"Now Duchess, you can just tell anyone who's talkin' that Mr. Breton is welcome here just as often as he pleases and he's a friend of mine and my wife's—and they can jolly well shut their mouths. Thank God, allthat'sover."
But he was very swiftly to realize that it wasnotall over. Sharply, quivering through the air like an arrow from a bow, came the Duchess's words.
"Good God, Roddy, are you completely insane?"
She was twisted, distorted with anger, she seemed to take her rage and fling it about her so that the chairs, the tables, Roddy's innocent little sporting sketches and even the case of birds' eggs were saturated with it.
The gleaming park, the peaceful evening sky, the sharp curve of an apricot-tinted moon, these things were blotted out and the noises of the town deadened by this indignant fury. Rachel had known it in other days, to Breton it evoked long-distant nursery hours, to Roddy it was something utterly new and unsuspected. For the first time in his life he caught a shadow of the terror that had darkened Rachel's young days.
To the Duchess it was simply that she now clearly discovered that she was the victim of an elaborate plot. The three of them! Oh! she saw it all! and Roddy, Roddy—who had been the one living soul to whom her hard independence had made concession! This came, the definite climax to the year's accumulations, the final decision flung at her, before she died, by those two—Rachel and Breton—from whom, of all living souls, she could endure it least.
With her rage rose her fighting spirit. She would show them, these young fools, the kind of woman that an earlier and a finer generation than theirs could produce!
They had more there before them than one old woman, sick and ailing, and they should see it.
Her voice shook a little, but she gave no other sign, after that first challenge: her little eyes flamed from the mask of her face like candles behind holes in a screen.
"This is your sense of fun, Roddy, I suppose," she said. "You alwayswerelacking in that. I've told you so before. As you asked me here I suppose you're ready for my opinion. You shall have it. I'll only ask you to cast your eye over any friend of ours: see what you would say if this—this idiotic folly committed by someone else had come to your ears. I suppose you'd arranged this, the three of you. Well, you shall know what I think. Your tenderness to Rachel is magnificent—she has obviously reckoned on it, knew that her frankness would serve her well enough. You've already been more patient with her than men would have been in my day. I only hope that your patience may not be too severely tried....
"As for my grandson, to whom you have so tenderly entrusted Rachel, your acquaintance with him is quite recent, is it not? I am sure that if you were to enquire of any man at one of your clubs he would give you quite excellent reasons for my grandson's long unhappy absence from his relations and his country. At any rate you don't know him as well as I do. I could tell you, if you asked me, that it is a long time now since any decent man or woman has sought his society. Do you suppose that his family have not the best of reasons for trying to forget his existence—an attempt that he makes unpleasantly difficult?
"Have you heardnothing, Roddy? Do you really want a man who has been kicked out of society for the most excellent reasons, who has disgraced his name as no member of his family has ever disgraced it before him, for your wife's lover? If she must have one...."
Rachel, trembling, had come forward, Roddy had cried out, but quietly, stronger than either of them, Breton had faced her. She had not, throughout the afternoon, looked at him nor spoken one word to him. Now, her anger carrying her beyond all physical control, she was compelled to meet his gaze.
He stood very quietly beside her chair, looking at the three of them. "My grandmother is wrong," he said, "I am not quite as deserted as she thinks. Just before I came here this afternoon Uncle John called upon me. I had half an hour's very pleasant talk with him: he told me that, although his mother had not altered her opinion of me, Uncle Vincent and Aunt Adela and himself considered that I had earned"—he smiled a little—"forgiveness. He hoped that I would understand that—while my grandmother was alive—I could not be invited to 104 Portland Place, but that he thought that I would like to know that they had realized my—well, improvement, and that he hoped that we would be friends. I said that I should be delighted."
The Duchess spoke to him then, her voice shaking so that it was difficult to catch her words.
"John—came—said that—toyou?"
"Yes. It was a curious coincidence that to-day——"
Her eyes had dropped. She murmured to herself:
"John ... John ... Adela ... behind my back ... Adela ... Vincent——"
They were all silent. She sat there, her head down, leaning on her hands, brooding. Her anger seemed to have departed, her fire, her fury had fled: she was a very old woman—and the room was suddenly chilly. Before her were Rachel and Breton: they faced the ancient enemy. But as Rachel stood there, realizing that there had flashed between them the climax of all their lives together, yes, and a climax of forces greater and more powerful than anything that their own small histories could contain, she had no sense of drama nor of revenge nor of any triumphant victory. A little while before she had been almost insane with anger.... Now something had occurred. Rachel only knew that the three of them—Roddy, Francis and herself—were young and immensely vigorous, with all life before them; but that one day they would be old, as this old woman, and would be deserted and sick and past anyone's need of them.
"Oh! I wish we hadn't! I wish we hadn't!" she thought.
In that moment's silence they all might have heard the sound of the soft, sharp click—the click that marked the supreme moment of their relationship to the situation that had, for all of them, been so long developing—
Breton surrendered Rachel, Roddy received her, and, beyond them all, the Duchess definitely abandoned her world.
For them all, grouped there so closely together, the heart of their relations the one to the other had been revealed to them.
Other dramas, other comedies, other tragedies—This had claimed its moment and had passed....
After the silence the Duchess said, "My family—I no longer...." She stopped, collected, with all her will, her words, then in a low voice said, looking at Breton, "I owe you, I suppose—an apology. I owe that perhaps to you all. My children are wiser in their own generation. I no longer understand—the way things go—all too confused for my poor intelligence." She pulled herself together as an old ship rights itself after a roller's stinging blow. "This has lasted long enough.... We've all talked—My family are—wiser—it seems."
But she could not go on. "Please, Roddy," she said at length, "I think it's time—if you'd ring."
"I'm sorry——" he said and then stopped.
Soon Peters and a footman appeared. She leaned heavily upon them and, staring before her at the door, slowly went out.
"Tell me, Praise, and tell me, Love,What you both are thinking of?O, we think, said Love, said Praise,Now of children and their ways."William Brighty Rand.
"Tell me, Praise, and tell me, Love,What you both are thinking of?O, we think, said Love, said Praise,Now of children and their ways."
William Brighty Rand.
Breton had gone; the room was empty.
Rachel came and, kneeling on the floor, hid her face in Roddy's coat. He put his hands about hers.
His only desire now was that there should be peaceful silence. His hatred for scenes had always been with him an instinct, natural, alert, untiring, so that he would undertake many labours, forgo many pleasant prizes, if only emotional crises might be avoided.
This afternoon had showered upon him a relentless succession of reverberating displays, he had perceived one human being after another reveal quite nakedly their tumultuous feelings. It was, for him, precisely as though the Duchess, Rachel, Breton had stripped there before him and expected him to display no astonishment at their so doing—that he should have been the author of the business made it no better; he reflected that he had even looked forward with excitement to the affair. "If I had only known how beastly...."
He was ashamed—ashamed of his own action in provoking these things, ashamed of his own lack of understanding, ashamed to have watched the sharpened tempers of his friends.
He would never, Heaven help him, take part in any such scene again!
But out of it all one good thing had come—he had got Rachel! As she had looked across the room, meeting his eyes, he had known that at last his long pursuit of her was at an end....
It never occurred to him that most husbands, after such a declaration as Rachel had just made, would have stormed, reproached, ridden, for a long time to come, the high horse of conscious superior virtue.
It did not seem odd to him that at the very moment of Rachel's confession he should feel more sure of her than he had ever been before. At last the Nita Raseley debt was paid off. At last he knew, beyond question, that Rachel loved him. Best of all, perhaps, he had seen Breton and felt his own superiority.
That being so, he wanted no words about the matter. He would like to lie there on his sofa, with her hands enclosed in his and nothing said between either of them—very pleasant and quiet there in the dusk. He hoped that he would never again have to explain anything or speak to anyone about his feelings—no, not even to Rachel.
Then he discovered that she was sobbing as she knelt there, and his face crimsoned with confusion and alarm. Rachel, the proudest woman he had ever known, kneeling to him, crying!
He tried to lift her, pressing her hands.
"Rachel dear ... Rachel."—Her words came between her sobs.
"I should have told you ... long ago ... I tried to—I did indeed ... but it was because I was frightened ... because I ... Oh! Roddy! you'll never trust me again!"
He was burning hot with the confusion of it: he was almost angry both with himself and her.
"Please, Rachel ... please ... don't ... it's all over, dear. There's nothing the matter."
"It's fine of you ... to take it like that ... But you'll never forgive me, really, you can't—It isn't possible. This very afternoon ... I was going to tell you—if all this ... hadn't happened. You'll be different now—you must be ... just when I want you so much."
He glanced in despair about the room. He looked at the sporting prints and the case of birds' eggs and at last at Rachel's photograph. How proud and splendid she was there! This dreadful abasement!
He stroked her hair.
"See here, old girl—we've had a rotten afternoon, haven't we? Awfully rotten—never remember to have spent a worse. All my fault, too—poor old Duchess!... but look here, it's all right now. I understand everythin' and—and—dash it all—do stop cryin', Rachel, old girl."
"It's been bad enough," she said, her voice steadier now, "the way I've been to you all this time, but I thought—at least—I was honest—I've tried—I've made a miserable failure—But, Roddy, you need—never—never—be afraid of anything again—I'm yours altogether, Roddy, to do anything with....
"All about Francis—I was mad somehow—It was grandmamma—feeling she had driven me into marrying you. And then Nita ... and then I didn't know you a bit—all there was in you—but now," and she raised her eyes and looked at him, "I love you with all my heart and soul and strength."
He bent down his head and rather clumsily kissed her.
"You know, Rachel, I was a bit frightened myself this afternoon—thought you might be angry because I took you by surprise. You bet, if I'd known what it was going to be like ... Well, thank the Lord, it's done, and we'll never have another like it—I'll see to that. Scenes are rotten things, aren't they?—I always loathed 'em even when I was tiny—so did the governor.... If he had me up for lickin' all he ever said was, 'Down with your bags!' That was all there was about it."
She leant her cheek against his.
"You've forgiven me all, everything—absolutely?" she asked.
"There isn't any forgiveness in it," he answered. "It's all the other way, if it's anythin'.... You see, I've been thinkin' a lot while I was lyin' here. When there was that business over Nita I said you should always be free just as I told you I ought to be. Well, since—since I got that old tumble—I haven't any right to hold you at all. I'm just an old log here, no good, anyway, and only a nuisance. And if I thought I was keepin' you tied I'd be miserable. You see, I know you're fond of me now. I've got that.... Don't let's talk any more about it. You've got me and I've got you—and we aren't afraid of any old woman in the world."
He held her closely to him, his arms strong about her.
"There's something else to tell you."
"Something else?"
"Yes. We're going to have a child, you and I, Roddy. And now that you've forgiven me it's all right—but that's partly what's made me afraid all these last weeks. As it is, you've got me, got me, got me, safe for ever and ever!"
"Well, I'm damned!" said Roddy.
She could feel his hand trembling upon hers.
"Oh," she whispered, "I was frightened this afternoon—terrified. I thought you'd never see me again."
Roddy was turning things over in his mind.
"A kid ... my word. Just the thing. A boy ... it'll be jolly for the Place and I can teach him a lot. It'll be somethin' to go back to the house for. Gosh! There's news!"
His eyes wandered round the room.
"Good thing I kept all those eggs—nearly broke 'em up too. They're a jolly fine collection. I'd have prized 'em like anything if they'd come to me when I was small." He caught her hand so fiercely that she gave a little cry.
"What a day! We'll have to see about the shootin' down at Seddon again, old girl ... Lord, what an afternoon!"
"So she put the handkerchief, and the pin, and the lock of hair back into the box, turned the key, and went resolutely about her everyday duties again."—Mrs. Ewing.
"So she put the handkerchief, and the pin, and the lock of hair back into the box, turned the key, and went resolutely about her everyday duties again."—Mrs. Ewing.
Lizzie was waiting for Lady Adela. She had finished her work for the day, had come from her own room to Lady Adela's and now stood at one of the high windows looking down upon the April sunshine that coloured the dignities of Portland Place.
The room was spacious and lofty, but curiously uncomfortable and lifeless. High book-cases with glass shutters revealed rows of "Cornhill" and "Blackwood" volumes, a long rather low table covered with a green cloth held a silver inkstand, a blotting-pad, pens and a calendar. There were stiff mahogany chairs ranged against the wall and old prints of Beaminster House (white-pillared, spacious with sloping lawns) and Eton College chapel faced the windows.
This was where Lady Adela spent several hours of every morning and she had never attempted to "do" anything with it. A large marble clock on the mantelpiece ticked out its sublime indifference to time and change. "We're the same, thank God," it said, "as we've always been."
Lady Adela had told Lizzie that she would come in from a drive at quarter to four and she would like then to speak to her.
Lizzie's eyes were fixed upon Portland Place, deserted for the moment and catching in its shining surface some hint of the blue sky above it. There was a great deal just then to occupy her thoughts. Ten days ago, in the middle of a little dinner-party that Lady Adela was giving, upstairs the Duchess had had a stroke. Lizzie had, of course, not been there, but, coming next morning she had been told of it. Her Grace was soon well again, no unhappy effects could be discovered, she had not, herself, been apparently disturbed by it, but it had rung, like a warning bell, through the house. "The beginning of the end.... We've been watching, we've been waiting—soon these walls will be ours again," said the portraits of those stiff and superior Beaminsters.
News ran through the Beaminster camp—"The Duchess has had a stroke.... The Duchess has had a stroke."
But, for many weeks now, Lizzie had been aware that some crisis had found its hour. Rachel and her husband, Lady Adela and Lord John, even the Duke and Lord Richard had been involved. It was not her business to ask questions, but every morning that saw her sitting down to her day's work saw her also wondering whether it would be her last in that house....
Lady Adela, however sharply she may have changed in herself, had never permitted her relationship to Lizzie to be drawn any closer. When Lizzie had returned from that terrible Christmas at Seddon, Lady Adela had asked her no questions, had shown no sign of human anxiety or tenderness. She had never, during all the years that Lizzie had been with her, expressed gratitude or satisfaction. She had, on the other hand, never bullied nor lost her temper with her. She had separated herself from all expression or human emotion. And yet Lizzie liked her. She would miss her when their association ended: yes, she would miss her, and the house and the whole Beaminster interest when the end came.
She wondered, as she stood at the window, whether that old woman upstairs were suffering, what her struggle against extinction was costing her, how urgently she was protesting against the passing of time and the death of her generation. Flying galleons of silver clouds caught the sun and Portland Place passed into shadow; the bell of the Round Church began to ring. "Poor old thing," thought Lizzie; she would not have considered her thus, a year ago.
Lady Adela came in; she reminded Lizzie of Mrs. Noah in her stiff wooden hat, her stiff wooden clothes, her anxiety to prevent any mobility that might give her away. She looked, as she always did, carefully about the room, at the "Cornhills" and "Blackwoods," at the marble clock, at the prints of Beaminster House and Eton College Chapel, a little as though she would ascertain that no enemy, no robber, no brigand, no outlaw, was concealed about the premises, a little as though she would say—"Well, these things are all right anyway, nothing wrong here."
"I'm sorry, Miss Rand," she said. "I hope that I haven't kept you."
"No, thank you, Lady Adela, I have only just finished."
Lady Adela sat down; they discussed correspondence, trivial things that were, Lizzie knew, placed as a barrier against something that frightened her.
At length it came.
"Miss Rand, I wonder whether—the fact is, my mother has just decided that she wishes to be moved to Beaminster House. I must of course go with her. I hope that this will not inconvenience you. You can, if you prefer not to leave your mother, come down every day by train; it only takes an hour. Just as you please...."
Lizzie's heart was strangely, poignantly stirred. The moment had come then; the house was to be deserted. This could only mean the end. She herself would never return here, her little room, the large solemn house, that walk from Saxton Square, the Round Church, the Queen's Hall, Regent's Park....
But she gave no sign.
Gravely she replied: "I think I'd better come down with you, Lady Adela, if you don't mind. My mother has my sister. Perhaps I might come up for the week-ends."
"Yes. That would be quite easy. The other places, you know, are let, but Beaminster has always been kept. The Duke has been there a good deal. It reminds me ... I was there for some years as a girl."
Lizzie realized that Lady Adela was very near to tears; she had never before seen her, in any way, moved. She was distressed and uncomfortable. It was as though Lady Adela were, suddenly, after all these years, about to be driven from a position that had seemed, in its day, impregnable.
"Oh! don't, please don't, now!" was Lizzie's silent cry. "It will spoil it all—all these years."
Lady Adela didn't. Her voice became dry and hard, her eyes without expression.
"We shall go down, I expect, on Monday if Dr. Christopher thinks that a good day."
"I hope that the Duchess——"
"My mother's very well to-day—quite her old self. I have just been up with her. It is odd, but for thirty years she has never expressed any interest in Beaminster. Now she is impatient to be there."
"One often, I think, has a sudden longing for places."
"Yes. I shall be glad myself to be there again."
"This house?"
"Oh! we shall shut it up—for the time Lord John will come down to Beaminster with us. I have spoken to Norris, but to-morrow morning, if you don't mind, we will go through things."
"Certainly."
"The house has not been shut for a great number of years—a very great number. During the last thirty years through the hottest weather my mother was here.
"It will seem strange ..." Her voice trembled.
"Is there anything more this afternoon?" Lizzie turned to the door.
"No, I think not. Except—perhaps ..." Lady Adela was in great agitation. Her eyes sought Lizzie, beseeching her help.
"Miss Rand—I think it only right to say. I'm afraid one cannot—in the nature of things—it's impossible, I fear, to expect—my mother to live very much longer." Her voice caught in a dry strangled cough. "Dr. Christopher has warned us. After my mother's death my life, of course, will be very different. I shall live very quietly—a good deal in the country and abroad, I expect.
"I shall not, of course, have a secretary."
"I quite understand," said Lizzie quietly.
"I want you to know, Miss Rand," Lady Adela continued, "that although during all these years I have seemed very unappreciative.... It is not my way—I find it difficult to express—But I have, nevertheless, been very conscious—we have all been—of the things that you have done for me, indeed for the whole house. You have been admirable; quite admirable."
"I have been very happy here," said Lizzie.
"I am very glad of that. I must have seemed often very blind to all that you were doing. But I should like you to know that it is more—it is more—than simply your duty to the house—it is the many things that you have done personally for me. You have not yourself been, I dare say, aware of the effect that your company has had upon me. It has been very great."
Lizzie smiled. "I've loved the house and the work. It has meant a very important part of my life. I shall never forget it."
Their embarrassment was terrible. After a moment of struggle Lady Adela's voice was hard and unconcerned again. "You know, Miss Rand, that—when the time comes for this change—anything that I, or any of us, can do ... I do not know what your own plans may be, but you need have no fear, I think."
"Thank you very much, Lady Adela. That is very kind."
There was a little pause—then they said good night.
As Lizzie went down the great staircase, on every side of her, the stones of the house were whispering, "You're all going—you're all going—you're all going."
Her heart was very sad.
As she passed the Regent Street Post Office Francis Breton came out of it. They had not met often lately, but she was conscious that ever since that interview in Regent's Park, they had been very good friends. Her absorption with Rachel and affairs in the Portland Place house had assisted her own resolution and she had thought that she could meet him now without a tremor. Nevertheless the tremor came as she caught sight of him there and, for a moment, the traffic and the shouting died away and there was a great stillness.
He was very glad to see her. He stood on the post office steps looking richer and smarter than she had ever known him. He wore a dark blue suit and a black tie and a bowler hat—all ordinary garments enough—but they surrounded him with an air of prosperity that had not been his before. He seemed to her to gleam and glitter and shine with confidence and assurance. One hurried glimpse she had had of him some weeks before, miserable, unkempt, almost furtive. She was glad for his sake that all was well with him, but he needed her more when he was unhappy....
But he was delighted. "Miss Rand. That's splendid! Are you going back to Saxton Square now? The very thing! I've been wanting badly to see you!" It was always, she thought, in little hurried and occasional walks that they exchanged their confidences. There was not much to show for all the elaborate palace that she had once been building—snatches of conversation, clutches at words and movements, even eloquent interpretation of silences—well, she was wiser than all that now!
But, when they started off together, she found that she was caught up instantly into that fine assumption of intimacy that was one of his most alluring qualities. Radiant though he was he still needed her; he was more eager to talk toherthan to anyone else even though he had forgotten her very existence until he saw her standing there.
"I am glad to see you. I should have come down and tried to find you, anyway, in a day or two. I've been through a rotten time—really rotten—and one doesn't want to see anyone—even one's best friends—in that sort of condition, does one?"
"That's just the time yourrealfriends—if they're worth anything—want to see you. If they can be of any use——"
"But you'd been such a tremendous help to me. I was ashamed to come to you any more. Besides, you'd showed me, in a way, that I ought to get through on my own without asking help from anyone. You'd taught me that I did try."
She saw that he was shining with the glory of one who had come, rather mightily, unaided through times of stress. A pleasant self-congratulatory pathos stirred behind his words. "Itwasa bad time—but it's all right now. And I expect it was good for me," was really what he said.
"I do want to tell you," he went on eagerly, "about Rachel. It's all been so strange—wonderful in a way. After that talk I had with you in the park I was absolutely broken up. Oh! but done for! I simply went under. I tried to go back to some of that old set I've told you about before, but the awful thing was that Rachel wouldn't let me. Thinking of her, wanting her when all those other women were about. It simply wasn't possible....
"It got worse and worse. I thought I'd go off my head. Then—do you remember that awful thunderstorm we had?"
"Yes," said Lizzie, "I remember it very well."
"That night was a kind of climax. I'd dined with Christopher, then got wandering about—it was horribly close and heavy—got into some music hall. I suppose I'd been drinking—anyway, I had suddenly a kind of vision, there in the music hall. I thought Rachel was dead, that I'd lost her altogether. And then—it's all so hard to explain—but when I came to myself I seemed to understand that the only way I could keep her was by giving her up.... I've got it all muddled, but that was what it came to."
"You were quite right," said Lizzie.
"Well, then—what do you think happened? The very next day my uncle, John Beaminster, came to see me—yes, came himself. Talked and was most pleasant and wanted to be friends. At the same time—now just listen to this—came a note from Seddon asking me to go and see him. I went, found Rachel there. Apparently my delightful grandmother had been telling him stories about Rachel and me, and he wanted to put things straight. As though this weren't enough, right upon us, without a word of warning, dropped my grandmother herself!"
He stopped that he might convey fully to Lizzie the drama of the occasion.
There was, in his words, just that touch of absurdity and exaggeration that she had noticed at her very first meeting with him. He was always too passionately anxious to thrill his audience!
"Therewasa scene! You can imagine it! We all tried to behave at first, although of course it was immensely difficult. I don't think Seddon had in the least realized the kind of thing it would be. Then she—the old tyrant—could contain herself no longer and burst out concerning me, the blackguard I was and the rest of it. She was furious, you see, at Seddon taking my friendship with Rachel so quietly. He wassplendidabout it!
"Well, when she burst out about all the family cutting me and everybody casting me out, the opportunity was too good. Icouldn'thelp it. I had to tell her that Uncle John had been round that very afternoon to see me and that the family was holding out its arms."
"What happened?" said Lizzie, as he paused.
"She collapsed—altogether, completely. She never said another word—she just went."
"You shouldn't have done it!" Lizzie cried, turning almost furiously upon him. "Oh! it was cruel—she was so old and all of you so young and strong."
"Yes!" he answered her—"But think of the years that I've waited—the times she's given me, the suffering——"
"No," interrupted Lizzie, quiet again now. "If you're weak enough to be pushed down by anybody like that, then you're weak enough to sink by your own fault, whether there's anyone there or no. She's been hard in her time, I dare say, but everything's left her now and she's ill and lonely. It was wrong of all of you. I shouldn't have thought Sir Roderick——"
"He only wanted things to be straightened out," Breton said eagerly. "He didn'tintendto have a scene. But I expect you're right, Miss Rand, as you always are. I've been a brute, the most howling cad. But there's one thing—I don't think it's hurt my grandmother. She likes those scenes, and she's been none the worse since."
"She's been much worse," said Lizzie gravely. "She's dying—She's going down to Beaminster on Monday."
He stopped. "Oh! but I'm sorry ... That's dreadful ... I'd no idea. I'm always responsible——"
He had sunk to such depths that she was compelled to raise him.
"I don't think you need be disturbed, Mr. Breton. Something of the sort would have been certain to happen very soon. She would have found out in any case ... and there were other things, I know. Rachel——"
"Ah!" he broke in, eager again and almost cheerful. "That was the wonderful thing. When I saw her there first with Seddon—I'd never met him before, you know—I felt angry and impatient. I wanted to carry her off—away from everybody. And then, when Seddon began to speak I lost all sense of Rachel's belonging to me. She seemed older, ever so far away from him, and he was so fine, so splendid about it all that I felt—I felt—well, that I'd do anything in the world for both of them—but never anything that could separate them or make him unhappy."
"You can't separate them now," said Lizzie, "nobody can."
"No. It was just finished—our episode together that wasn't really an episode at all if you consider the little that we saw one another.... Besides, I've never got near Rachel, and I felt in some way that the nearer I got to her the farther away she was. Why, the only time that I kissed her she was the farthest away of all!"
They were walking up the grey, peaceful square.
"You don't mind my telling you all this, do you, Miss Rand? You've seen it all from the beginning. But I'm odd in a way....
"Uncle John coming to me, Seddon being friendly to me, the family taking me back ... that seems to have made all the difference to me. Although I'd never confess it, even to myself, I know that if Rachel and I had gone off together I'd never have been happy. You see, we're both alike that way. We're restless, one half of us, but oh! we're Beaminster the other, and even Rachel, who's been fighting the family all her days, has one part of her that's happy to be married to Seddon and to be quiet and proper and English. That's why neither I nor Seddon ever could hold her—because to be with me she'd have had to give up the other. If she had a child, that might——"
"She's going to have a child!" said Lizzie.
He stopped and stared at her.
"Miss Rand!... Is that certain?"
"Quite."
"Ah, well, Seddon's got her all right. They'll be happy as anything." He sighed. "You know, Miss Rand, Rachel and I have been fighting the old lady, and we seem to have won ... but I'm not sure whether, after all, she hasn't!"
On the step he paused.
"I'm sticking to Candles, I've got work. I'm recognized again. I've got that little bit of Rachel that she gave me and that nobody else can have, and—I've got you for a friend—Not so bad after all!"
He laughed, opened the door for her, and then as they stood in the dark little hall he said:
"All along you've beensucha friend for me. I want someone like you—someone strong and sensible, without my rotten sentiment and impulses. We'll always be friends, won't we?"
He held her hand.
"Always," she said, smiling at him.
But, perhaps, to both of them there came, just then, sighing through the dark still hall, a breath, a whisper, of that hour when life had been at its intensest, that hour when Breton had held Rachel in his arms, that hour when Lizzie had dressed, with trembling hands, for the theatre....
For Breton his place once again in the world, for Lizzie work and peace of heart, but once on a day life had flamed before both of them and they would never forget—
"Well, good night, Mr. Breton."
"Good night, Miss Rand."
When he had gone, she stood in the hall a moment.
Their little dialogue had closed, with the sound of a closing door, a stage in her life. She would never be the same as she had been before that episode. It had shown her that she was as romantic as the rest of the world. It had made her kinder, tenderer, wiser. And now once again she was independent—once again her soul was her own. She could be, once more, his friend, seeing him with all his faults, his impetuosities, his weak impulses.
Her place was there for her to fill. It was not the place that she would once have chosen. But she had regained her soul, had once more control of her spirit. She was free.
There stretched before her a world of work, of thrilling and ever-changing interest. There were Rachel and Rachel's baby....
"You seem in very good spirits, Lizzie," said Mrs. Rand as she came in. "I'm sure I'm very glad because it's too tiresome. Here's Daisy gone off...."
Afterwards she said to her mother:
"I'm going down to Beaminster on Monday. I'm afraid I shall be away some time."
"Oh! Lizzie!" said Mrs. Rand reproachfully. "Well, now—Thatisa pity. Why must you?"
"The Duchess is going and Lady Adela must go with her and I must go with Lady Adela."
"Dear, dear. Whatever shall we do, Daisy and I? Daisy gets idler every day. It's always clothes with her now.... I suppose we shall manage."
"I shall come up for week-ends."
"What a way you speak of it! Of course you don't care! If you went away for years you wouldn't miss us, I dare say. I can't think why it is, Lizzie, that you're always so hard. Daisy and I have got plenty of feeling and emotion and your father, poor man, had more than he could manage. But I'm sure more's better than none at all, where feelings are concerned."
"I suppose," said Lizzie, speaking to more than her mother, "that if everyone had so much feeling there'd be nobody to give the advice. Feelings don't suit everybody."
"You're a strange girl," said Mrs. Rand, "and you're like no one in our family. All your aunts and uncles are kind and friendly. I don't suggest that you don't do your best, Lizzie. You do, I'm sure—and nobody could deny that you've got a head for figures and running a house. But a little heart...."
"I've come to the conclusion I'm better without any," Lizzie laughed. "I expect I'm more like you and Daisy, mother, than you know——"
"Well, you're a strange girl," said Mrs. Rand again, "and I never understand half you say."
Lizzie came to her and kissed her.
"You always miss me, you know, mother, when I'm away, in spite of my hard heart."
"Well, that's true," said Mrs. Rand, looking at her daughter with wide and rather tearful eyes. "But I'm sure I don't know why I do."
"Not without fortitude I wait ...... I, in this house so rifted, marr'd,So ill to live in, hard to leave;I, so star-weary, over-warr'd,That have no joy in this your day."Francis Thompson.
"Not without fortitude I wait ...... I, in this house so rifted, marr'd,So ill to live in, hard to leave;I, so star-weary, over-warr'd,That have no joy in this your day."
Francis Thompson.
Rachel, on the morning of April 28th, received this letter from Lady Adela:
"Beaminster House,April 27th.My dear Rachel,Mother suddenly last night expressed an urgent wish to see you. She has not been at all well during the last few days and Dr. Christopher, who has been here since last Saturday, says that if you can come down and see her he thinks that it would be a comfort to her. She is sleeping very badly, but is wonderfully tranquil and seems to like to be here again.If you can come down to-morrow afternoon I will send to meet the 5.32 at Ryston. That is quicker than going round to Munckston. If I don't hear I conclude that you are coming by that train.My love to Roddy.Your affectionate aunt,Adela Beaminster."
"Beaminster House,
April 27th.
My dear Rachel,
Mother suddenly last night expressed an urgent wish to see you. She has not been at all well during the last few days and Dr. Christopher, who has been here since last Saturday, says that if you can come down and see her he thinks that it would be a comfort to her. She is sleeping very badly, but is wonderfully tranquil and seems to like to be here again.
If you can come down to-morrow afternoon I will send to meet the 5.32 at Ryston. That is quicker than going round to Munckston. If I don't hear I conclude that you are coming by that train.
My love to Roddy.
Your affectionate aunt,
Adela Beaminster."
Rachel showed the letter to Roddy.
"I'm so glad," she said, "I've been hoping that she'd send for me. I've felt, ever since that day, that I should never be easy again if I hadn't the chance to tell her that I see now that I—that we—were wrong."
"She's never answered my letter," said Roddy. "Perhaps she wasn't well enough to write. Yes, I'm glad you're going, Rachel."
She was moved by many emotions, the old lady dying, the house in whose shadow she had spent so many of her timid, angry, adventurous young years, the thrill that the thought of her child gave her now at every vision of the world, the knowledge that in Roddy she, at last, had someone in her life to whom, after every absence, however short, she was eager to return—these things shone with new, wonderful lights around her journey.
The April evenings were lengthening and the dusks were warm and scented. The little station lay peacefully in the heart of green fields; across the sky, washed clean of every colour, a dark train of birds slowly, lazily took their flight, trees were dim with edges sharp against the sky-line, a dog barking in the distance gave rhythm to the stillness. Rachel, driving through the falling dark, felt, as she had felt it when she was a small child, the august colour and space and dignity of the first vision of the great house, white as a ghost now under the first stars, speaking to her with the old voice, fountains that splashed in gardens, the river that ran at the end of the sloping lawns, the chiming clock that rang out the hour as she drove up to the door.
Aunt Adela, Uncle John, Dr. Chris, Lizzie, they were all there, and their presences made less chill the dominating reason for their assembly.
Over all the house the shadow fell. The wide, high rooms, the long picture gallery, the comfortless grandeur of a house that had not found, for some years, many human creatures to lighten it, these echoed and flung forwards and backwards the note of suspense, of pause, of impending crisis.
But Rachel spent one of the happiest evenings of her life with Uncle John and Christopher. She knew that Uncle John had had a short but terrible interview with her grandmother, that he had been charged with treachery and dishonour and every traitorous wickedness.
A week ago, when he had told her this, he had been the picture of despair and shame. "I hadn't meant her to know. She wasn't to come into it at all. And then that she should meet him at Roddy's on that very afternoon.... There's nothing bad enough for me." But he had added with a strange note of defiance so unlike the old Uncle John: "I had felt it my duty, Rachel ... to speak to Francis. I had felt it the right thing to do. I had felt it very strongly."
Then he had been overwhelmed, now he was once more at peace, and tranquil.
"It's all right," he told Rachel. "I've been forgiven. I think she's forgiven all of us.
"She wouldn't listen when I wanted to tell her how sorry I was. She seems now not to care."
"She's never forgiven anyone anything before," said
Rachel.
"Hush, my dear, I don't think you ought to say that. We've never understood her, any of us. She's always been beyond us. You'll realize to-morrow, Rachel, how wonderful, howwonderfulshe is!"
But he was very happy. He had his old Rachel back, the old Rachel whom he had expected never to see again. She sat between him and Christopher, at dinner, no longer fierce and ironical, with sudden silences and swift angers, but affectionate, sympathetic, happy.
"Mother will see you to-morrow," Adela told her. "She's glad that you've come. The morning's rather a bad time for her. Could you stay for the whole day?"
"Of course," Rachel said.
At the end of the evening she went up to Lizzie's room; when midnight rang from the tower they parted, but first, Rachel said:
"Lizzie, I wonder whether you realize what you've been—to all of us—to me of course ... but to the others—to the whole family."
"Oh! Nonsense!"
"Roddy was speaking about it yesterday. He said that you were the most wonderful person in all the world for making all the difference without saying or doing anything—by just being there."
"Oh, Roddy thinks everybody——"
"But this is what I'm coming to. You can't yourself know how much difference you make to everyone. But there's just this.... Roddy feels and I feel that when—He—comes (of course it'll be a boy) we'd rather have you for his friend than anyone in the whole world. You will—you will be, won't you?"
"My dear—I shouldthinkso. I'll whack him and bath him and snub him and teach him his letters—anything you like." Then she added, rather gravely:
"There's one thing, Rachel, I've wanted to say for some time. I want you to know definitely, that all wounds are closed now, everything's healed—about Mr. Breton, I mean. I was afraid that you might think I still cared.... That's all ended, closed up, that little episode.
"You needn't be afraid, Rachel. I'm happier, I'm freer than I've ever been in my life.... Good night, my dear. Your friendship is more to me than any number of heart-burnings.... I was always meant to be independent, you know...."
It was very strange to Rachel, who had been, on so many, many evenings, to that other room, to pause now outside this new door, to knock with the house solemn and still around her, to hear Dorchester's voice, then, with the old hesitation and—yes—with some of the old fear, to enter.
She had considered what she would say. Coming down in the train she had turned it over and over—her apology, her submission, her cry: "See, I'm different—utterly different from the Rachel whom you knew.... I was a prig of the very worst. I deserved everything you thought of me. Just say you forgive me even though you can't like me." This was the kind of thing that, in the train, had seemed possible enough; now, with the opening of the door and that sharp recurrence of the old thrill, she was not at all sure that she wanted to be submissive and affectionate. "I don't feel fond of her—nothing could make me—there are too many things...."
Space and silence saluted Rachel. Two great mirrors ran from floor to ceiling, high windows flooded the room with light and everything seemed to be intended only for such a situation as this—the very house, the grounds, the colour of the day had arranged themselves, in their purity and air and silence, about the central figure. The Duchess lay in a long low chair before the window; she was wrapped in white shawls and thick rugs covered her body; Dorchester, the same stern, unbending Dorchester, said gravely to Rachel, "Good afternoon, my lady. I hope that you are well," then moved into another room.
The Duchess had not stirred at the sound of the closing doors, nor at Dorchester's voice, nor at Rachel's approach. She was gazing out, beyond the windows, to the expanse of sunlit country, fields that sloped towards the river, an orchard, white with blossom, running down the hill, its colour, dazzling, almost visibly trembling against the sky.
Rachel had only seen her in the Portland Place rooms, with the china dragons, the gold ornaments, the red lacquer bed, the blazing wall-paper. It had seemed then that she must have those things around her, that she needed the colour and extravagance to support her flaming passion for life, so curbed and shackled by disease.
Their absence made her older, feebler, more human, but also grander and more impressive. Rachel had always feared her, but despised herself for her fear; now she was in the presence of something that made her proud to be afraid.
She thought that she might be asleep, so she moved, very quietly, a chair forward near the window and, sitting down, waited. The only sound in all the world was the steady splash—splash—splash of the fountain below, the only movement the stealthy creeping of the long shadows, flung by white boulder clouds, across the shining fields.
Suddenly, without turning her head, the Duchess spoke.
"Very good of you, Rachel. I hoped that you would come."
Her voice was weak, her words indistinct as though she were speaking through muffled shawls, but, nevertheless, behind them the presence of the old dominating will was to be discerned, but now it was a will quiescent, struggling no longer for power.
"I would have come before if you had sent for me. I'm so glad that you did."
"I can't talk for very long, my dear, and I don't suppose that you want to spend hours in my company any more than you've ever done. No, you needn't protest. We're neither of us here for compliments.... But there's something that I must say to you. Christopher allows me half an hour."
"I hope you're better—that being here has done you good."
"Better? Nonsense. I don't want to be better. That's all over and done with. I had another stroke three days ago and the next one will finish me. So don't pretend. You used to be honest enough. I've asked you to come because I want to speak to you about Roddy."
"He wrote," Rachel said.
"Yes. I got his letter. I couldn't reply. I can't write myself and I won't have anyone else do it for me. Besides, there was nothing to write about. He said he was sorry about that little conversation we all had together the other day."
"And I—" Rachel began eagerly, "I was so sorry. I've been longing to tell you—it was all wrong, but Roddy has no imagination. He didn't realize in the least——"
"Ah, my dear. I expect I know Roddy a great deal better than you do. He'll do the same sort of thing to you, one day. He's got the devil in him and will always have it, however much you coddle him or let him lie there thinking over his sins. Do you suppose I'd have been so fond of Roddy all these years if I hadn't known him capable of such little revenges? I liked it. There was no need to write to me and he knew it—but I'm afraid you influence him a good deal."
Rachel coloured. "I hope——"
"Oh yes, you do, and that's exactly why I wanted to see you."
She turned then and, very carefully, very slowly, her eyes searched Rachel's face.
"I let him marry you, you know. I thought it would be good for you. If I'd guessed the effect that you'd have had upon him I'd have prevented it."
Rachel's anger was rising.
"What effect?"
"He's begun to worry about other people—a fatal thing with a man like Roddy who was meant to do things, not think about them. But, anyway, that's all too late now.... Waste of time discussing it.... What I wanted you for is this——"
Her eyes left Rachel's face and returned to the window.
"You're the one person now that influences him and you will always be so. I can see ahead well enough. Poor Roddy ... and he might have been a fine man. All the same, I admire him for it; there are things about you I could have liked if I'd wanted to find them, but we've been fighting from the beginning until now—when it's the end ..." She caught her breath, stayed for an instant struggling for words, then went on:
"We can call a truce now. We don't like one another, but just at the moment you're moved a little because I'm feeble and shall be dead in a fortnight. That disturbs you.... It needn't. Some months ago a moment did come when I realized that I should die soon. I hated it—I fought and struggled with all my might ... but now that it has come it doesn't matter. Nothing matters. I regret nothing. I've had my time. I hate the new generation, the manly woman and the soft man with all this sentimental nonsense about caring for other people. Think of yourself, fight for yourself, keep up your pride—that's the only way the world's ever been run. You're a sentimentalist and you're making one of Roddy.... Nonsense it all is.... But all this isn't what I really wanted to say." She turned back and her eyes, as again they held Rachel, were softer.
"Roddy's been my only weakness. I've loved that boy and he's far too good and fine for a wobbler like yourself. That's why I hated it the other day. I couldn't bear that he should see me beaten by the pair of you, both of you thinking yourself so noble with your fine confessions—not that I believe a word that you said—but it was clever of you. Youareclever and know how to manage men.
"Yes, that hurt me, but afterwards I loved him all the better, I believe. I'd rather he hadn't written me that soppy letter, but that was your doing, of course.... But listen. After I'm gone, I want Roddy to think of me kindly. He's going to think very much what you make him. It's in your hands. You, when you've got past this sentimental moment, will hate the memory of me. It's natural that you should and I'm sure I don't mind. But I want you to leave Roddy alone. If he likes to think of me kindly, let him. Don't blacken his mind to me. I wish to feel—my only weakness I do believe—that Roddy will be fond of my memory. That rests with you."
She stopped with a little final movement of her head as though, having said what had been in her mind for a long while, she was finished, absolutely, with it all, and wanted no word more with any human being.
Rachel answered quietly: "You've said some rather hard things. You mustn't feel that I'd ever try to make Roddy think badly of you. That's not fair.... I'm not very proud of myself, but you don't understand me. You've always been determined not to—and perhaps, in the same way, I've not understood you. We're different generations, that's what it really is.
"But over Roddy wecanmeet. I didn't love him when I married him, but I do now, and we're going to have a child.... That will make us both very happy, I expect. You love Roddy and I love him. You needn't be afraid that I'll harm his memory of you."
Her voice was trembling and she was very near to tears. She would have liked to have said something that would have offered some terms of peace between them, something upon which, afterwards, she might look back with comfort. For her that hostility seemed, in the face of death, so small and poor a thing.
But no words would come.
Her grandmother, in a voice that was very weak, said:
"Thank you, Rachel; that's a great relief to me. That's good of you ... and now, my dear, I think Christopher would say that I'd talked enough. Good night."
Rachel knew that this was their last meeting, that here was the absolute conclusion of all the years of warfare that there had been between them.
There was nothing to say.... She bent down and kissed the dry cheek, waited for an instant, but there was no movement.
"Good night, grandmamma," she said. "I hope that you'll be better to-morrow," then softly stole away.
The Duchess lay very still, watching the shadows as they crept across the fields. They were evening shadows now, for the sky, pink like the inside of a shell, had no clouds upon its surface.
She would not get up again; this evening should be the last to see her gaze upon the world. It was too fatiguing and all energy had flowed from her, leaving her without desire, without passion, without regret, without fear. Very dreamily and at a great distance figures and scenes from her past life hovered, halted, and passed. But she was not interested, she had forgotten their purpose and meaning, she did not want to think any more.
The splashing of the fountain was phantasmal and very far away.
The long black shadow crept up the field. She watched it. At the top of the red ridge of field, against the sky-line, very sharp and clear, was a gate, golden now in the sun. When the shadow caught it she would go to bed ... and she would never get up again.
She waited lazily, indifferently. The gate was caught; the last gleams of the sun had left the orchard and the evening star glittered in a sky very faintly green.
She touched a bell at her side and Dorchester appeared.
"I'll go to bed, Dorchester."
"Very well, Your Grace."
"I shan't get up again. Too much trouble." She turned away from the window and closed her eyes.
"'Everybody came in to dinner in the best of spirits.... Everything was discussed.'"—Inheritance.
"'Everybody came in to dinner in the best of spirits.... Everything was discussed.'"—Inheritance.
The Duchess of Wrexe died on the morning of May 2nd at a quarter-past three o'clock. The evening papers of that day and the morning papers of the next had long columns concerning her, and these were picturesque and almost romantic. She appealed as a figure veiled but significant, hidden but the landmark of a period—"Nothing was more remarkable than the influence that she exercised over English Society during the thirty years that she was completely hidden from it"—or again, "Although disease compelled her, for thirty years, to retire from the world, her influence during that period increased rather than diminished."
It must be confessed, however, that London Society was not moved to its foundations by the news of her death. People said, "Oh! that old woman; gone at last, I see. She's been dying for years, hasn't she? Quite a power in her day ..." Or, "Oh, the Duchess of Wrexe is dead, I see. I must write to Addie Beaminster. Don't expect the family will miss her much—awful old tyrant, I believe ..." or "I say, see Johnnie Beaminster's old lady's gone? She kept the whip-hand ofhimin his time.... Damned glad he'll be, I bet."
Two years earlier and it would not have been thus, but now there was the War (daily the relief of Mafeking was frantically anticipated) and fine regal majesty, sitting dignified in a solemn room, irritated the world by its quiescence.
"What we're needing now is for everyone to get a move on. No use sitting around." A few carefully selected American phrases can very swiftly kill a great deal of dignity and tradition.
In the Beaminster camp itself there was an unexpressed disappointment. They had grown accustomed to thinking of her as a fine figure, sitting there where, rather fortunately, they were not compelled to visit her, but where, nevertheless, she had a grand effect. They had known, for a long time now, that she was not so well, but they had expected, in a vague way, that she would go on living for ever. They had been making, during the last two years, a succession of enforced compromises and now the crisis of her death showed them how far they had gone without knowing it.
"Things will never be the same as they were...." And in their hearts they said, "We're getting old—we aren't wanted as we once were."
Meanwhile there was a fine funeral down at Beaminster. The Queen was represented, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, all the heads of all the old families in England, artists and one or two very distinguished actor-managers (who looked far more sumptuous than anyone else present).... Everyone was there.
Christopher detected Mrs. Bronson and wondered what the Duchess would think of it if she knew: Brun, also, although Christopher did not see him, flashed upon them from the Continent, was present, neat and solemn and immensely observant. It was all admirable and worthy of the best English traditions.
"She was a fine figure," said the Prime Minister, who had known her and disliked her intensely. "We shall never see her like again," but his sigh was nearer relief than regret.
Christopher, three days after the funeral, went to have tea with Roddy and Rachel. He was a man of great physical strength and had never had "nerves" in his life, but he was feeling, just now, tired out. He had not realized, in the least, during all these years, the part that that old woman played in his life, and he found that his whole scheme of things was now disorganized and without vitality. It was vitality that she had given him, a tiresome, troublesome, irritating vitality perhaps, but, nevertheless a fire, an energy, a driving curiosity.
He would capture it again, his eagerness to investigate, to assist, to prophesy, but it would never any more be quite the same energy—everyone with whom she had had anything to do would find life now a little different....
Some weeks before her death Roddy had sent for him. "I'm awfully upset, Christopher," he said and then he had told him about the scene in his rooms and had begged to know the truth. "I hear she's much worse—she's had a stroke—I wrote to her and she hasn't answered me. Christopher, tell me truthfully, was it her comin' to me that day and all the kick-up and everythin' that made her so much worse?"
Christopher had reassured him—"Quite honestly, if she'd asked my leave to let her go out that afternoon I'd not have granted it. But as it turned out she wasn't a bit the worse. I saw her directly afterwards—she told me all about it. She was rather grimly pleased. Mind you, it marked, I think, a kind of crisis. As she put it to me she saw that afternoon that the whole scheme of things had gone out of her hands and that the new generation didn't want her—But I think she was glad to have it settled for her, she was tired of it all, her struggle to keep it had been much earlier.
"She just wasn't going to bother any more and she might have gone on in that sort of way for years."
But although he had thus reassured Roddy he was not, in his heart, so certain. He seemed to see a long chain of events (he dated his own observation of them from the time of Rachel's coming out), that had led both Rachel and the Duchess to the climax of their actual challenge one to another. It was not that that meeting in Roddy's house had been of itself so important, it was rather that the fates had selected it as a definite culmination of the struggle. That meeting stood for a sharp visualization of much more than the personal conflict.
She had been glad to go, he did not in any way see her death as a tragedy, but her departure had marked the opening of a new period, a new personal history for the remaining characters, ultimately perhaps a new social epoch for everybody—
Meanwhile he was happy about Roddy and Rachel for the first time since their marriage and, as he was a man who lived in the lives of his friends, their happiness meant his own.
He found Lord John with Roddy, Rachel was with Aunt Adela, but "would be back for tea." Lord John, rather solemn and awkward in black clothes, was demanding comfort and assistance from his friends. His trouble was that he did not miss his mother as fundamentally as he desired, and that, at the same time, life was now most terribly different. His brothers, Vincent and Richard, had instantly after the funeral adapted themselves, with gravity and assurance, to the new conditions.
Lord John had never adapted himself to anything, but had fitted his stout body into the soft places that life had offered to him and had been placidly grateful for their softness. Only once had he shown energy of his own initiative and that had been in the matter of his nephew Francis, and of that now he did not dare to think.
He could never, so long as he lived, forget the slightest detail of that horrible quarter of an hour with his mother when she discovered his iniquity—and yet, even now, he felt, obscurely but obstinately, that he had done right. Nevertheless he would never again take life into his own hands: upon that he was absolutely resolved. What he needed now was reassurance from his friends. He had always before found that life arranged itself about him in a comfortable way and he confidently expected that it would do so now, but meanwhile he must have kind looks and words from somebody. He was a man who hailed with joy the opportunity of bestowing affection upon a friend who was not likely, at a later time, to rebuff him. He had never been quite sure of Rachel—she was so strange and uncertain—but upon Roddy, helpless, good-natured, and a man of his own world, he felt that he could rely. He spent therefore many hours at Roddy's side, rather silent, smiling a great deal, playing chess with him, sticking little flags on the War Map.
At times, as he sat there, he would think of his mother, of the Portland Place house shortly to be sold, of a world altered and alarming, and then he would wonder how long the time would be before he might again take up his old habits, his old houses, his old comforts, and then his fat cheerful face would gather wrinkles upon its surface. "It's after a thing like this that a feller gets old—Richard and Adela and I—We'll have to make up our minds to it."
Christopher found them busied with the map, discussing the probable hour of Mafeking's relief. Lord John looked at Christopher a little anxiously, perhapshewas going to be down uponhim! But Christopher was a very quiet and genial Christopher. He sank down into a chair with a sigh of comfort, waved his hand to them.
"Don't you mind me. I'm tired to death. Was up all last night with a case——"
"You see," said Roddy, "there's Ramathlabama. Well—Plumer lost a lot o' men there and they say his crowd have had fever too and there ain't much to hope for there—now Roberts——"
But Lord John's attention was distracted. He wished to be quite sure that Christopher did not regard him with severity.
"You look fagged out, Christopher."
"I am!" said Christopher, smiling.
"I'm feeling a bit done up, too. Think I'll take Adela abroad somewhere for a little."
"I should," said Christopher. "Excellent thing for both of you."
"Now where do you suggest?"
"Oh, anywhere different from London. Go on a cruise——"
"Adela's a bad sailor—wretched. I'm not very good myself."
They discussed places. Christopher was more than friendly. There had been occasions when he had been the stern family physician and had treated Lord John with some severity. Now there was implied a new comradeship as though they had passed through perils together and would have always between them in the future a strong bond of friendship.
John felt that the atmosphere at this moment was so friendly and comforting that he would not risk the disturbance of it.
He got up.
"Think I'll be going on, Roddy. Don't like leaving Adela alone. Rachel will be on her way here now, so I'll be getting back."
He was staying with Adela at a quiet little hotel in Dover Street.
"Well, good-bye for the moment, Christopher. Adela'd be very glad if you'd come in and see her. Come and have lunch with us to-morrow."
"Thanks, I will."
He stood, for a moment, looking out upon the park, warm and comfortable under the sun. He thought of Rachel. He had regained the old Rachel the other night at Beaminster—dear Rachel!
Rachel, Roddy, Christopher—how nice they all were! There was, he felt, a new feeling of security amongst them all. Yes, he reallydidbelieve that life, now, was going to be very comfortable and safe and easy....
"So long, Roddy."
He beamed happily upon them and went.
Jacob, the dog, came in from his afternoon walk, very grave, paying no attention to Christopher, but going at once and lying, full length, near Roddy's sofa, his head between his paws, his eyes fixed upon his master.
"What's happened to all your other dogs?" asked Christopher. "They must be missing you very badly."
"Oh, they're down at Seddon, got a jolly good man there whom I can trust—don't think they miss me.Thisbeggar would though. Funny thing, Christopher—when I was goin' about and all the rest of it I thought nothin' of this dog, couldn't see why Rachel made such a fuss of it—now—why I don't know how I'd ever get on without it, so understandin' and quiet with it all too. Nothin' like a trouble of some sort for showin' who's worth what, whether they're dogs or people...."
"I hope the funeral did Rachel no harm," Christopher said.
"Not a bit of it. She'd had a last interview with the old lady and knew, after that, she'd never see her again. In a way she hasn't felt it, but in a way too I believe she'd like to have all the old time over again and see whether she couldn't manage it better ... she said to me she'd never understood the old woman until that last talk with her, not that there was much love lost between 'em even then. Was Breton there?"
"No—He scarcely could go, in the circumstances."
"Funny feller, Breton. What puzzles me is what did he go and give up Rachel so easily for? I couldn't tell you why, but that day he came here I was as sure as I was lyin' here that whatever there was between them was finished. I wouldn't have said what I did, seemed to take it so quietly, if I hadn't seen in a minute it was all over."