"Il est doux de sommeiller a l'ombre chaude, sur le tiède oreiller d'un mal épicurisme et d'une intelligence ironique, très simple, assez curieuse, et prodigieusement indifferente, au fond."Romain Rolland.
"Il est doux de sommeiller a l'ombre chaude, sur le tiède oreiller d'un mal épicurisme et d'une intelligence ironique, très simple, assez curieuse, et prodigieusement indifferente, au fond."
Romain Rolland.
On the afternoon that followed the ball Lady Adela took Rachel to tea with Lord Richard.
It was a superb May afternoon; white clouds, bolster-shaped, were piled in the heavens and made, so rounded were they, the blue sky seem an infinite distance away. It was a day of sparkling dazzling gaiety—the air seemed electric with the happiness of the world, and, as they drove down to Grosvenor Street, Rachel felt that the little breeze that just touched the hats and coats of the people on the omnibuses was created simply by the joy of the beautiful weather.
As they moved slowly down Bond Street Rachel looked at the world and thought of last night. She looked at the men with their shining hats and shining boots; at the messenger boys and the young women with parcels and the young women without; at the old men who thought themselves young and the young men who thought themselves old; at the fish shops and the picture galleries, at the jewellers' and the book shops, at the place where they taught you Swedish exercises and the place where there was a palmist with a Japanese name, and it was all splendid and magnificent and simply carried on the glories of the night before. Before the turning into Grosvenor Street there was a great crush of carriages and a long pause. In the carriage next to Rachel there was a very stout, very richly coloured lady with a strong scent and a pug dog. A little farther away there were two young gentlemen in a smart little carriage, and their hats were so large and their expression so haughty and the top of their canes so golden that it seemed absurd that they should have to wait for anybody, and near them was a small boy on a little butcher's cart and near him an omnibus with a red-faced driver and any number of interested ladies, and all these incongruities seemed only to add to the haphazard happiness of this shining afternoon.
Rachel had many things to consider as she sat there. Aunt Adela did not interfere with her thoughts, because she never talked when she was in a carriage, but always sat up and looked wearily at the people about her. She had never very much to say, but the open air made her feel stupid.
Rachel was aware that last night had altered her point of view for all time. She was aware, as she sat there in sunshine, of a new world. By one glance at Aunt Adela was this new world made apparent. Aunt Adela had hitherto been important—Aunt Adela was now unimportant.
Had this afternoon been wet and gloomy, then Rachel might have doubted that passionate discovery of the world that she now felt was hers, but here with this blazing sun and sky the note was sustained. Surely never again would Rachel be afraid of her grandmother, surely never again would she be afraid of anyone. Holding herself very proudly in a dress that was a soft primrose colour and in a hat that was dark and shady, Rachel looked round about her on the world.
"There's Lady Massiter!" Lady Adela smiled lightly and bowed a very little—"Monty Carfax is with her."
Rachel thought of Lord Massiter, and wondered again at last night's dinner—"How could I have been like that? HowcouldI?"
There passed them a very handsome carriage with a little dark handsome lady who looked happily round about her, all alone in her magnificence. Rachel did not know whether her aunt had seen or no: here was the Beaminster arch-enemy, Mrs. Bronson, a young American widow, incredibly rich, incredibly fascinating, incredibly bold. Mrs. Bronson had been in London only a year, had snapped her jewelled fingers at the Beaminsters and everything that they stood for, had laughed at snubs and threats, was intending, so it was said, to have London at her feet in a season or two.
Rachel considered her. She was like some jewelled bird of paradise. She was—one must admit it—better suited to this glorious day than was Aunt Adela.
Why need Aunt Adela refuse to be glad because the sun was shining? Why could not Aunt Adela have said something pleasant about last night's dance? Why must this absurd outward dignity be so carefully maintained? Why when one was looking attractive in a primrose dress could one's aunt not say so?
That reminded her of Roddy Seddon.
She liked him. He might be a real friend like Dr. Christopher. The thought of him made her, as she sat there in the sun, feel doubly certain that the world was a comfortable, reassuring place and that that vision of cold spaces and dark forests that had been so often with her was now to be banished like an evil dream never to return.
At the end of Grosvenor Street the trees were so green that they might have been painted, and here they were at Uncle Richard's house.
But, with the closing of Uncle Richard's doors the sun was taken from the world. Uncle Richard's house was always soft and dim, like one of those little jewel cases, all wadding and dark wood. Uncle Richard's carpets were so thick and soft that everyone seemed to walk on tip-toe, and the wonderful old prints in the hall and the beautiful dark carving on the staircase and the sudden swiftness of the doors as they closed behind you only helped to increase the impression that everything here, yourself included, was in for a beautiful exhibition, and that light might hurt the exhibits.
Uncle Richard's study, where they always had tea, was lined from roof to ceiling with book-cases, and behind the shining glass there gleamed the backs of the haughtiest and proudest books in the world. For, were they old and dingy, then they were first editions of transcendent value, and were they new and shining, then were they "Editions de luxe," or some of Uncle Richard's favourites bound in the most intricate and precious of bindings.
Some china on the mantelpiece was so valuable that housemaids must surely have a sleepless time because of it, and all the furniture was so conscious of its rich and ancient glories that to sit down on the chairs or to lean on the tables was to offer them terrible insults.
Two Conders and a Corot shone from the grey walls.
In the midst of this was Uncle Richard, elaborately, ironically indifferent to all emotions. "I have governed the country, yes—but really, my friends, scarcely a job for a fine spirit nowadays. I have collected these few things—yes, but after all what does it come to? Don't many pawn-brokers do the same?"
Rachel, as she stood in the room, felt that her newly found independence was slipping away from her. With the departure of the sun had fled also that consciousness of last night's splendours. About her again was creeping that atmosphere that was always with her in this room, something that made her feel that she was a wretched, ignorant Beaminster, and that even if she did learn the value of all these precious things, why then that knowledge was of little enough use to her.
Uncle Richard with his high white forehead, his long dark trousers, his grey spats and his great collar that bent back, in humble deference, before the nobility of his neck and chin, Uncle Richard required a great deal of courage.
"Well, dear, I hope you enjoyed your dance."
"Yes, Uncle Richard, thank you."
"I left early, but everything seemed to be going very well."
"Yes, I think it was all right."
How different this from the fashion in which she had intended to fling her enthusiasm upon him. What, she wondered, would have been the effect had she done so? How would he have taken it? Could she have pierced that melancholy ironical armour that always kept the real man from her?
Meanwhile she was now back again in the old, old world; tea was brought, the footman and butler moved softly about the room. Aunt Adela said a little, Uncle Richard said a little ... the lid was down upon the world.
Meanwhile, impossible to imagine that only a quarter of an hour ago there had been that gay confusion in Bond Street, impossible to believe Mrs. Bronson in her carriage anything but common and vulgar, impossible to prefer that dazzling sun to this cloistered quiet.
A wonderful lacquered clock ticked the minutes away. "I'm in a cage—I'm in a cage—and I want to get out," someone in Rachel Beaminster was crying, and someone else replied, "Thank God that you are allowed to be in such a cage at all. There's no other cage so splendid."
Her primrose gown was forgotten; when Uncle Richard asked her questions she answered "Yes," or "No." Her old terrors had returned.
Upon the three of them, sitting thus, Roddy Seddon was announced. Roddy had assaulted and conquered Lord Richard in as masterly a fashion as he had subdued the Duchess and Lady Adela. He had done it simply by presenting so boisterous and honest an allegiance to the Beaminster standard. Lord Richard's irony had been useless against Roddy's ingenuous appeal. Moreover, there was the Duchess's advocacy—young Seddon was the hope of the party.
Roddy brought to view no evidence of last night's energies; he was as fresh, as highly coloured, as browned and bronzed and clear as any pastoral shepherd, his skin was so finely coloured that clothes always seemed, with him, a pity. Lord Richard's melancholy cynicism had poor chance against such vigour.
His eyes, as they fastened upon Rachel, brightened. She gave that dim room such fresh pleasure, sitting there in her primrose frock with her serious eyes and long hands. No, she was not beautiful; he knew that his last night's impression had been the true one; but she was unusual, she would make, he was sure, a most unusual companion. "You wouldn't think it," May Eversley had said, "but there's any amount of fun in Rachel—you'll find it when you know her."
He was not sure but that he saw it now, lurking in her eyes, her mouth, as she sat there, so gravely, opposite to her uncle and aunt.
"How d'ye do, Lady Adela? How d'ye do, Miss Beaminster? How are you, sir? Thanks—I will have some tea. Pretty gorgeous day, ain't it? Rippin' dance of yours last night, Lady Adela."
Meanwhile, Rachel knew that she had nothing to say to him. Out there in the sunlight she might, perhaps, have maintained that relationship that had been begun between them the night before, but in here, with Aunt Adela and Uncle Richard so consciously an audience, with the air so dim and the walls so grey, Roddy Seddon seemed the most strident of strangers.
She sat, silently, whilst he talked to Aunt Adela. "I've never had so toppin' a dance as last night—'pon my soul, no. Young Milhaven, whom I tumbled on at Brook's at luncheon, said the same. Band first-rate, and floor spiffin'."
"I'm glad you liked it, Roddy," said Lady Adela, with a dry little smile. "I must confess to being glad that it's over."
Roddy glanced a little shyly at Rachel. "I suppose you're goin' hard at it now, Miss Beaminster?"
She looked across the tea-table at him. "There's Lady Grode's and Lady Massiter's, and Lady Carloes is giving one for her niece——"
"The Massiter thing ought to be a good one. Always do it well," said Roddy. "'Pon my word, on a day like this makes one hot to think of dancing."
He was perplexed. He had instantly perceived that he had here a Rachel Beaminster very different from last night's heroine. She was now beyond all contemplated intimacy. He had heard others speak of that aloofness that came like a cloud about her. He now saw it for himself.
After a time he came across to her whilst Lady Adela and her brother talked as though the world consisted of one Beaminster railed round by high palings over which a host of foolish people were trying to climb.
He stood beside her smiling in that slightly embarrassed manner of his, a manner that caused those who did not know him to say that they liked Roddy Seddon because he was so modest.
"Such a day it seems a shame to be in town."
"Yes—isn't it lovely?"
"The opera's pretty hot in the evenin' just now. Have you been yet?"
"I've been in Munich often. I've never been here."
"My word! Haven't you really? Wish I could say the same. I'm always bein' dragged——"
"Why do you go if you don't care about it?"
"Can't think—always askin' myself. Why do half the Johnnies go? And yet in a way I like some sorts o' music."
"Whatkind of music?"
"Sittin' in the dark, in a room, with someone just strokin' the piano up and down—just strokin' it—not hammerin' it. I don't care what the old tune is——"
Rachel laughed a little, but said nothing. Of course, she thought him the most thundering kind of fool, and this made him eager to display to her his wisdom and common sense.
But he could say nothing. There followed the most awkward silence. She did not try to help him, but sat there quietly looking in front of her.
Suddenly she said: "Uncle Richard, I want to see your fans again. I haven't seen them for a long time. I know you've added some lately. Sir Roderick, have you ever seen my uncle's fans?"
"No," he said. "I'd be delighted——"
Lord Richard's eyes lifted. The lines of his mouth grew softer.
Rachel watched him. "Now he'll pretend," she said, "that he doesn't care. He'll pretend that they're nothing to him at all."
He went, in his solemn guarded manner, to a place in the room where a large cabinet was let into the wall. He drew this cabinet forward, and then, out of it, moving his hands almost pontifically, he pulled trays, and on these trays lay the fans.
The others had gathered around him. There were nearly five hundred fans—fans Dutch and Italian and French and Chinese and Japanese; fans of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, of the eighteenth and of the Empire—modern Japanese heavy with iron spokes, others light as gossamer, with spokes of ivory or tortoise shell. There were French fans, painted only on one side, with pictures of fantastic shepherds and shepherdesses; there were Chinese fans with bridges and mandarins and towers; Empire fans perforated with tinsel and such lovely shades of colour that they seemed to change as one gazed.
There they all lay in that rich solemn room, quietly, proudly conscious of their beauty, needing no word of praise, catching all the colour and the daintiness and fragrance that had ever been in the world.
Rachel drank in their splendour and then looked about her.
Uncle Richard's eyes were flaming and his hands trembling against the case.
Then she looked at Roddy Seddon. His head was flung back; with eyes and mouth, with every vein, and fibre of his body he was drinking in their glory.
His eyes were suddenly caught away. He was staring at her before she looked away—Her eyes said to him, "Why! Do you care likethat? Do those things meanthatto you?"
She smiled across at him. They were in communion again as they had been last night.
He was surprised that he should be so glad.
"Our interest's on the dangerous edge of thingsThe honest thief, the tender murderer,The superstitious atheist, demirep,That loves and saves her soul in new French books—We watch while these in equilibrium keepThe giddy line midway: one step aside,They're classed and done with. I, then, keep the line—"Bishop Blougram'sApology.
"Our interest's on the dangerous edge of thingsThe honest thief, the tender murderer,The superstitious atheist, demirep,That loves and saves her soul in new French books—We watch while these in equilibrium keepThe giddy line midway: one step aside,They're classed and done with. I, then, keep the line—"
Bishop Blougram'sApology.
The Duchess could but dimly guess at the splendour of that fine May afternoon.
It had been her complaint lately that she was always cold and now the blinds and curtains were closely drawn and a huge fire was blazing. Her chair was close to the flame: she sat there looking, in the fierce light, small and shrivelled; she was reading intently and made no movement except now and again when she turned a page. Dorchester was the only other person there and she sat a little in the shadow, busily sewing.
From where she sat she could see her mistress's face, and behind her carved chair there were the blue china dragons and the deep heavy red curtains and a black oak table covered with little golden trays and glass jars and silver boxes.
Neither heat nor cold nor youth nor age had any effect upon Dorchester. No one knew how old she was, nor how long she had been with her mistress, nor her opinions or sentiments concerning anything in the world.
She was tall and gaunt and snapped her words as she might snap a piece of thread.
From Mrs. Newton and Norris downwards the servants were afraid of her. She made a confidant of no one, was supposed to have no emotions of any kind, absurd and fantastic stories were told of her; she was certainly not popular in the servants' hall and yet at a word from her anything that she requested was done.
With Miss Rand only was it understood that she had a certain friendly relationship; it was said that she liked Miss Rand.
Dorchester had witnessed the whole of the Duchess's career.
As she sat now in the shadow every now and again she looked up and glanced at that sharp white face and those thin hands. What a little body it was to have done so much, to have battled its way through such a career, to have fought and to have won so many conflicts! It seemed to Dorchester only yesterday that splendid time, when the Duchess had been queen of London. Dorchester also had been young then and had had an energy as enduring, a will as finely tempered as had her mistress.
What a character it had been then with its furies and its disciplines, its indulgences and its amazing restrictions, its sympathies and cold clodded cruelties, its tremendous sense of the dramatic moment so that again and again a position that had been nearly surrendered was held and saved. She had never been beautiful, always little and sharp and sometimes even wizened. But she gained her effects one way or another and beat beautiful and wise and wonderful women off the field.
And then sweeping down upon her had come disease. At first it had been fought and magnificently fought. But it was the horror of its unexpected ravages that had been so difficult to combat. She had never known when the pain would be upon her—it might seize her at any public moment and her retreat be compelled before the whole world. There had been doctors and doctors and doctors, and then operation after operation, but no one had done any good until Dr. Christopher had come to her, and now, for years, he had been keeping her alive.
Out of that very necessity of disease, however, had she dragged her drama. She had retired from the world, not as an old woman beaten by pain, but as a priestess might withdraw within her sanctuary or some great queen demand her privacy.
And it had its effect. Very, very carefully were chosen to see her only those who might convey to the world the right impression. The world was given to understand that the Duchess was now more wonderful than she had ever been, and it was so long since the world at large had seen her that every sort of story was abroad.
Certain old ladies like Lady Carloes who played bridge with her gained most of their public importance from their intimacy with her. It was rumoured that at any moment she might return and take her place again in the world, old though she was.
All this was known to Dorchester and she smiled grimly as she thought of it. The real Duchess! Perhaps she and Dr. Christopher alone in all the world knew the intricacies, the inconsistencies of that amazing figure. From the moment that illness had come every peculiarity had grown. Her self-indulgences, her temper, her pride, her egotism—now knew, in private, no restraint. And yet when her friends were there or anyone at all from the outside world she displayed the old dignity, the old grand air, the old imperious quiet that belonged to no one else alive.
But what, during these last years, Lady Adela had suffered! Dorchester herself had had many moments when it had seemed that she had more to control than her strength could maintain, but long custom, an entire absence of the nervous system, and a comforting sense that she was, after all, paid well for her trouble, sustained her endurance.
But Lady Adela had nothing.
The Duchess had always hated her children, but had used them, magnificently, for her purposes. They had all been fools, but they were just the kind of fools that the Beaminster tradition demanded.
Lady Adela had from the first been more of a fool than the others. She had never had the gift of words and before her mother was, as a rule, speechless, and it had been only by her changing colour that an onlooker could have told that her mother's furies moved her.
Often Dorchester had attempted interference, but had found at last that it was better to allow the fury to spend its force. Then also Dorchester had noticed a curious thing. The Duke, Lord Richard, Lord John, Lady Adela were proud of these prides and tempers. They were proud of everything that their mother did; they might suffer, their backs might wince under the blows, but it was part of the tradition that their mother should thus behave.
Dorchester fancied that sometimes there was flashed upon them a sudden suspicion that their mother was in these days only an old, ailing, broken woman—no great figure now, no magnificent tyrant, no mysterious queen of society. And then Dorchester fancied that she had noticed that when such a suspicion had come upon them they had put it hastily aside and locked it up and abused themselves for such baseness.
Curious people, these Beaminsters!
Well, it was no business of hers. And, perhaps, after all she had herself some touch of that feeling, some fierce impatient pride in those very tempests and rebellion. After all, was there anyone in the world like this mistress of hers? Was there another woman who would bear so bravely the pain that she bore? And was not that fierce clutch on life, that energy with which she tried still to play her part in the great game, grand in its own fashion?
Would not Dorchester also fight when her time came?
She looked across the firelight at her mistress. When would arrive the inevitable moment of surrender? How imminent that moment when in the eyes of all those about her the old woman would see that all that was now hers was a quiet abandonment to death!
Well, there would be some fine, savage struggling when that crisis struck into their midst. Dorchester smiled grimly, and then, in spite of herself, sighed a little.
They were all growing old together.
At five o'clock came Dr. Christopher, and Dorchester moved into the other room and left the two together. With his large limbs and cheerful smile he made the Duchess seem slighter and more fragile than ever, and she herself felt always with his coming some addition of warmth and strength; each visit, so she might have expressed it, gave her life for at least another tiny span.
That he, knowing so much of the follies and catastrophes of life, should yet be an optimist, would have proved him in her opinion a fool had she not known, by constant proof, that he was anything but that. "Well, one day he will discover his mistake," she would say, and yet, perversely, would cling to him for the sake of this very illusion. He helped her courage, he helped her battle with her pain, he gave her, sometimes, some shadowy sense of shame for her passions and rebellions, but, more than all this, he yielded her a reassurance that life, precious, adorable, wonderful life, was yet for a little time to be hers.
He knew well enough the influence that he possessed, and when, as on this afternoon, he felt it his duty to avail himself of it, he could not pretend that he faced his task with any exultation.
That he should rouse her fury, as he had one or twice already roused it, meant humiliation for him as well as for herself, and afterwards embarrassment for them both as they saw those scenes in retrospect.
She glanced up at him carefully as he came in and knew him well enough to realize that there was something that he must say to her. There had been other such occasions, she remembered them all. Sometimes she herself had been the subject of them, something that was injuring her health, some indulgence that he could not allow her. Sometimes the battle had been about others; she had fought him and on occasions it had seemed that their relationship was broken once and for all, that nothing could cover the words that had been spoken—but always through everything she had admired his courage.
The way had always been to stand up to her.
For a little time they talked about her health, and then there fell a pause. She, leaning back in her chair with her thin, sharp hands on her lap, watched him grimly as he sat on the other side of the fireplace, leaning forward a little, looking into the fire.
"Well," she said at last. "What is it?" Her voice was deep, but every word was clear-cut, resonant.
"Thereissomething—two things," he answered her slowly. "You can dismiss me for an interfering old fool, you know. You often have been tempted to do it before, I dare say."
"I have," she said. "Go on."
But as she spoke she drew her hands a little more closely together. She was not quite so ready for these battles as she had once been. She was afraid a little now. A new sensation for her; she hated that restricting awkwardness that would remain between them for days afterwards.
She looked at his red, cheerful face and wondered impatiently why he must always be meddling in other people's affairs. She hated Quixotes.
"Your Grace," he began again, "has only got to stop me and I'll say no more."
"Oh yes, you will," she said impatiently. "I know you. Say what you please."
"I want to speak about Francis Breton——" He paused, but she said nothing, only for an instant her whole face flashed into stone. The firelight seemed for an instant to hold it there, then, as the flame fell, she was once again indifferent.
Christopher had grasped his courage now. He went on gravely:
"I must speak about him. I know how unpleasant the whole subject is to you. We've had our discussions before and I've fought his battles with all the world more times than I can count. You must remember that I've known Frank all his life—I knew his unhappy father. I've known them both long enough to realize that the boy's been heavily handicapped from the beginning——"
"Must you," she said, looking him now full in the face, "must it be this? Have we not thrashed it out thoroughly enough already? I don't change, you know."
He understood that she was appealing to his regard for their own especial relationship. But there was a note of control in her voice; he knew that now she would listen:
"I've cared for Frank during a number of years. I know he's weak, impulsive, incredibly foolish. He's always been his own worst enemy. I know that the other day he wrote a most foolish letter——"
"It was a letter beyond forgiveness," she said, her voice trembling.
"Yes, I would give anything to have prevented it. I know that when he was in England before I pleaded for him, as I am doing now, and that by a thousand foolhardy actions he negatived anything that I could say for him.
"I'm urging no defence for the things that he did, the shady, disreputable things. But he has come back now, I do verily believe, ready, even eager, to turn over a new leaf. I——"
She interrupted him, smiling.
"Yes. That letter——"
"Oh, I know. But isn't it a very proof of what I say—would anyone but a foolhardy boy have done such a thing? Sheer bravado, hoping behind it all to be taken back to the fold—eager, at any rate, not to show a poor spirit, cowardice."
"Over thirty now—old for a boy——"
"In years, yes. But younger, oh! ages younger than that in spirit, in knowledge of the world, in everything that matters—I know," he went on more slowly, smiling a little, "that you've called me sentimentalist times without number—but really here I'm not urging you to anything from sentimental reasons. I'm not asking you to take him back and kill the fatted calf for him.
"I'm asking nothing absurd—only that you, his relations, all that he has of kith and kin, should not be his enemies, should not drive him to desperation—and worse."
"If you imagine," she said steadily, "that his fate is of the smallest concern to me you know me very little. I care nothing of what becomes of him. He and I have been enemies for many years now and a few words from you cannot change that."
"I'm only asking you," he replied, "to give him a chance. See what you can make of him, instead of sending him into the other camp—use him even if you cannot care for him. There's fine stuff there in spite of his follies. The day might come, even now, when you will own yourself proud of him——"
But she had caught him up, leaning forward a little, her voice now of a sharper turn. "The other camp? What other camp?"
He caught the note of danger. "I only mean," he said, choosing now his words with the greatest care, "that if you turn Frank definitely, once and for all, from your doors, there may be others ready to receive him——"
"His men and his women," she broke in scornfully; "don't I know them? I've not lived these years without knowing the raffish tenth-rate lot that failures like Frank Breton affect——"
"No—there are others," Christopher said firmly, "Mrs. Bronson, for instance——"
At that name she broke in.
"Yes—exactly. Mrs. Bronson. Oh! I know the kind of crowd that Mrs. Bronson and her like can gather. They are welcome to Francis and he to them."—She paused. He saw that she was controlling herself with a great effort. For a little while there was silence and then she went on, more quietly:
"There, now you have it. That is why there can never be any truce between Francis and myself. It is more than Francis—it is all the things that he stands for, all the things that will soon make England a rubbish heap for every dirty foreigner to dump his filth on to. Hate him? Why, I'll fight him and all that he stands for so long as there's breath in my body——"
"But Frank is with you," Christopher urged eagerly, "if you'll let him be. He's only in need of your hand and back he'll come. He's waiting there now—longing, in spite of his defiance, for a word. Give him it and in the end I know as surely as I sit here that he'll be worth your while——"
"What can he do for me?"
"Ah! He'll show you. After all, he is one of the family; he's miserable there in his exile. He's got your own spirit—he'd die rather than own to defeat—but he'll repay you if you have him."
He saw then, as she turned towards him, that he had done no good.
"Listen," she said, "I've heard you fairly. Let us leave this now, once and for all. I tell you finally no word that God Almighty could speak on this business could change me one atom. Francis Breton and I are foes for all time. I hate not only himself and the miserable mess that he's made of his life, I hate all this new generation that he stands for.
"I hate these new opinions, I hate this indulgence now towards everything that any fool in the country may choose to think or say. In my day we knew how to use the fools. Took advantage of their muddle, ran the world on it. I loathe this tendency to make everyone as intelligent as they can be! Why! in God's name! Give me two intelligent men and a dozen fools and you'll get something done. Take a wastrel like Frank and turn him out. Take muddlers like my family and keep 'em muddled. Richard ran the country well enough for a time or two, and he's been a muddler from his childhood.
"All this cry to educate the people, to be kind to thieves and murderers! to help the fools—my God! If I still had my say—Whilst there's breath in me I'll fight the lot of them."
She leant back in her chair, waited for breath, and then went on more mildly:
"You may like all this noise and clamour, Doctor. You may like your Mrs. Bronson and the rest—common, vulgar, brainless—ruling the world. Every decent law that held society together is being broken and nobody cares.
"Frank Breton may find his place in this new world. He has no place in mine."
Then she added: "So much for that—what's the other thing?"
But he hesitated. Her voice was tired, even tremulous, and he was aware as he looked across at her that her emotions now treated her more severely than they had once done. At the same time he was aware that giving free play to her temper always did her good.
"Well—perhaps—another day——"
"No—now. I may as well take my scoldings together—it saves time!"
He stood up and, leaning on the mantelpiece with one arm, looked down upon her.
"Here," he said, "I'm afraid I may seem doubly impertinent, but it's a matter that is closer to me than anything in the world. You know that I'm a lonely old bachelor and that all those sentiments that you accuse me of must find some vent somewhere. I'm fonder of Rachel, I think, than I am of anyone in the world, and it's only that affection and the feeling that, in some ways, I know her better than any of you do that give me courage to speak."
He could see that now she was reaching the limits of her patience.
"Well—what of Rachel?"
"I understand—I know—that you—that all of you intend that she shall marry young Seddon——"
"Well?"
"I know that it is impertinent of me, but, as I have said, I think I know Rachel differently from anyone else in the world. She is strange—curiously ignorant of life in many ways, curiously wise in others. Her simplicity—the things that she takes on trust—there is no end to it. The things, too, that she cannot forgive—she doesn't know how often, later on, she will have to forgive them—
"But the first man who breaks her trust——"
"Thank you for this interesting light on Rachel's character. What does it mean?"
"It means," he said abruptly, "that she mustn't be hurt. Your Grace may turn me out of the house here and now if you will, but Seddon is the wrong man for her to marry——"
"What are his crimes?" Her voice was rising, and her hand tapped impatiently on her dress.
"I know him only slightly, but common repute—anyone who is in the London world at all will tell you—his reputation is bad. I've nothing against him myself, but his affairs with women have been many. He is no worse, I dare say, than a thousand others. At least he's young—and I myself, God knows, am no moralist. But to marry him to Rachel will be a crime."
He knew as he heard his own voice drop that the scene that he dreaded was upon him. The air was charged with it. In the strangest way everything in the room seemed to be changed because of it. The furniture, the dragons, the tables, the very trifles of gold and silver, seemed to withdraw, leaving the air weighted with passion.
She was trembling from head to foot. Her voice was very low.
"You've gone too far. What business is this of yours? How dare you come to me with these tales? How dare you? You've taken too much on your shoulders. See to your own house, Doctor——"
He stepped back from the fireplace.
"Please—to-morrow——"
"No. Here and now." Her words flashed at him. "You've begun to think yourself indispensable. Because I've shown you that I rely upon you—Because, at times, I've seemed to need your aid—therefore you've interfered in matters that are no concern of yours."
"They are concerns of mine," he answered firmly, "in so far as this affair is connected with my friend."
"Your friend and my granddaughter," she retorted. "But it is not only that. I will return you your own words. You say that your friend is in danger—what of mine? You have dared to attack someone who is more to me than you and all the rest of the world put together. Someone whom I care for as I have never cared for my own sons. It was bold of you, Dr. Christopher, and I shall not forget it."
He took it without flinching. "Very well," he said. "But my word to the end is the same. If you marry Seddon to your granddaughter you do your own sense of justice wrong."
At that the last vestige of restraint left her. Leaning forward in her chair she poured her words upon him in a torrent of anger. Her voice was not raised, but her words cut the air, and now and again she raised her hands in a movement of furious protest.
She spared him nothing, dragged forward old incidents, old passages between them that he had thought long ago forgotten, reminded him of occasions when he had been mistaken or over-certain, accused him of crimes that would have caused him to leave the country had there been a vestige of truth in her words; at last, beaten for breath, gasped out: "Sir Roderick Seddon shall know of what you accuse him. He shall deal with you——"
"I have nothing," Christopher answered gravely, "against Seddon—nothing except that he should not marry Rachel!"
"You have attacked him!" she gasped out. "He—shall—answer."
But her rage had exhausted her. She lay back against her chair, heaving, clutching at the arms for support.
He summoned Dorchester, but when he approached the Duchess feebly motioned him away.
"I've—done—with you—never again," she murmured.
She seemed then most desperately old. Her dress was in disorder, her face wizened with deep lines beneath her eyes and hollows in her cheeks.
Christopher waited while Dorchester helped her mistress into the farther room. For some time there was silence. The room was stifling, and, impatiently, he pulled back the heavy red curtains.
He sat, waiting, eyeing the stupid dragons, every now and again glancing at his watch.
Even now the room seemed to vibrate with her voice, and he could imagine that the French novel, fallen from her lap on to the carpet, winked at him as much as to say:
"Oh, we're up to her tempers, aren't we? We know what they're worth.Wedon't care!"
At last Dorchester appeared.
"Her Grace is in bed and will see you, sir," she said.
Her face was grave and without expression.
After another glance at his watch he passed into the bedroom.
"For every Manne there lurkethhys Wilde Beast."Sardus Aquinas (1512).
"For every Manne there lurkethhys Wilde Beast."Sardus Aquinas (1512).
Brun, meeting Christopher one day, had asked him to tea in his flat, and then, remembering his interest in the Beaminster history, invited him to bring Breton with him.
"I haven't seen him for years. I'd like to see him again."
Christopher had accepted this invitation, and now on a sultry afternoon in June found himself sitting in Brun's rooms. Brun's sitting-room had a glazed and mathematical appearance as though, from cushions to ceiling, it had been purchased at a handsome price from a handsome warehouse. It was not comfortable, it was very hot.... The narrow street squeezed between Portland Square and Great Portland Street lay on its back, the little windows of its mean houses gasping like mouths for air, the hard sun pouring pitilessly down.
No weather nor atmosphere ever affected Brun. His clothes as well as his body had that definite appearance of something outside change or disorder. He might have been, one would allow, something else at earlier stages before this final result had been achieved (as a painting is presented to the observer before its completion), but surely now nothing would ever be done to him again. Surveying him, he appeared less a man with a history, origins, destinies about him than an opinion or a criticism. He was designed exactly by Nature for cynical observation, and was intended to play no other part in life.
"Well, Christopher?" said Brun. "Hot, isn't it?"
"My word—yes. Breton's coming along presently."
"Good. I've asked Arkwright the explorer. Nice fellow." They sat in silence for a little. Then Brun said:
"Interested in writers, Christopher?"
"Not very much. Why?"
"Just been lunching with a young novelist, Westcott. What he said interested me. Of course, he's very young, got no humour, takes himself dreadfully seriously, but he asked my advice—and it is as a sign of the times over here that I mention it."
"Go ahead."
"He tells me that a number of young novelists are going to band themselves into a kind of Artists' Young Liberty movement—artists, poets, novelists, some thirty altogether—going to have a magazine, do all kinds of things. Some of the older men will scoff. At the same time——"
"Well?" said Christopher.
"They'd asked him to join. He wanted my opinion."
"What did you say?"
"He interested me—he was a kind of test case. It would mean that, commercially, from the popular point of view, it would put him back for years. Those young men will all be put down as conceited cranks. They will tilt at the successful popular men like Lawson and the others, will worship at the feet of the unsuccessful 'Great' men like Lester and Cotton. The papers will hate 'em, the public will be indifferent. The result will be that, in the end, they may do a big thing—at any rate they'll have done a fine thing, but they'll all die on the way, I expect."
Brun spoke with enthusiasm unusual for him.
"How was this a test of Westcott?" asked Christopher.
"Well—would he go or no? He's at the kind of parting of the ways. I believe success is coming to him, if he wants it; but he'll have to build another wall in front of his Tiger either before the success or after. If he joins this crowd of men, there'll be no walls for him ever again."
Christopher knew that when Brun had some idea that he was pleasantly pursuing and had secured an audience nothing would stay or hinder him.
He pushed a chair towards him.
"What do you mean by your Tiger?" he asked.
"My Tiger is what every man has within him—I don't mean, you know, a nasty habit or a degrading passion or anything of necessity vicious—only my theory is that every man is given at the outset of life a Beast in the finest, noblest sense with whom through life he has got to settle. It may be an Ambition, or a Passion, or a Temptation, or a Virtue, what you will, but with that Beast he's got to live. Now it's according to his dealings with the Beast that the man's great or no. If he faces the Beast—and the Beast is generally something that a man knows about himself that nobody else knows—the Beast can be used, magnificently used. If he's afraid, pretends the Tiger isn't there, builds up walls, hides in cities, does what you will, then he must be prepared for a life of incessant alarm, and he may be sure that at some moment or another the Tiger will make his spring—then there'll be a crisis!
"Over here in England you're hiding your Tigers all the time. That's why you're muddled—about Art, Literature, Government, everything that matters—and an old woman like the Duchess of Wrexe—sharp enough herself, mind you—uses all of you.
"No Beaminster has ever faced his or her Tiger yet, and they're down, like knives, on everyone who does and everything that shows the Tiger's bright eyes——
"But I see—oh, Lord! I see—a time coming, yes, here in England, when the Individual, the great man, is coming through, when the Duchess will be dead and the Beaminster driven from power and every man with his Tiger there in front of him, faced and trained, will have his chance—
"More brain, more courage, no muddle—God help the day!"
"You see things moving—everywhere?"
"Everywhere. These fellows, Randall and the rest, are bringing their Tigers with 'em. They're going to put them there for all the world to see. It's only another party out against the Duchess,shewants all the Tigers hidden—only herself to know about them—then she can do her work. She'll hate these fellows until they've made their stand and then she'll try to adopt them in order to muzzle them the better in the end.
"If Westcott hides his Tiger, forgets he's there, his way's plain enough. He'll make money, the Duchess will ask him to tea. Let him join these fellows and his Tiger may tear all his present self to pieces."
"What about yourself, Brun?"
"Oh, I'm nothing! I'm the one great exception. No Tiger thinks me worth while. I merely observe, I don't feel—and you have to feel to keep your Tiger alive."
Brun's little lecture was over. He suddenly drew his body together, clapped his mental hands to dismiss the whole thing and was drawing Westcott to the door.
"But I talk—how I talk! You bear with me, Christopher, because I must go on, you know. It means nothing—absolutely nothing. But they will have arrived now, so down we go. I go on in my sleep, exactly the same. And now tea—and I will talk less because Breton talks a great deal and so does Arkwright, and so do you...."
Arkwright came, and after a little, Breton. But the meeting was not a success. Arkwright had heard a good deal about Breton's reputation, and although, on the whole, he was tolerant of any backsliding in women, he made what he called his liking for "clean men" an excuse for much narrow-mindedness.
It is quite a mistake to suppose that living in solitude and danger makes a human being tolerant. It has the precisely opposite effect. Arkwright was more frightened of a man who was not "quite right with society" than of any number of enraged natives. With natives one knew where one was. Whereas with a man like this ...
Breton, anxious to please, made the mistake of showing his anxiety. Seeing an enemy round every corner he was a little theatrical, too demonstrative, too foreign. Arkwright disliked his beard and the movement of his hands. "He wouldn't have come, had he known...."
Breton had, of course, at once perceived this man's hostility. Returning to England had involved, as he had known that it must, a life of battles, skirmishes, retreats, wounds, and every kind of hostility. People did not forget and even had they desired to do so, his relationship family history prevented Breton's oblivion.
He was ready for discourtesy, however eager he may have been for friendship. But what the Devil, he thought, is this fellow doing here at all? If Brun brought him in he must have told him just whom he was to meet, and if he came with that knowledge about him, why then should he not behave like a gentleman? Breton's half timid advance towards friendliness now yielded to curt hostility.
Brun maintained his silence and only watched the two men with an amusement just concealed. Conversation at last ceased and the heat beat, in waves, through the open windows and the air seemed now to be stiffened into bronze. Beyond the room all the city lay waiting for the cool of the evening.
Christopher liked Arkwright and Arkwright liked Christopher.
Christopher had read one of Arkwright's books and spoke of it with praise and also intelligence, and nothing goes to an author's heart like intelligent appreciation from an unbiassed critic. But Breton was not to be won over. He sat deep in his chair and replied in sulky monosyllables whenever he was addressed.
Christopher soon gave him up and the three men talked amongst themselves.
The heat of the afternoon passed and a little breeze danced into the room, and the hard brightness of the sky changed to a pale primrose that had still some echo of the blue in its faint colour.
The city had uttered no sound through the heat of the day, but now voices came up to the windows: the distant crying of papers, the call of some man with flowers, then the bells of the Round Church began to ring for evensong.
Breton sat there, wrapped in sulky discontent. In his heart he was wretched. Christopher had deserted him; these men would have nothing to do with him. As was his nature everything about him was exaggerated. He had come to Brun's rooms that afternoon, feeling that men had taken him back to their citizenship again. Now he was more urgently assured of his ostracism than before. Who were these men to give themselves these airs? Because he had made one slip were they to constitute themselves his judges? These Beaminster virtues again—the trail of his family at every step, that same damnable hypocrisy, that same priggish assumption of the right to judge. Better to die in the society of those friends of his who had suffered as he had done, from the judgment of the world—no scorn of sinners there, no failure in all sense of true proportion.
Christopher got up to go. He gave Arkwright his card. "Come in and dine one night and tell me all you're doing——"
"Of course I'll come," Arkwright said. "Only you're much too busy——"
"Indeed no," said Christopher. "One day next week you'll hear from me——"
Breton got up. "I'll come with you," he said to Christopher.
The two men went away together.
When they were gone Arkwright said to Brun, "Now that's the kind of man I like——"
"Yes," said Brun, laughing. "Better than the other fellow, eh?"
Arkwright smiled. "More my sort, I must confess."
Christopher and Breton did not speak until they reached Oxford Circus. Here everything, flower-women, omnibuses, grey buildings, grimy men and women—was drowned in purple shadow. It might be only a moment's beauty, but now beneath the evening star, frosted silver and alone in a blue heaven, sound advanced and receded with the quiet rhythm of water over sand. For an instant a black figure of an omnibus stood against the blue and held all the swell, the glow, the stir at a fixed point—then life was once more distributed.
Here, as they turned down Oxford Street Christopher broke silence. He put his arm through Breton's:
"Well, Frank? Sulks not over yet?"
Breton broke away. "It's all very well, but I suppose I'm to pretend that I like being insulted by any kind of fool who happens to turn up. Good God, Chris, you'd think I was a child by the way you talk to me."
"And so you are a child," said Christopher impatiently, "and a thankless child too. Sometimes I wonder why I keep on bothering with you."
Christopher was, like other Scotchmen, a curious mixture of amiability and irascibility; his temper came from his pride and Breton had learnt, many years ago, to fear it. In fact, of all the things in life that he disliked doing, quarrelling with Christopher was the most agreeable. Then there were stubbornness and tenacity that were hard indeed to deal with. But to-day he was reckless; the heat of the afternoon and now the beauty of the evening had both, in their different ways, contributed to his ill-temper. He knew, even now, that afterwards he would regret every word that he uttered, but he let his temper go.
"I wonder that you do bother," he said. "Let me alone and let me find my own way."
"Don't be a fool," Christopher answered. "There's nothing in the world for us to quarrel about, only I can't bear to see you giving such a wrong impression of yourself to strangers—sulking there as though you were five years old——"
"All very well," retorted Breton; "you didn't hear the way that fellow insulted me. I'll wring his neck if I meet him again. I'll——"
"Now, enough of that!" Christopher's voice was stern. "You know quite well, Frank, that you're hardly in a position to wring anyone's neck. You remember the account I gave you of my little dispute with your grandmother——"
"Thank you," said Breton fiercely. "You remind me rather frequently of the kind things you do for me."
And all the time something in him was whispering to him, "Whata fool you are to talk like this!"
Christopher's voice now was cold: "That's hardly fair of you. I'm turning up here——" They paused. Breton looked away from him up into the quiet blue recesses of the side street. Christopher went on: "I only mean that if I were you I should drop hanging on to the skirts of a family who don't want you. I should set about and get some work to do, cut all those rotten people you go about with, and behave decently to strangers when you meet them. That's all. Good night."
And Christopher was gone.
Breton stood there, for a moment, with the tide of his misery full upon him. Then he turned down Oxford Street and drove his way through the crowds of people who were coming up towards the Circus. He was alone, utterly alone in all the world. Everyone else had a home to go to, he alone had nowhere.
Only a few weeks ago he had come back to England, with money enough to keep him alive and a fine burning passion of revenge. That family of his should lament the day of his birth, that old woman should be down on her knees, begging his mercy. Now how cold and wasted was that revenge! What a fool was he wincing at the ill-manners of a stranger, quarrelling with the best friend man ever had.
How evilly could Life desert a man and kill him with loneliness.
And then his mood changed; if Christopher and the rest intended to cast him off, let them. There were his old friends—men and women who had been ostracized by the world as he had been—they would know how to treat him.
He turned into the silence and peace of Saxton Square and there met Miss Rand, who was also walking home. The statue was wrapped in blue mist, the trees were fading into grey and the evening star seemed to have taken Saxton Square under its special protection.
"Good evening, Miss Rand."
"Good evening, Mr. Breton."
"Isn't it a lovely evening?"
"Yes. Buthasn'tit been hot?"
Miss Rand did not look as though she could ever, under any possible circumstances, be hot, so neat and cool was she, but she said yes it had been.
"Isn't it odd the way that as soon as it's fine people begin to complain just as they do when it's wet?"
"It gives them something to talk about—just as it's giving us something now," said Miss Rand, laughing.
Breton looked at her and liked her. She seemed so strong and wise and safe. She would surely always give one the kind of sensible encouragement that one needed. She would be a good person in whom to confide.
They were on the top doorstep now.
"No. I've got a key." He let her pass him.
They stood for a moment in the hall together.
He spoke, as he always did, on the instant's inspiration:
"Miss Rand?"
"Yes."
"I'm alone such a lot—in my evenings I mean. I wonder—might I come down sometimes and just talk a little? You don't know how bad thinking too much is for me, and if I might——"
"Why, of course, Mr. Breton—whenever you like."
Seeing her now, he thought, just now, with her sudden colour she looked quite pretty.
"I expect you could advise me—help me in lots of ways——"
"If there's anything mother or I can do, Mr. Breton, you've only got to ask—Good night——"
The door closed behind her.
He went up to his room, a less miserable man.
"She gives away because she overflows. She has her own feelings, her own standards; she doesn't keep remembering that she must be proud."—The Lesson of the Master.
"She gives away because she overflows. She has her own feelings, her own standards; she doesn't keep remembering that she must be proud."—The Lesson of the Master.
Those weeks were, to Rachel, a golden time. She did not pretend to deny or examine their golden quality—they were far, far better than she had imagined anything could ever be, and that was enough. She had never, very definitely, imagined to herself this "coming out," but it had been, at any rate, behind its possible glories, a period of terror. "All those people" was the way that, with frightened eyes, she had contemplated it.
And now the kindness that there had been! All the London world had surely nothing to do but to pay her compliments, to surround her with courtesies, to flatter her every wish. Even Aunt Adela had under the general enthusiasm, blossomed a little into good-will, even Uncle Richard had remembered to wish her well, even the Duke had cracked applause, and as for Uncle John! ... he was like an amiable conjurer whose best (and also most difficult) trick had achieved an absolute triumph.
And behind all this there was more. May, June and the early part of July showered such weather upon London as had surely never been showered before, and these brilliant days dressed, for Rachel, her brilliant success in cloth of gold and emblazoned robes. She felt the presence of London for the first time, as the hot weather came beating up the streets and the brilliant whites and blues and greens and reds flung back to the burning blue their contrast and splendour.
She felt, for the first time, her own especial London, and now the grey cool cluster of buildings at one end of blazing Portland Place and the dark green of the hovering park at the other end had a new meaning for her, as though she had only just come to live here and was seeing it all for the first time. In the streets that hung about Portland Place she noticed little shops—little bakers and little shoemakers and little tailors and little sweetshops—and they were all furtive and dark and shabby.
And these little shops led to the growth in her mind of an especial picture of her square of London life, Portland Place white and shining in the middle, with the Circus like a fair at one end of it, the park like a mystery at the other end of it, and, on either side, little secret shops and little dim squares hanging about it, and Harley Street sinister and ominous by its side.
Every element of Life and Death was there, the whole History of Man's Journey Through This World to the Next.
Behind all the joy and overflowing happiness of these weeks this sudden setting of London about her was consciously present.
Since that meeting with Miss Rand on the day before the ball Rachel had often spoken to her. They met at first by accident and then Rachel had gone to Lizzie's neat little sitting-room to ask for something and, after that, had looked in for five minutes or so, and they had talked very pleasantly about the hot weather and the theatres and the ways of the world.
Behind all the splendour there was, for Rachel, the dark shadow of suspense. Was it going to last? What was to follow it? When would those awkward uncertainties that had once kept her company return to her? Now whatever else might be doubtful about Miss Rand, one thing was certain, that shewouldlast, would remain to the end the same clean, reliable, honest person that she was now.
Imagine Lizzie Rand unreliable and she vanishes altogether! Rachel welcomed this and she also admired the wonderful manner in which Miss Rand accomplished her gigantic task. To run a house like this one and at the end of it all to remain as composed and safe as though nothing had been done!
Rachel herself might carry off a difficult situation by riding desperately at it, stringing her resources to their highest pitch, but afterwards reaction would claim its penalty.
The penalties were never claimed from Miss Rand.
So, gradually, without any definite words or events, almost without active consciousness, they became friends.
Rachel, suddenly, on one afternoon early in July, determined to go and pay Lizzie Rand a visit in her house.
That house in Saxton Square had acquired a new romantic interest since Rachel had learnt that the abandoned, abominable cousin, who defied Grandmamma and whose name one was never to mention, lived there. Rachel had considered this cousin more than once during these last months. She had resented, from the first, the fact that he was to be given, by the family, no chance of redemption. However bad he had been (and he had apparently been very bad indeed) his opportunity should have been offered to him. His life, she knew, had been hard, he was, like herself, an orphan, and he hated, as she did, her grandmother. Of course, then, he interested her.
She did not now say to herself that if this romantic cousin had not been staying in that house she would not have contemplated a visit to Lizzie. The Beaminster in her had just now the upper hand, and the Beaminster simply said that Saxton Square would be a nice place in which Uncle John, who was, this afternoon, taking her out for a drive, might leave her whilst he went to the club; later he could pick her up and take her home.
The Beaminster part of her did not acknowledge the cousin.
Quite casually she said to Uncle John, "I want you to leave me at Miss Rand's for half an hour this afternoon—she is helping me about some clothes."
Now Uncle John had during these last weeks continually congratulated himself on the disappearance of Rachel's irritable, unsettled self. Always lately one had been presented with her delightful young eager self and always she had been anxious to agree with Uncle John's proposals. The world had been going smoothly for him in other ways of late, and no one had been disagreeable. How pleasant to keep the world in this amiable condition and how dangerous to risk anyone's displeasure!
He had moreover almost (not quite) forgotten that his rascal of a nephew was living in the same house as Miss Rand, and, even if he did remember it, well, it was quite another part of the house, and in all probability Miss Rand had never spoken to Frank Breton, nor so much as said good day to him.
Finally it was so sumptuous a day, and Rachel was clothed in so radiant a happiness and so fluttering and billowing and chuckling a dress of white and blue, and he himself was looking so handsome in the most shining of top-hats, the broadest of black bow ties, the most elegant of pepper-and-salt trousers and the whitest of white spats, that complaining or arguing or disputing was utterly out of the question.
"Miss Rand's, my dear? What's the address?... Right you are—" so off they went.
She arrived to find Miss Rand, a round chubby lady in bright pink, and a stranger having tea together. The chubby lady was Mrs. Rand and the stranger was Francis Breton. She had not expected that her arrival would cause such a disturbance, nor that she herself would discover the right and easy words so difficult to say. The little room seemed to be crowded with furniture and tea-things, and she, quite deliberately, put off any consideration of her cousin until the atmosphere had been allowed, a little, to settle around them.
Miss Rand looked at her almost sternly and was, plainly, at a loss. Mrs. Rand was excited, and so nervous that her tea-cup rattled in her saucer and she stayed for quite a long time with her finger in the tea under the delusion that she was using a teaspoon.
Mrs. Rand's absence of mind was generally due to the fact that she read one novel a day all the year round and that her thoughts, her hopes, her despairs were always centred in the book of the day, although when to-morrow came she could not tell you the author nor the title nor any of the incidents. Had she been to a play, then, for twenty-four hours following, it was the drama that held the field.
She spent her life in an amiable desire to remember, for the sake of her friends, the plays and books of the past. But she was never successful. As she said, "The attempt to keep up with the literature and drama of the day, although praise-worthy, demands all one's time and energy."
The Beaminster family alone of all other interests in the wide world might be calculated to draw her out of the realms of the imagination, and Rachel's entrance scattered all plots to the four winds.
Rachel sat down and, for a little while, Mrs. Rand held the field. She told them all that this visit of Miss Beaminster was the most wonderful and unexpected thing, that it was like a novel, and that she would never forget it. "But I always do say, Miss Beaminster, that it's the unexpected that happens. Life's stranger than fiction is my opinion, and I don't care who contradicts me I shall still hold it."
At length Rachel had leisure to consider her cousin and then was, instantly, convinced that she had met him before. She also knew that she could not have met him before.
In the strangest way he was connected with those early dream years which, now, she struggled so sternly to forget. The snow, the bleak sky, the silence, the sleigh-bells, some strange voice speaking high in air as though from a distant summit, and all this coming to her with a poignancy that, even now, brought the tears to her heart and filled it to overflowing.
As she saw his thin body, his eyes, his head and the attitude of the boy in all his movements and gestures she knew that, for her, he belonged to that earlier world. She knew it so certainly that, although he had not yet spoken, she could be sure of the exact quality that his voice would have.
And confused with this recognition of him was the alarm that she always felt when her early life returned to her.
Also she was young enough to be pleased at the agitation into which her coming had thrown him. It meant, plainly, so much to him; although he was silent he leant forward in his chair, with his eyes fixed upon her, waiting for his opportunity.
Miss Rand, watching him, saw how tremendously this meeting with one of the family excited him, and, seeing him, her heart filled with pity. "He's so young. It is hard. He does want someone to look after him."
Rachel's happiness had, now, returned to her. She liked them all so much, it was all so cosy, it was so good of them to wish to see her. She talked with Mrs. Rand about the theatre and the opera.
"We're going to the opera to-night—theMeistersinger. I've heard it in Munich twice, but never with Van Rooy, who's singing to-night. I believe that's an experience one never forgets——"
Mrs. Rand did not really care about opera; everything in opera happened so slowly, except inCarmen, and even that was better simply as a play. She liked musical comedy because there you could laugh, or plays likeThe Mikado, for instance.
She was vague as to theMeistersingerand she had never heard of Van Rooy, but she said, "I agree with you, Miss Beaminster. There's nobody like him."