParliament beautifully because he never said what he meant. And AuntAdela--_and_ Uncle John, although he's a dear. But then my grandmotherbrought them up to it. My grandmother would have about three cleverpeople and then muddle all the rest so that the three clever ones canhave everything in their hands----"
"Look here," he broke in, "I'm most awfully fond of yourgrandmother--we're tremendous pals----"
"You may be--I hate her. Oh! I don't hate her with melodrama, I don'twant to strangle her or beat her face or burn her, but I'm frightened ofher and she's always making me do things I'm ashamed of. That's the bestreason for hating anyone there is."
"But she's such a sportsman. One of the old kind. One----."
"Oh! I know all that you can say. I've heard it so many times. Butshe's all wrong. There isn't any good in her. She's just remorseless andselfish and stubborn. She thinks she ran the world once and she wants todo it still."
"That's all rather fine, _I_ think," said Roddy. "I agree with her abit. I think most people have _got_ to be run--they just can't runthemselves, so you have to put things into them."
"Well, that's just where we differ," she said sharply. "It isn't so.That's where all the muddle comes in. If everyone were just himselfwithout anything _borrowed_--Oh! the brave world it'd be----"
Then she laughed. "But I'm all wrong myself, you know. I'm as muddled asanyone. I've got all the true, real me there, but all the Beaminsterpart has slurred it over. But I've got a horrid fear that Truth getstired of waiting too long. One day, when you're not expecting it, itcomes up and says--'Now you choose--your only chance. _Are_ you going touse me or not? If not, I'm going'--How awful if one didn't realize themoment was there, and missed it."
She was laughing, but in her heart that other woman in her was stirring.For a startled, trembling second the wood seemed to flame, the gardensto blaze with the challenge:
"Are you, for the sake of the comfort and safety of life, playing false?Which way are you going?"
She burst into laughter, she caught Roddy by the arm. "Oh! I've talkedsuch nonsense--It's getting cold--we've got to go in. Don't think I talklike that generally, Sir Roderick, because I don't--I----"
She was nervous, frightened. The stars were so many and it was so darkand Roddy no longer seemed a protection.
"I know it's late--Look here, I'm going to run--Race me----"
She tore for her very life out of the little wood, felt him poundingbehind her, seized, with a gasp of relief, the lights and the voices--
She knew, with joy, that Roddy was closing the door behind her and thatthe garden and the stars and the wood were shut into silence.
For a little while, in the drawing-room, she talked excitedly, laughed agreat deal, even at Monty Carfax's jokes.
She knew that they were all thinking that she was pleased because shehad been with Roddy. She did not care what their thoughts were.
At last in her room she cried to Lucy--"Pull the curtainstight--Tighter--Tighter--Those stars--they'll get through anything."
When at last Lucy was gone she lit her candle and lay there, hearing theclocks strike the hours, wondering when the day would come.
The Duchess of Wrexe, Her Decline and Death; A Romantic Commentary Page 12