"Fear of the loss of power has more to do with disasters in the history of nations than any other motive."James Anthony Froude.
"Fear of the loss of power has more to do with disasters in the history of nations than any other motive."
James Anthony Froude.
Trouble invaded the strongholds of 104 Portland Place that winter: The Duchess was not so well ... no evasions, whether above or below stairs, could conceal the harsh truth. The Duchess was not so well....
To the bewildered mind of Lady Adela the horrid succession of disasters that the winter had provided no other years could equal. It had all begun, she often fancied, from the day of Rachel's coming out, from the ball, or even, although for this she could not find a real excuse, from that visit to the Bond Street Picture Gallery. It was on that afternoon, Lady Adela well remembered, that there had first come to her those strange, treacherous thoughts about her mother that had, afterwards, as they had grown stronger and more formidable, changed life for her. Yes, it had seemed that, with Rachel's appearance before the world, disaster to the Beamister house had appeared also. Her mother's illness, the War, perpetual rumours of Rachel's unsatisfactory marriage, the uncomfortable presence of Frank Breton, the horrible disaster to poor Roddy—how they trooped before Lady Adela's eyes! Finally, more terrible than all of them, was the complete destruction of the old fiction, the old terror, the old submission. Lady Adela did not now dare to look into her mind because of the horrible things that she found there.
Roddy's accident had had the most terrible effect upon the Duchess. Only Christopher could really tell how Her Grace had taken it, but throughout the house, it was understood that the effect of it had been serious. "Wouldn't give her long now," said Mr. Norris. "What with this War and what not she was goin' as it was, and now Sir Roderick, as was always, as you might say, her pet, having this awful disaster—no,Idon't give her long."
Adela of course saw nothing of her mother's feelings; she never had been allowed to see anything of them and she was not allowed now.
The old lady was outwardly as she had ever been, although she spoke less and, if you watched her, you could see sometimes that her hands were shaking. She used paint for her cheeks and she rouged her lips. Her love of fantastic things had grown very much, and, on the little table behind her chair, there was a row of strange china animals and some Indian dolls with wooden limbs that jangled when you touched them.
But Adela was no longer afraid of her mother. Stimulate it as she would, force upon herself her sensations of the days when she had been afraid, as she did, still the terror would not now confront her. There had been a dreadful scene when the Duchess had been told that her daughter was acting on the same committee as Mrs. Bronson, the dazzling American ... a terrible scene ... but Adela had come through it without a tremor—it had not affected her at all. "It isn't that I've changed much either. I'm just as nervous of other things—I'm just the same coward...."
Perhaps it was, a little, that the war had altered one's values—So many Beaminster necessities were not quite so necessary—
Certainly John felt the same, and the one consolation to Adela, through all this horrible time, was that she had grown nearer to John than she had ever been to anyone—John and she had been attacked by the Real World, both of them at the same moment, and they did find comfort, at this terrifying crisis, in being together.
But all Adela's energy was directed towards concealing from her mother that there was any change at all—"She must think that things are just the same, exactly the same. She mustn't ever know that ... well, that ..."
She could not put it into words. Her Grace's illness was never alluded to by any member of the household.
There came word, at the beginning of March, that Roddy had been moved up to London, that Rachel had taken a little house in York Terrace overlooking Regent's Park, that Roddy was wonderfully cheerful, suffered pain at times, but was, on the whole marvellous—
Two or three days after this news when Christopher arrived at 104 on his usual morning visit Lord John met him in the hall.
"I say, come in here a minute," he said, leading the way into his own little smoking-room—Lord John was fatter, scarcely now as rubicund, as shining as he had been—as neat and clean as ever, but there were lines on his forehead, and in his eye, that glance of surprise that had always been there had advanced into one of alarm—
"What the devil is life going to do, what horrible trick is it up to next?" he seemed to say—
"Look here, Christopher," he brought out, when the door was closed. "There's the devil and all to pay. My mother declares this morning that she's going to pay a visit to Roddy!"
"Well?" Christopher seemed amused.
"But ... Good heavens!" John was aghast—"She hasn't stirred out of her room for thirty years! She ... she ... it'll kill her!"
"Oh! no, it won't—" Christopher answered, "not if she really means to do it. Of course she can't walk much—she won't have to—We can get her downstairs, and Roddy's room in York Terrace is on the ground floor—We'll have to see she doesn't catch cold—She'll have to choose a warm day."
"She says she's going this afternoon!" said Lord John, still overwhelmed by this amazing development.
"Well, to-day won't do any harm——"
"Are you sure?"
"Quite sure. The danger with your mother has always been to stop her inclinations. Indulge 'em all the time if you can, let her say what she wishes, do what she wishes. If you were to carry her out of doors against her will, why it would do a great deal of harm indeed—but if she wants to go she'll see that she's up to it. It may be the best thing for her. She could have gone out heaps of times in the last thirty years if she'd wished to!"
Lord John rubbed his forehead—
"It's a great relief to hear you say that, Christopher. I didn't know how we were going to get out of it. She was so determined this morning——"
He broke off—"You'resureit won't do any harm?" he said again.
"I'm sure," said Christopher.
"There's something," Lord John went on again, "dreadfully on my mother's mind—She seems to feel that, in some way or other, she was responsible for his accident. I can't get at the bottom of it all and of course she won't tell me—she never tells me things. Perhaps you can get at it. I saw Rachel yesterday."
"Yes?"
"She's very fair about it all. Must be having a very hard time. She was glad to see me, I think, but—" he added a little wistfully—"I've never been anything to her since her marriage.
"She just seemed not to want me after that, and I'd been a good deal to her before. When one's getting old, Christopher, we old bachelors, we begin to notice that nobody wants us very much."
Christopher looked at him—Yes, John Beaminster had changed in the last year. Had he himself, he wondered, also changed?
"Yes," he said, smiling. "But I've been an old bachelor, Beaminster, for years and years and I see no likelihood of your ever being one. You get younger with every year, I believe."
"This accident to Roddy," John said slowly, as though he were thinking it all out, "has upset us all. It seems so terrible, happening to him ... much worse for him ... and then Rachel—But look here, I know you've got to go up to my mother, I won't keep you a minute—But there's a thing I've got to talk to you about—It's been on my conscience now for ages.... I've not known what to do ... at last I've made up my mind."
John Beaminster had made up his mind to do something that he hated! To Christopher perhaps more than to anyone else in the world this was a revelation of the most vital, the most moving interest—He had known John for so long, seen him struggling behind screens and curtains, hugging to himself the happy knowledge that to the very end he would be able to keep life from getting at him, and now behold! Lifehadgot at him, wag clutching him by the throat.
"It's about Frank"—at last he desperately brought out "I've made up my mind. I must go and see him—now, perhaps whilst mother is—is still suffering from the effects of Roddy's accident it wouldn't be wise perhaps to have him here actually in the house—But something must be done.... Adela agrees."
Adela agrees! Well, if the old woman upstairs.... Christopher was moved, as he had lately been often moved, by a swift stirring of pathos.
"You see, this War has upset us all so, has made one feel differently—And then he really does seem to have changed, been as quiet as anything all this time, and I hear that he's working at something sensible down in the City. I must go and see him——"
Then they hadn't heard, Christopher knew, of any rumours about Rachel and Francis.
Perhaps therewereno rumours, perhaps only in the mind of the old lady.... But then let John say a word to her about this visit to Breton and out she would come with it all.
"Yes, Beaminster," Christopher said. "Of course I'm delighted. It's just what I hoped would happen, but perhaps, as your mother has been rather upset lately it would be just as well to say nothing to her...."
"Quite so...." John looked away, out of the window—Poor John!
Christopher held out his hand, and John took it and for a moment they stood there, then Christopher went upstairs.
Dorchester no longer asserted that her mistress was "better than she had ever been"—Since that terrible morning when Dr. Christopher had broken the news of Sir Roderick's accident Dorchester had made no pretence about anything. This was the time that must, she had always known, one day arrive, but what she had not known was that it would be quite like this.
She was a woman of some imagination; moreover, were there one person in the world who touched her heart, then was it her mistress; she had penetrated, she thought, some of the strange secrets and fantasies of that old woman's soul, and it seemed that now, in these later days, she was at last in touch with every motive and grim artifice that her mistress adopted—
But no—since that terrible day at the beginning of the year Dorchester had lost touch, was left, bewildered, at a loss, as though she were suddenly in the service of some stranger.
She had known that nothing more terrible could happen to her mistress than this—When she heard it she said to herself, "This will kill her—bound to—" She had known too that her mistress would not flinch, outwardly, and that to the ordinary observer there would be no sign, but the thing for which she had not been prepared was this silence, a silence so profound and yet so eloquent that one could obtain from it no clue, could discern no visible wound, but daily, almost hourly, as she sat there, change was at work ... she was dying before their eyes—
What Dorchester did not know was that the Duchess had been aware, for a long time, that this was to occur, if not exactly this, why, then, something like it.
All through that autumn she had sat there waiting—the War, the rebellion of her children—it only needed that disaster should overtake Roddy and the circle was complete.
She did not doubt that it was because he had married Rachel that this had happened to him, and she might have prevented his marriage to Rachel had she wished.
The girl had now for her sitting there in her room the fatal inevitability of some hostile spirit. She saw all her past years as a duel with this girl, the one soul in rebellion against hers. Rachel had taken everything from her; she had first stirred Adela and John into rebellion, she had encouraged Francis Breton, she had destroyed Roddy ... she rose, before the old woman's eyes, black, titanic, sweeping, with great dark wings, across the horizon.
The Duchess did not in so many words state that Rachel had flung her husband from his horse and then watched whilst his body was dragged along the stones, but, in some way, the girl had plotted it.
The old woman had indeed during these last months suffered from visions. There were days when her brain was as clear as it had ever been and on these days she thought more of Roddy than of Rachel, ached to be with him, longed to comfort him and make life bearable for him, cursed whatever fate it was that had ordained that upon him of all people such a burden should have fallen. Then there were other days when the old china dragons seemed more real than Dorchester, when shapes and sizes altered in an instant, when the cushion at her feet was swollen like a mountain, when she seemed floating through space, looking down upon houses, cities, mountains, when only like a jangling chain upon which everything hung, ran her hatred of her granddaughter.
On such a day if Rachel had come to her and she had been alone with her, she would have wished the dragons to devour her, would have urged the silver Indian snake on the little black table to have strangled her. On such a day she would sit hour after hour and wonder what she could do to her granddaughter....
It was upon one of her clear days that it flashed upon her that she would go and see Roddy. Beyond the actual excitement of visiting Roddy there was the determination to show the world what she still could do. Doubtless they were saying out there that she was bedridden now, ill, helpless, dying even ... well, she would show them.
For thirty years she had not been outside her door—now, because she wished it, she would go.
She said nothing to Adela about this—she saw Adela now as seldom as possible. She told John on the morning of the day itself—on that same morning she told Christopher.
She told him sitting in her chair, with her cheeks painted and her white fingers covered with rings—
"I'm going to pay a visit—this afternoon, Christopher." She had expected opposition—she was a little disappointed when he said—
"Yes, so I've already heard this morning. I think it's an excellent thing—the day's warm. You'll have to be carried downstairs, you know——"
"You and Norris can do that. I won't have anyone else."
"Very well, I shall have to come with you——"
"Yes—You can talk to my granddaughter."
"It's thirty years...."
"Yes—The last time was Old Judy Bonnings's reception. They're all dead—all of 'em—D'you remember, Dorchester?"
"Yes—Your Grace—Very well."
Dorchester expressed no surprise—Anything was better than that silence of the last months. Moreover she had trusted Christopher. She had often been amazed at the knowledge that he showed of her mistress's temperament, would allow her temper, her imperious self-will indulgence one day and on another would control them absolutely. He knew what he was doing....
The picture that she presented, however, when helped downstairs by the pontifical Norris and Christopher! the house, with the decorous watchfulness of some large, solemn, and immensely authoritative policeman, surveying her descent, her own little bird-like face, showing nothing but a fine assumption of her splendid appearance before the public, after thirty years, she thus, once again, was saluted by Portland Place! Black furs of Lady Adela's surrounded, enfolded her, and from out of them her eyes haughtily but triumphantly surveyed a crossing-sweeper, two small children with their nurse, a messenger boy, and Roller the coachman. To Roller this must have beenthedramatic moment of a somewhat undramatic career, but stout and imperial upon his box his body was held, rigid, motionless, and his large stupid eyes gazed in front of him at the trees and the light cloud-flecked March sky, and moved neither to the right nor to the left.
She was placed in the carriage—Christopher got in beside her and they moved off. He was interested to see the effect that this breaking into the world would have upon her. He felt himself a little in the position of showman and was glad that he had a spring afternoon of gleaming sunshine and a suggestion of budding trees and shrubs in the Portland Crescent garden to provide for her. They were held up by traffic as they crossed the Marylebone Road; drays, hansoms, bicycles passed—there was a stir of voices and wheels, somewhere in the park a band was playing.
He looked at her and saw that she paid no heed, but sat back in the dim shadow, her eyes, he thought, closed. She was, at that instant, more remote from him and all that he represented than she had ever been—Curiously he was moved, just then, by a consciousness of her personality that exceeded anything that he had ever felt in her before.
"Yes, she must have been tremendous," he thought. And then he wondered of what she was thinking, so quiet, and yet, from her very silence, sinister, and then—how could he have not considered this before? What was she going to say to Roddy?
At this, the dark carriage was suddenly, for him, as flashing with life and circumstance as though it had been the florid circle of some popular music-hall—Whatwould she say to Roddy?
He knew her for the most selfish of all possible old women: unselfish only perhaps if Roddy were concerned, but there also, if some question of her power moved her, ruthless. He had traced the windings of her queer intertwisted brain with some accuracy—He knew also that the coloured unreal state that her closed, fantastic life (resembling, you might say, life inside a Chinese puzzle) had brought upon her led her now to see Rachel as arch-antagonist in every step and movement of her day.
She would not wish to make Roddy unhappy, she might persuade herself that to hint to him of Rachel's infidelity would be to put him on his guard—she might say that it was not fair that Rachel should not be pulled up....
Christopher himself could not tell how far this affair with Breton had gone....
During that short time it seemed to him that a crisis, that had been building up around him, here, there, for months, for years perhaps, had leapt upon him and that in some way he must deal with it.
Even whilst he struggled with the thoughts that were sweeping upon him now from every side, they were at the house—As he stepped out of the carriage he felt that he was before a locked door, that the safety of many persons depended upon his opening it, that he could not find the key.
"Lady Seddon was out. Sir Roderick was alone——" The Duchess was half assisted, half carried into the house.
The Duchess's feelings were indeed confused as she was helped into Roddy's room, placed in a large easy chair opposite to him and at last left alone with him.
Enough of itself to disturb her was the fact that now for the first time for thirty years she was able to examine some room different from her own—A large, high white-walled room with wide windows that displayed the park, sporting prints on the walls, antlers over the fireplace, a piano in one corner, a large bowl of primroses on the piano, some boxing-gloves and two old swords over the door, a wooden case with thin rosewood drawers and "Birds' Eggs" in gold letters upon it, a round table near the sofa upon which Roddy was lying and on the table a photograph of Rachel—
All these things her sharp old eyes noticed before she allowed them to settle upon Roddy—
His quiet, almost humorous "Well, Duchess," set, quite concisely, the note for this conversation. Not for either of them was it to betray any consciousness that this meeting of theirs was in any way out of the ordinary. Formerly it had been the ebullient, vigorous Roddy who had brought his vigour to renew her fierce old age; now that old age must be brought to him—
The Beaminsters did not show surprise at anything at all; had she come from her grave to visit him he would have greeted her with his quiet "Well, Duchess"—his life was broken in pieces, but she was not to offer any comment on that either.
She was exhausted even by that little drive, and that little passage from door to door, so she just lay back in her chair for a little while and looked at him.
His body was covered with a rug; his hands, still brown and large and clumsy, were folded on his lap; he was wonderfully tidy, brushed and cleaned, it seemed to her, as though he were always expecting a doctor or a visitor or were performed upon by some valet or other, simply, poor dear, that the time might be filled. His cheeks were paler of course and his face thinner, but it was in his eyes—his large, simple, singularly ungrown-up eyes she had always considered them—that the great change lay—
They smiled across at her with the same genial good temper that they had always presented to her. But indeed she could never call them "ungrown-up" again. Roddy Seddon had grown up indeed since she had seen him last; she knew now, as she faced the experience and, above all, the strength that those eyes now presented for her, that she had a new spirit to encounter.
Yes—he "had had a horrible time," but she was wise enough, at that instant, to realise that the "horrible time" had drawn character out of him that she, at least, had never, for an instant, suspected.
The old woman was moved so that she would have liked to have tottered to his sofa, to have caught his hands in her old dry ones, to have kissed him, to have smoothed his hair—but she sat quietly in her chair, recovered her breath and, grimly, almost saturninely, smiled at him.
"Well, Roddy," she said, "how are you?"
"I'm quite splendid. Play patience like a professor, can knit five mufflers in a week and am learning two foreign languages—But indeed how rippin' to see you here. I've spent a lot o' time on this old sofa wonderin' how you and I were goin' to see one another."
"Have you?" She was pleased at that—"Well, you see, Ihavemanaged it and quite easily too, not so bad after thirty years. MygoodRoddy, you of all people to tumble off a horse! Whatwereyou about?"
"Oh! it was simple enough." Roddy's eyes worked swiftly to the park and then back again. "I was worried, you see—my thoughts were wandering, and the old mare just tripped into a hole, pitched and flung me—I fell on a heap o' stones,theyknocked the sense out of me, the horse was frightened and went dashin' along with me tangled up in her. All came of my thoughts wanderin'—But you know, Duchess, I've had heaps of accidents, heaps and heaps, every kind of thing has happened to me, but it's never been serious—always the most wonderful luck. Well, for once it left me."
"Poor old Roddy."
"Yes, itwas'poor old Roddy,' I can tell you, for the first six weeks—thought I simplycouldn'tstand it, had serious thoughts of kickin' out altogether, seemed to me everythin' had gone ... it's wonderful, though, the way you pick up. And then everyone's been so tremendous, and as for Rachel!"
He heaved a great sigh—Her eyes half closed, then she looked very carefully at the photograph on the little round table. "That's a good photograph of her you've got."
"Yes—it's my favourite. But you, Duchess, tell me about yourself. You must be in magnificent form to have planned this great adventure."
She told him about herself—only a little, all very carefully chosen—She was fancying, as she sat there, that she was again playing the great diplomatist before the world.
This expedition had greatly excited her, it had fired her blood, and just now she felt that she was equal to taking up her old life of thirty years ago, playing once more a tremendous part, beating Mrs. Bronson and others of her kind straight off the field.
She had a great plan now of coming often to see Roddy and of gaining a very great influence over him; she did not say to herself in so many words that she could not bear to think of him lying there helpless and therefore completely in Rachel's power, but that is what in reality stirred her.
Roddy's helplessness—the sight and sound of it—drove higher that flame that had burnt now for so long before the altar at which Rachel was, one day, to be sacrificed. "She may come and go as she pleases. He lies here—He can do nothing. He can know nothing of her movements—He's in her hands—after what I know...."
What did she know? The acquaintanceship of Breton's man-servant and Dorchester had produced the fact of Rachel's visit, of letters—but wasn't that all? Amongst the strange mingled visions that now crossed and recrossed her brain it were hard to say what were real and what phantasmal. But granted that the two of them had come together at all, why then it was plain enough to anyone who knew them that only one result was possible—Poor Roddy ...herpoor Roddy!
But she did not know even now that she intended to tell him anything; her sense of the pain that that revelation would give to him held her, but as the minutes passed her delight at being back once more in this gay, bustling world (yes, she liked its new invigorating noises) the sense of power that she had, and youth, and strength, spun her brain to finest cobwebs of entanglements.
She was glad to be with her Roddy again, it was only fair that, helpless as he was, there should still be someone to guard and protect him ... to protect him, yes!
Her eyes flashed at the photograph.
But for a long time they talked in precisely their old fashion. The War, friends and enemies, victories and defeats, marriages and deaths; Roddy seemed, for a time, the old Roddy.
And then gradually through it all there pushed towards her the consciousness that he was doing it now to please her; more than that, again and again she was aware that some bitter jest, some sharp distraction, some fierce criticism had been turned by him deftly aside—simply rejected with a deftness and a strength that the old Roddy could never have summoned.
Here again then—and it stabbed her there in the midst of her new pride and confidence—was a reminder that her power, her sovereignty had vanished! Was Roddy also to be beyond her influence, Roddy whom she had had at her feet since he was a boy of sixteen?
The photograph smiled across at her—She bent forward, her hand raised a little as though to lend emphasis to her words—"And then you know, Roddy, I'm still troubled with my abominable relation——"
"What! Breton? Why, how's he been behaving?" Roddy's voice was scornful.
"Oh! he's notdoneanything that I know of—But he's always there—so tiresome to have him so close, and John and Adela have grown so peculiar lately that there's no knowing—They may ask him in to tea one day——"
"Oh no, they won't," said Roddy. "He must be the most awful outsider."
"I wanted to speak about him to you because I thought you might give a word of warning to Rachel——"
"To Rachel?" Roddy's voice was amazed.
"Yes—She's become such a friend of his! Surely you know? That's what makes it so difficult for me—When one's own granddaughter——"
"Rachel! A friend of Breton's! But I didn't know she'd ever spoken to him—Look here, Duchess, you must explain——"
"I thought you must have known. I've often wished to speak to you about it, only Rachel is so difficult and I didn't want to worry you, and it seems especially hard just now——"
"But it doesn't worry me—not a bit. Only tell me—How do you mean that she's a friend of his?"
"Only that she goes to see him, writes to him——"
"Goes toseehim——"
"Oh yes—is in complete sympathy——"
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely. You must ask her."
"I will of course——"
He lay back on his sofa. For a little time there was silence between them. She was filled now with wild regrets. She wished that she had said nothing. His face was hard and old—She wished ... she scarcely knew what she wished; she only knew that suddenly she was tired and would like to go home.
A bell was rung and Christopher was sent for. She would like to have kissed Roddy, but only wagged her bony finger at him—
"Now be a good patient boy and I'll soon come again."
Meanwhile, five minutes before this, Rachel had come in. She was told of the visits, and going swiftly to the little drawing-room upstairs had found Christopher.
She flung her arms around him and kissed him.
"Oh, dear Dr. Chris!"
But he stopped her.
"Quick, Rachel. I may only have a minute.... I've got to speak to you."
Instantly she drew back, her grave eyes watching him and her hands, as of old, nervously moving against her dress.
"What is it?"
"It's just this. The Duchess may ring at any moment—she's been with him a long while. Look here, Rachel, she knows about Breton—that you've been to see him, that you've written to him——"
"She told you?"
"Yes—long ago—But never mind that now, although I'd have spoken to you of it before if you'd let me—But the only thing that matters is that I believe—I can't of course be sure—but I believe that she's come now to tell Roddy."
Rachel drew a long breath. "Oh!" she said and, stiffly standing there, showed in her eyes the pitch of feeling to which now her grandmother had brought her.
Christopher went on urgently—"I've been praying for you to come in. I hoped you'd have come half an hour ago. There's no time now, but—it's simply this, Rachel dear—tell Roddy everything——"
She broke in passionately. "You know it's all right, Dr. Chris—you've trusted me?"
"Absolutely," he said gravely. "But it simply is that Roddy mustn't be there imagining things, waiting, wondering.... Perhaps he won't ask you—Perhaps he will—But, anyway, tell him—tell him at once everything...."
The bell rang, he went across to her, kissed her, and then went downstairs.
She stood there waiting, without moving except to strip off, very slowly, her black gloves. Her eyes were fixed upon the door.
She heard the door downstairs open, the stumbling steps; once she caught the Duchess's voice and at that she drew in her breath. Then the hall door closed, but, for a long time afterwards, she stood there without moving.
"... But the Red Dwarf, although as malevolent as possible, found that his ill-temper had no effect against true love, which always won in the end, even with quite stupid people."Grimm's Fairy Tales.
"... But the Red Dwarf, although as malevolent as possible, found that his ill-temper had no effect against true love, which always won in the end, even with quite stupid people."
Grimm's Fairy Tales.
It would have been quite impossible for Roddy to have given any clear description of his experiences since the event of his accident. There, surely, like a gleaming sword, that cut his life into two pieces, the fact itself was visible enough, and there floated before him, again and again, the casual canter, the especial view that was before him just then, a view of undulating Downs, somewhere to his left white chalk hollows in grey hills and to his right a blue strip of sea, the wonder that was in his mind about Rachel, his thoughts chasing back over all the incidents of their life together, then suddenly the jerk, his consciousness of falling with the ground rising in a high wall to oppose him, and then darkness.
After that there was nightmare in which pain and Rachel, Rachel and pain, mingled and parted, were confused and then separate, and with them danced shapes and figures, sometimes in a turmoil that was horrible, sometimes in silence that was the most terrible of all. Clear after that first period of misty confusion was the day when he was told his fate.
He had come out from the heart of the more terrible pain—No longer had he to lie, knowing that soon, after another minute's peace, agony would rise before him like a creature with a wet pale malignant face, and then after looking upon him for a moment, would bend down and, with its horrible damp fingers, would twist and turn his bones one against another until the supreme moment came when nothing mattered and no agony, however bad, could touch his indifferent soul.
He was now simply weak, weak, weak—nothing mattered. In his dream he fancied that someone had said that he would never rise from his back again. For days after that it lingered far away from his actual consciousness. Really it had not mattered; something, this dream, that concerned him, but what could concern him except that people should keep quiet and not fuss?
For instance he loved to have Rachel with him, he was miserable were she not there, but at the same time he was conscious that shedidfuss, was not quite like Miss Rand.
But of this thing that he had heard he thought nothing. "There'ssomethingthat I ought to think about. I don't knowwhatit is—One day when I'm stronger I'll look into it."
There came a day when hewasstronger, a day, late in January, of a pale wintry sun and watery gleams. They had placed his bed so that he could see his beloved Downs and the little road that ran from their foot out into the village.
On this morning he was wonderfully better—he had slept well, breezes and pleasant scents came through the open window, geese were cackling, a donkey's braying made him laugh "Silly old donkey," he said aloud to no one in particular. Then he was aware of Jacob, sitting bunched into a heap in the middle of the floor, his brown eyes peering anxiously through his hair. At every sound his ears would rise for a moment, but his eyes were fixed upon Roddy.
The dog had been in Roddy's room a good deal during these last weeks, had been wrenched away from it. Roddy found that he was touched by this devotion; Jacob apparently cared more for him than did the other dogs—"Not a bad old thing—Often these mongrels are more human—But, Lord! heisa sight!"
The nurse was sitting sewing by the window. Roddy lay, happily, thinking that now at last that jolly bad pain reallydidseem to have been left behind. He was immensely, wonderfully better; it would not be long, surely, before he was quite fit again, before he....
Then down it swung, swung like an iron door shutting all the world away from him, inexorable—"Always on your back ... never get up again!"
His hand gripped the bed-clothes.
"Nurse."
"Yes?"
"Tell me—am I dreaming or did someone say something the other day about—about my never being able, well, to toddle again, you know?"
"I'm afraid——"
"Thanks."
He closed his eyes and then summoned all the grit and determination that there was in him to face this fact. He could not face it. It was as though he were struggling up the side of a high slippery rock—up he would struggle, up and up, now he was at the top, down he would slip again—it could not, oh! it could not be true!
Itwastrue. As the days passed grimly in silence, he accepted it. It had always been his creed that in this world there was no place for the maimed and the halt. He was sorry for them, of course, but it was better that they should go; they only occupied room that was intended for lustier creatures.
Well, now he was himself of the halt and maimed—that was ironical, wasn't it? Indeed he would much rather that he had pegged out altogether—better for everybody—but, as things were, he would square things out and see what he could make of it all. Then he saw as, every day, he grew stronger, that he had no resources; everything in his other life, as he now had come to think of it, had depended upon his physical strength, every pleasure, every desire, every ambition had had to do with his body—everything except Rachel.
In his other life half his happiness arose simply from the sense of his physical movement, his consciousness that, as the rivers flowed and the winds blew and the sun blazed, so did he also live and have his being—And with all this, most intimately was his house mingled. That grey building and he grew and moved and developed together; life could never be very terrible for him so long as he had his place to come back to, his place to care for, his fields and his gardens, his horses and his dogs to look after. Now he could do nothing more for it—perhaps one day he would be wheeled about its courts and paths, but oh! with what pitying eyes would it look down upon him, how sorrowfully his gryphons would greet him, with what memories they would confront him!
He could not bear now to look out upon the Downs on the little village path—His bed was moved. A day arrived when he felt that it was all, really, more than he could endure. He was in wild, furious rebellion, surly, sometimes in raging tempers, sometimes sulking from day to day. He cursed all the world. Even Christopher could do nothing with him—
Then upon this there followed a period of silence. He lay there and beyond "Yes" and "No" would answer no one. His eyes stared at the wall. Christopher feared at this time for his sanity.
Suddenly the silence was broken. He must go to London because he could not endure the memories that this place thronged upon him—At the beginning of March he was moved to the house in York Terrace.
The little house by the park helped him to construct his new life. The normality that there was in Roddy, the same balance of common sense, fostered his recovery. He was not going to die—Life would be an infernal trouble were he always to be in rebellion against it—he must simply make the best of the conditions. And then, after all, he had Rachel. Rachel had been a heroine during this time, and to his love for her he now clung, passionately, tenaciously, the one thing left to him out of his great catastrophe.
She seemed, during these months, to have thought for nothing else in all the world. She was not so useful in a sick room as Miss Rand—Miss Rand was wonderful—but there were certain moments when she would bend down and kiss him or would look at him or would take his hand, when he wondered whether love for him had not crept into her heart after all.
Funny when he had gone out for his ride on that eventful morning expecting that he had offended her for ever! Well, if his accident had won Rachel for him, it had been worth while!
But there were other days when he knew for a certainty that it was not so, knew that it was pity that moved her; affection too perhaps, but nothing more than affection....
Nevertheless he hoped that this might be the beginning of something else; he would lie for hours looking out at the park and creating visions.
He made now something tolerable of his life. People showed a wonderful kindness and there was always someone to entertain him, some new present that someone had sent him; people could not be kind enough. He was grateful for all of this, but he spent many, many hours in thinking. He found that he had never thought before; he found that he would have gone to his grave without thinking had not the great catastrophe occurred. He thought of a great many things, but especially of what other people's lives were like. There were, he supposed, a great number of people who had had misfortunes as overwhelming at his—How had they behaved? And what, after all, were all the other people, in all their different circumstances, doing? Before this it had only occurred to him to be interested in the people who were leading lives like his, now he wondered about everybody.
Little things became of the greatest importance. Every day he read the paper with absorbed care from the first line to the last. The arrangement of the room interested him and he would give its details, minutely, his consideration.
He was greatly interested in gossip and he would chatter, happily, all the afternoon did someone come and visit him. To everyone it was an amazing thing that he should take it all so easily. No one had ever given Roddy credit for the strength of character that was in him and they did not perhaps recognize that his earlier impatient condemnation of other people—"Why the devil don't the feller stand up to it like a man?"—made him now conscious that he was himself at last faced with a similar test to which he himself must stand up.
But, beyond question, he could not have held the position as he did had it not been for Rachel; he seemed to see that here was a chance of seizing her and making her really his own, a chance that would never be his again. He was making an appeal to her—she was closer to him, he thought, with every day.
So his natural humour and spirits returned—At present life was tolerable; he suffered very little pain and he was aware that a number of people to whom he had never meant anything whatever now cared for him very much indeed.
He was ashamed when he heard of the men who were dying and suffering for their country—"He would have had to have gone to Africa," he told himself, "if he'd not had his accident. Then enteric or a bullet and good-bye to Rachel altogether!"
He had often, during those long hours, thought of the Duchess. He had, always, in his heart, considered her affection for him strange; he knew that it was difficult for her to be patient with fools and he knew that his own intellectual gifts were on no very high level. He based her friendship for him on the naive transparency with which he displayed his frankly pagan indulgences. His love for Rachel and this accident had changed all that. He was still pagan enough at heart, but there were other things in his world. Principally it occurred to him now that one couldn't judge about the way things looked to other people, and the Duchess, of course, alwaysdidjudge; if they didn't look her way, why then wipe them out!
He had, in fact, much less now to say to the Duchess; he was afraid that he would no longer agree with her about things—"Of course she knows the world and is a damn clever woman, but she's jolly well too hard on people who aren't quite her style—She'd put my back up, I believe, if she talked." He had, indeed, always been uncomfortable at the old lady's approaches to sentiment. She was never sentimental with other people—Hehatedsentiment in anyone except, of course, Rachel and she neverwassentimental.
He looked out now upon the road that ran through the park beyond his window, watched the nursemaids and the children, the old gentlemen, the girls, the smart women and the pale young men with books and the smart young men with shiny hats, and he wondered about them all.
Sometimes when the grass, was very green, when high white clouds piled one upon another hung above the pond whose corner he could just see, thoughts of his little grey house, his gardens, the Downs, his horses and dogs would come to him—
"Come out! Come out!" a sparrow would dance on his window ledge—
"Damn you, I can't!" he would cry and then his eyes would fly to Rachel's photograph—"If I get her it will be worth it, won't it, Jacob, my son?"
He talked continually to Jacob and found great comfort in the stolid assurance with which the dog would wag his stump of a tail—"He's more than human, that dog," he would tell Rachel; "funny how I never used to see anything in him."
Of course there were many days when life was utterly impossible; then he would snap at everyone, lie scowling at the park, curse his impotence, his miserable degraded infirmities. "Curse it, to die in a ditch like this—to be broken up, to be smashed...."
His majestic butler—now the tenderest and most devoted of attendants—stood these evil days with great equanimity.
"Bless you, of course he's bound to be wild now and again—wonder is it don't happen more often—It does him good to curse a bit."
So things were with him until the day of the Duchess's visit. His surprise at seeing her was confused with an assurance that "she had come for something." After her departure what she had come for was plain enough to see.
He had not taken her words about Breton at first with any credulity. His principal emotion at the time had been anger with the old woman, a great desire that she should go before he should forget himself and be disgraced by showing temper to anyone so old and feeble—But when she had gone, he found that peace had left him now once and for all.
He knew that the Duchess hated Rachel and he was ready to allow for the bias and exaggeration that spite would lend, but, when that was taken away, much remained.
Rachel knew Breton, that was certain; she had never told him. Breton's name had occurred sometimes in conversation and she had always spoken of him as though he were a complete stranger. Rachel knew Breton and she had never told him....
He might tell himself that she had not told him because she knew that he would instantly stop the acquaintance—It was, of course, simply a friendship that had sprung up because Rachel was sorry for his ostracism. Roddy thought that that was just like Rachel, part of her warm-hearted interest in anyone who seemed to be unfairly treated—yet—she had never told him.
Then, lying there all alone with no one in whom he could confide, there sprang before him suspicions. If she had known this scoundrel of a cousin of hers, if she had been so careful to keep from her husband all cognizance of her friendship, did not that very silence and deceit imply more than friendship? Was Breton the kind of man to abstain from snatching every advantage that was open to him? Did not this explain Rachel's avoidance of Roddy during the last year, her moods of restraint, repentance, her sudden silences?
Then upon this came the thought, how much of all this did the world know? Perhaps it was true once again that the husband was the last to be informed, perhaps during the last year all London Society had mocked at Roddy's blindness.
The Duchess, he might be sure, had not spared her tongue—The Duchess ... he cursed her as he lay there and then wondered whether he should not rather thank her for opening his eyes, then cursed himself for daring to allow such suspicions of Rachel to gain their hold upon him.
In Roddy there was, strong beyond almost any other principle, a sturdy hereditary pride. He was proud of his stock, proud of his ancestors and all their doings, worthy and unworthy, proud of his own pluck and standing—"Different from all these half-baked fellers with only their own grandmothers to go back to." It had been this arrogance, with other things somewhat closely allied, that had endeared him to the Duchess. Now it was that same pride that suffered most terribly. Here was some disaster hanging over his head that threatened most nearly the honour of his family—Let Breton touch that....
He was alone on that evening after the Duchess's visit; Rachel had gone out to a party; she went, he had noticed, reluctantly, protested again and again that she wished she could stay with him, seemed to hang about him as though she would speak to him, looked, oh! too adorably, too adorably beautiful!
Whilst she was with him he saw behind her the dark shadow of Breton, that fellow kicked out of the country for cheating at cards or something as bad, disowned by his family, and she, she, Rachel so proudly apart, could have gone to him—He was glad when, at last, she had left him.
Then, lying there, he endured three of the most awful hours of agony that he was ever, in, all his life, to know. Nothing that had come to him through his accident was so bad as this. At one moment it was fury—wild, raging, unreasoning fury—that wished that Rachel and Breton and the Duchess, all of them together might suffer the torments of hell—And then swiftly following it came his love of Rachel, nearer now to burning heights, so that he swore that, whatever she had done, he did not care, he would forgive her everything, but all that mattered was that she should be spared, that her honour should be vindicated. Then, more quietly, he reflected that he was uncertain of everything as yet, he had only that malicious old woman's word, and until he had something more solid than that he must trust Rachel.
Oh! if only she would, of her own accord, speak! If she would only sit there by his sofa and, with her hand in his, tell him, quite simply, in what exactly her friendship with Breton consisted—Ah! then how he would forgive her! How together they would be revenged upon the Duchess!
If she did not speak he did not know what he would do. That old woman's mouth must be stopped; he must find out exactly how far the danger had spread—he must deal with Breton—Now indeed he cursed so that he should be tied to this sofa; there had swept down upon him the hardest trial of his life.
Rachel returned from her party—she sat by his sofa and he lay there looking at her.
Had it been a nice party? Not very—One of those war parties that everyone had now. That silly Lady Meikleham recited "The Absent-minded Beggar," and they had that French tenor from Covent Garden to sing patriotic songs, and of course they got money out of everybody.
There'd been nothing for supper—She'd seen nobody amusing—
She broke out: "Roddy dear, what have you been doing with yourself? You look as white and tired as anything—Has that pain in your back——?"
"No, dear,—thank you."
"IwishI hadn't gone, and the dinner at Lady Massiter's was so stupid—Monty Carfax whom I loathe and Lord Massiter so dull and stupid—says he's coming to see you to-morrow afternoon."
"Well, he can, I'm at anybody's mercy!"
She got up, stood over him for a moment looking so tall and slender, so dark with diamonds in her black hair, so lovely to-night!
She looked down upon him, then suddenly bent and kissed him.
"Roddy——"
"What is it, dear?" He caught her hand so fiercely that she cried:
"Roddy dear, I——"
"Yes."
"Oh, nothing, only you look so tired, I wishIcould take some of the pain——"
"There isn't any, dear, I'm wonderfully lucky."
Peters came in to take him to bed.
She kissed him again and left him.
"Looking done up to-night, sir," said Peters.
"I am," said Roddy.
"If I'd had the power not to be born, I would certainly not have accepted existence upon conditions that are such a mockery. But I still have the power to die, though the days I give back are numbered. It's no great power, it's no great mutiny."—Dostoevsky.
"If I'd had the power not to be born, I would certainly not have accepted existence upon conditions that are such a mockery. But I still have the power to die, though the days I give back are numbered. It's no great power, it's no great mutiny."—Dostoevsky.
Christopher's knowledge of Rachel, long and intimate though it had been, had never made him sure of her. In his relations with his fellow-men he proceeded on the broad lines that best suited, he felt, any investigation of his own character. Broad lines, however, did not catch that subtle spirit that was Rachel; he had been baffled again and again by some fierceness or sudden wildness in her, and had often been held from approaching her lest by something too impetuous or ill-considered he should drive her from him altogether. He had been aware that, since her marriage, she had been gradually slipping from him, and this had made him, during the last year, the more careful how he approached her. He loved her the more in that something that was part of her was strange and mysterious to him; the idealist and the poet concealed in him behind his frank worldliness cherished her aloofness. She was precious to him because nothing else in this life had quite her unexpected beauty.
Since that afternoon when the Duchess had paid her visit to Roddy he wished many times that he were a cleverer man. He felt that something must instantly be done, but he felt, too, that one false step on his part would plunge them all into the most tragical catastrophe.
He was baffled by his own ignorance as to the real truth; neither Breton nor Rachel had taken him into their confidence. He could not say how any of them could be expected to act, and yet he knew that something must be done at once. He saw Rachel through it all, like a strange dark flower, mysterious, shining, with her colour, beyond his grasp, but so beautiful, so poignant! She had never appealed to him as now, in the heart of some danger that he could not define she eluded him and yet demanded his help.
After much puzzled thinking he decided that it must be Breton whom he had best approach, and so he wrote and asked him to come and dine quietly with him in Harley Street on the evening of March 13th. Breton accepted if he might be released at nine-thirty, as he had then another appointment.
"Can't stand a whole evening," thought Christopher, "thinks I want to bully him. Well, perhaps I do!"
He was detained to a late hour on that afternoon by a patient in Halkin Street and it was after seven when he started home, driving through Piccadilly and Bond Street.
It had been an afternoon of intense closeness, and now as evening came down upon the town the thick curtain of grey that had been hanging all day overhead seemed, with a clanking and jolting, one might imagine, so heavy and brazen was its aspect, to fall lower above the dim grey streets. The lights were out, swinging pale and distended down the length of Piccadilly, and already the carriages were pressing in a long row towards the restaurants; boys were crying the latest editions with the war news and upon all those ears their cries now fell drearily, monotonously, for so long had the town been filled with details of escape, folly, death, ignominy, that it was tired and weary of any voice or cry that concerned itself with War....
Christopher, waiting impatiently for his carriage to move on, thought of Brun; this oppressive, stifling evening seemed to call, in some manner too subtle for Christopher's powers of expression, the houses, the streets, the lamps, the very railings into some life of their own. Under the iron sky that surely with every minute dropped lower upon the oppressed town the clubs opposite the Green Park raised their hooded eyes and stirred ever so little above the people, and the twisted chimneys watched and whispered, as the trail of carriages wound, drearily, into the misty distance. Christopher was not an imaginative man, but he thought that he had never known London so evilly perceptive.
It grew hotter and hotter, but with a heat that made the body perspire and yet left it cold. A dim yellow colour, that seemed to herald a fog that had not made up its mind whether it would appear or no, hung at street corners. Figures seemed furtive in the half-light and, instinctively, voices were lowered as though some sudden sound would explode the air like a match in a gas-filled room. A bell began to ring and startled everyone....
"There'll be an awful thunderstorm soon," thought Christopher. "I've never known things so heavy. Everyone's nerves will be on the stretch to-night. Why, one might fancy anything." His own brain would not work. He had just left a case that had needed all his sharpest attention, but he had found that it was only with the utmost difficulty that he could keep his mind alert, and now when he wanted to think about Breton he was continually arrested by some sense of apprehension, so that he had to stop himself from crying out to his driver, "Look out! Take care! There's someone there."
When he got to his house he found that his forehead was covered with perspiration and that he could scarcely breathe. Meanwhile he had decided nothing as to the course he would pursue with Breton. When he had dressed and come down he found that Breton was waiting for him.
"How ill he looks!" was Christopher's first thought. Perhaps Breton also was oppressed by the weather and indeed in the house, although the windows were open, it was stifling enough.
"No, the man's in pieces." Christopher's look was sharp. He had never seen Breton, who was naturally neat and a little vain about his appearance, so dishevelled. His beard was untrimmed, his eyes bloodshot, his hair unbrushed, his face white and drawn and his mouth seemed, in that light, to be trembling.
"Good heavens, man," said Christopher, "whathaveyou been doing to yourself?"
Breton smiled feebly—"Oh, nothing. Don't badger me—I can't stand it."
"Badger you? Who's going to badger you? only——" Christopher broke off, looked at him a moment, then put his hand on the other's shoulder.
"Look here, old man, why have you left me alone all these weeks?"
"Haven't felt like seeing anybody."
"Well, you might have felt like seeing me. I've missed you. I haven't got so many friends that I can spare, so easily, my best one."
"Oh, rot, Chris," Breton said almost angrily. "You know it's only the kind of interest you've got in all lame dogs that ties you to me at all."
"You're an ungrateful sort of fellow, Frank. But no matter—I'm fond of you in spite of your ingratitude. Come in to dinner and see whether you can eat anything on this stifling night." Itwasstifling, but oppressive with something more than the mere physical discomfort of it. It was a night that worked havoc with the nerves, so that Christopher, who had naturally a vast deal of common sense, found himself glancing round his shoulder, irritated at the least noise that his servant made, expecting always to hear a knock on the door.
Breton contributed very little to the conversation during dinner. He ate almost nothing, drank only water, looked about him restlessly, muttered something about its being strangely close for March, crumbled up his bread into little heaps.
When they were back in Christopher's smoking-room Breton collapsed into a deep chair, lay there, staring desperately about him, then, with a jerk, pulled himself up and began to stride the room, swinging his arm, then pulling at his beard, crying out at last, "My God! it's stifling. Christopher—I must go out. I can't stand this. It's beyond my bearing."
Christopher made him sit down again and then, feeling that he could not more surely hold the man than by plunging at once into what was, in all probability, the heart of his trouble, said:
"Look here, Frank, I said I wouldn't badger you and I won't, but there's something about which I must speak to you. You must tell me the truth. There's more involved than just ourselves."
Breton seemed instantly aware of Christopher's meaning. He sat up. "I knew," he said, "that I was in for a lecture. Well, it can't make any difference."
"No," Christopher answered brusquely. "Whether it makes any difference to you or no you'vegotto listen, Frank. It's simply this. I happened to hear, a good time ago, that you had met Rachel. I knew that she had been to your rooms. I knew that you had corresponded. I should dismiss that man-servant of yours, Frank."
Breton muttered something.
"You might have told me yourself, Frank. You might, both of you, have told me. But never mind—it's all too late for that now. The point is that it was your grandmother that told me."
"My God!" Breton cried. "She knows? She knew.... But there was nothingtoknow. There was nothing anyone mightn't have known. If anyone dares to breathe a syllable against one of the purest, noblest ..."
"Yes, yes. I know all that," Christopher answered. "But the thing is simply this. I don't know—she doesn't know exactly what the truth is between you and Rachel. All that she does know is that Rachel went to see you and wrote to you. Now Roddy Seddon isn't—or wasn't aware that his wife had ever met you. He holds the more or less traditional family point of view about you. I believe that, two or three days ago, the Duchess told him about Rachel's visits. I am not sure of this. I hope that by now Rachel herself has told her husband. But of that also I'm not sure. All I know is that it's our duty—your duty and my duty to save Rachel all the unhappiness we can, and still more to save Roddy. Remember the position he's in."
Breton sprang to his feet. "Look here, Chris, I should have told you of all this long ago. I didn't know that you had heard. I wish to God I had spoken to you. But as Heaven is my witness, Rachel is a saint. I'm a miserable cur—a misery to myself and a misery to everyone else. But she——"
"You've been fools, the couple of you," he answered sternly. "It's no use cursing now. I won't go and urge Rachel to tell Roddy—she must do that of her own free will—All our hands are tied. It depends upon the steps that Roddy takes, and after all the old lady may never have told him. But I've warned you, Frank. It's up to you to do the right thing."
"What do you want me to do?" asked Breton.
"I don't know what you can do. You must see for yourself—only, Frank," here Christopher's voice became softer, "by all our old friendship and by any affection that you may have left for me, I do conjure you to play fair by Rachel and her husband. Rachel is very, very young. Roddy is helpless——"
"That's enough," Breton cried. "My God, Christopher, of you could realize the weeks I've been having you wouldn't think, perhaps, so badly of me. It's been more, I swear, than any mortal flesh can endure. I'm driven, driven—I'm at the end.... But she's safe from me, safe now and safe forever. And that now that old woman should step in—now."
Christopher came and again put his arm on Breton's shoulder and held him up, it might seem, with more than physical strength.
His affection for Breton was an affection sprung from his very knowledge of the man's weaknesses. He had in him that British quality of ruthless condemnation for the sinner whom he did not know and sentimental weakness for the sinner whom he did. He had seen Francis Breton through a thousand scrapes, he would see him, doubtless, through a thousand more.
"We'll say no more now, old boy—You look done up—I won't worry you, but if you want me here I am and I promise not to lecture. Only you owe me some confidence, you do indeed."
Breton got up and stood there, with his hand pressed to his forehead. "What you've told me," he said. "I must do something ... something ... it's all been my fault. If they should touch her——"
Then, turning to Christopher, he said: "Youarethe only friend I've got, and I know it. I do value it—only lately I've been going to bits again. If it weren't for you and little Miss Rand I swear I'd have gone altogether. Youarea brick, Christopher. Another day I'll come to you and tell you everything. To-night I'm simply past talking."
A servant came in and gave Christopher a note. It was from Lord John saying that he was anxious about his mother and asking the doctor whether he could possibly come round and see her.
Breton then said that he must go. He went, promising that he would soon come again. When he had left the house Christopher stood, perplexed, wondering whether he should have left him alone. Then he put on his hat and coat and set off for 104 Portland Place.
Breton had, indeed, no destination. He had been frightened of a whole evening with Christopher.
He was frightened of everything, of everybody—above all, of himself. He found himself, with a sense of surprise, as though he were the helpless actor in some bad dream, standing in Oxford Circus. Surely itwasa dream.
The sky, grey and lowering, was yet tinged with a smoky red. He had an overpowering sense of the minuteness of humanity, so that the crowds crossing and recrossing the Circus seemed like tiny animals crawling over the surface of a pond from which the water had been drained.
His old fancy of the waterways came back to him and now he thought that Oxford Circus, often a maelstrom of tossing, whirling humanity, had run dry and lay stagnant, filled with dying life, beneath the red-tinged sky.
Ever lower and lower that sky seemed to fall. Theatres, restaurants on that evening were almost deserted. People stood about in groups, saying that soon the thunder would be upon them, wondering at this weather in March, watching, with curious eyes, the sky.
Breton was near madness that evening. He was near madness to this extent, that he was not certain of reality. Were those lamp-posts real? What was the meaning of those strange high buildings in whose heart there burnt so sinister a light? He watched them expecting that at any moment these would burst into flame and with a screaming rattling flare go tossing to the sky.
Near him a girl said, "All right—of course it ain't of no moment what I might happen to pre-fere—Oh, no!"
A mild young man answered her: "Well, if yer want ter go to the Oxford why not say so?That'swhat I say. Why not say so 'stead of 'angin' about——"
"Oh! 'angin' about! Say that again and off I go. 'Angin' about! I'd like to know——"
"I didn't say anythink about your 'angin' about. Yer catch a feller up so quickly, Bertha. What I mean to say——"
"Oh! yer and yer meanin's. Don't know what yerdomean, if the truth were known. 'Ere's a pleasant way of spendin' an evenin'——"
Breton regarded them with curiosity. Were they real? Did they feel the strange oppression of this lowering sky as strongly as he did? Were they uncertain as to whether these buildings were alive or no? Perhaps they could tell him whether those omnibuses that came lumbering so heavily up Regent Street were safe and secure.
Oddly enough, although he tried, he could not remember exactly what it was that Christopher had told him. Something, of course, to do with his grandmother. Everything was to do with her.... She was the one who was driving him to destruction. Always she was stepping forward, sending him down when he was climbing up, at last, to safety, always it was she who stood behind him, on the watch lest some happiness or success should come his way.
He felt as though he would like to go and force his way into 104 Portland Place and face the woman and tell her what she had done to him. Yes, that would be a fine thing—to see all those Beaminster relations gathering round, protesting, frightened.
And then it occurred to him that he really did not know the way to Portland Place. Things were so strange to-night. He knew that it was close at hand, but he was afraid that he would never find it. He was really afraid that he would never find it.
Some man jostled into him, apologized and moved away. The contact cleared his brain, asserted the reality of the buildings, the crowds, the cabs and carriages. He pulled himself together and began slowly to walk down Oxford Street in the direction of Tottenham Court Road.
He remembered very clearly and distinctly what it was that Christopher had told him. Rachel was in danger because her husband had heard of her friendship with him, Breton....
It would not have been Francis Breton if he had not taken this piece of news and looked at it in its most sensational colours. He had, through all these last weeks, been striving to accustom himself to the agony of enduring life without her. He dimly perceived that it was the emptiness of life rather than any actual loss of any particular person that was so terrible to him. He had still, very fine and beautiful, his memory of the day when she had come to him in his rooms, and had that day been followed by a secret relationship between them and many hours spent together, then his passion would have been very genuine and moving.
But, after all, she had flashed into his life, and then flashed out of it again, and, so swiftly with him did moods follow one upon another, and ideals and ambitions and despairs and glories jostle together in his brain, that she might have remained, very happily raised to a fine altar in his temple, very distantly recognized as a beautiful episode now closed and contemplated only from a worshipping distance, had any other figure or incident definitely occupied his attention.
But no figure, no incident had arrived. He had had, during all these weeks, no drama into which he might fling his fine feelings, his great ambitions, his glorious sacrifices. Of genuine sincerity were these moods of his—he had never stood sufficiently beyond himself to arrive at any definite insincerity about any of his movements or impulses—but of all things in the world he could not endure that his life should be empty, and empty now it had been for, as it seemed to his swift impatience, a long, long time.