"Que désirez-vous savoir plus précisément?'Mais le porte-drapeau répondit:'Non, pas maintenant ... apres ...'"A l'Extrême Limite.Artzybachev.
"Que désirez-vous savoir plus précisément?'Mais le porte-drapeau répondit:'Non, pas maintenant ... apres ...'"
A l'Extrême Limite.Artzybachev.
That afternoon had been a difficult one for Roddy. He felt, lying so eternally on his back, the vagaries of the English weather. There were days when the wind was in the park, when sunshine flashed and flung shadows, when the water of the pond glittered and every duck and baby thrilled with life. Then it was very hard to lie still, and memories of days—riding days and swimming days and hunting days—would persecute him. But there were dark wet hours when his room seemed warm and cosy—then he was happy.
On a day of thunder, like this afternoon, his one desire was to get out; never had he felt the bars of his cage so sharply, with so intense an irritation as on to-day.
Massiter broke the chain of his thoughts and he was glad. Four days now and Rachel had said nothing; many times he had thought that she was going to speak, but the moments had passed. He had not slept for two nights—over and over he turned the question as to what he was to do.
Had he been up and about, some solution would have naturally come, he thought, but, lying here, thinking so interminably with one's body tied to one like a stone, nothing seemed clear or easy.
This was the worst day in the world to make thinking simple. The leaden sky pressed one down and held one's brain.
"I'm goin' to have a jolly bad evenin'," said Roddy, "I know I am."
Massiter was a relief; there was no need to talk whilst Massiter was there and his fat cheerful body restored one's balance. The same, sensible world that had once been Roddy's own and had, of late, slipped away from him, was restored when Massiter was there. Nevertheless one hour of Massiter was enough. Roddy could detect in Massiter's attitude that pity moved him to additional cheerfulness, and this was irritating; then Massiter's clumsy efforts to avoid topics that might be especially tactless—that also was tiresome.
Roddy was glad when Rachel and John Beaminster came down and relieved him, and then the moment arrived when he thought again that Rachel was going to speak, and perhaps if he had made a movement of affection he would have caught her, but always when some expression of feeling was especially demanded of him did he feel the least able to produce it.
The whole relationship between them depended on such slender incidents; one word from anybody and there would be no more confusion or doubt; the situation had the maddening tip-toe indecision of a dream.
"I'm going to have a bad time to-night," he thought. "It's no use giving in to the thing." He faced it deliberately; if only he could think clearly, but the damned weather.... Well, he and Jacob must face the night as best they could.
The dog lay flat near the window, moving restlessly under the close air, but pricking his ears at every movement that Roddy made, ready to come to him at any instant.
"That old dog cares for me more than anyone else does—and I only appreciated him after I was laid up—Rummy thing!" Roddy was conscious that high above him, somewhere near the ceiling, hovered a Creature, born of this damnable evening, and that did he allow himself to relax for a moment, down that hovering Creature would come. Very faintly, as it were from a great distance, he could catch its whisper in his ear. "What's the good of this?... What's the good of this? What did you always say? What would you have said about anyone placed as you are now? Better for him to get out."
"Damn you, shut up...."
He was in great physical pain, the pain that always came to him when he was tired out, but that was nothing to the mental torture. Twisted figures—Rachel, Breton, himself, the Duchess—passed before him, mingling, separating, sometimes coming to him as though they were there with him in the room. He had not, even on the day that had told him that he would never get up again, felt so near to utter defeat as he was now. He had been proud of himself, proud of his resistance to what, with another man, might have appeared utter catastrophe, proud of his dogged determination. "To have the devil beat...." To-night this same devil was going to be too much for him, did he not fight his very hardest, and the cruelty of it was that this weather took all one's vitality out of one, drained one dry, left one a rag.
"Curse you, get out," he muttered, clenching his teeth, then whistled and brought Jacob instantly to his side. The dog jumped on to the long sofa, taking care not to touch his master's legs. Then he moved up into the hollow of Roddy's arm and lay there warm against Roddy's side.
"What's the use?" The Creature was close to him, his breath warm and damp like the night air. "She doesn't care for you. You can see that she doesn't. She's been in love with her cousin for ever so long, only you didn't know. Wouldn't she have told you that she was a friend of his if there had been nothing more than that in it? What a fool you are—lying here all broken up, simply in the way of her happiness, no good to yourself or anyone else."
"I wish the thunder would come and smash you up...." Then, more desperately, "What if that's right? if I were to clear out...."
"After all," said the Creature, "you've never before seen yourself as you really are. You thought that you were all right because you could use your legs and arms. Now you know what you are—You're nothing—only something that many people must trouble to keep alive—useless—useless! Why not?"
Yes, Roddy did see himself to-night, sternly; as in the old days he might have looked upon someone and judged him unfit, so now he would confront himself. "It's quite true. You've got nothing—nothing to show, you've no intellect, you're selfish, you despise all kinds of people for all kinds of reasons. You've stood a little pain—so can any man. You'd better get out—no one will know."
"Yes," said the Creature, very close to him now. "You can do it so easily. That morphia that you've had once or twice—an overdose. No one would suppose.... She would never know, and you'd be rid for ever of all this wrong and you'd free so many people from so much trouble."
"Jacob, my son," he whispered, "do you hear what they're saying?"
He went right down, down to the depths of a pit that closed about his head, filled his eyes with darkness, was suffocating.
"Yes, he's beaten," he heard them say. "We've succeeded at last. We've succeeded...."
But they had not.
With an effort of will that was beyond any power that he had believed himself to possess, he pulled himself up.
"There's one thing you've forgotten." He gasped as he came struggling up.
He took the Creature in his hands, wrung its neck and flung it out of the window.
"There's one thing you've forgotten. There's my love for her. That's strong enough for anything. That's reason enough for living even though she doesn't want it. I'll beat you all with that ... go back to hell, the lot of you."
"I must never let it happen like that again. What a state this weather can get one into...."
But he had come back to his senses. His brain was clear; he could think now. The great point was that it was of no use to think of himself in this affair. "Rachel, Rachel's the only thing that matters."
Then upon that came the decision. "That old woman's got to pay for it. She's been wantin' to give Rachel a bad time. She's tried to. Her mouth's got to be stoppedhoweverold and ill she is!"
He was fiercely, furiously indignant with her—vanished, it appeared, all his affection, the sentiment of years. "I've got to defend Rachel from her, no knowin'whomshe's been tellin'." Roddy still found it impossible to admit more than one idea at a time, and the idea now was that "he must stop the old lady dead."
His brain came round now to Breton, and halted there. What kind of fellow, after all, was he? What, after all, did Roddy know about him that he could so easily condemn him?
To-night, fresh from the battle with the Creature, Roddy's view of the world was painted with new colours. The man had been condemned for things that his father had done, and one recognized, here in London, how difficult it was for a fellow to climb up once he had been pushed down.
Was the man in love with Rachel? Well, Roddy did not know that he could blame him for that? ... difficult enough, surely, for anyone not to be. Butwashe? What, after all, was he like?
Then swiftly the answer came to him. See the man.... Talk to him ... know him. He stared at the idea, felt already new energy in his bones and a surging victory over the lethargy of this awful evening at the suggestion of some definite action.
But see him, yes, and see him here and see him soon. His impatience leapt now hotly upon him; he pulled Jacob's ears. "That's the ticket, old boy, ain't it? See what kind of a ruffian this is! My word, but wouldn't the old lady hate it if she knew?"
But, and at this the room flared with the thrill of it, why not have her here to meet him? Confront her with him.
He was cool now. Here was matter that needed careful handling. Still as vigorous now as in his most active days was his impatience. Was something in the way, cobwebs, barriers, obstacles of any sort? Brush them aside, beat them down!
Here was a plan. Here, too, most happily at hand, was the Duchess's punishment.
All these years had the old lady been refusing to set eyes upon her grandson, therefore, how dramatic would it be were she confronted with him unexpectedly. Out of the heart of that meeting would come most assuredly the truth about Rachel.
There, in a flash, solid, substantial, beautifully compact, magnificently splendid his plan lay before him. He would have them there. Rachel, the Duchess, this Breton, all of them there before him. They should come ignorant, unprepared, Breton first, then Rachel, then the Duchess.
Having them there he would quite simply say that someone had been pouring into his ears a story of friendship to which he might take objection.
He would then, very quietly.... But here he paused. Oh! he knew what he would do. He smiled at the thought of the success of his plan.
When he had made his little speech to them all there would never again be any danger of scandal. The old lady would never again have any single word to say.
The thought that Rachel might be angry at his deceptive plot did not disturb him. When she had heard his little speech she would not say that—and here, suddenly, he knew how deeply, in his heart, he trusted her.
But what if, after all, it should be a lie on the old lady's part? Was he not doing wrong to take things so far without a question to anyone else, Christopher or Lizzie Rand?
But this was Roddy. Here both his pride and his impatience were concerned. He did not wish that the business should pass beyond its present bounds. He could not go from person to person asking them whether they trusted his wife. And then he could not wait. Here was a plan that killed the danger at one blow, something direct, open, with sharply defined issues. Oh! Rachel should see how he loved her!
"All these days," he said to Jacob, "I've been worryin' about her, but I knew—yes, I knew—that she was comin' to me all right." He thought of a day long before and of Miss Nita Raseley and of a meeting in the garden. "I'll show her that I can forgive, too, if it's necessary. Not because I care so little, but, by God, because I care so much. No," he thought, shaking his head over it, "she doesn't love me, not yet. But she's beginnin' to belong to me. She's coming."
There was also the thought that the Duchess was an old, sick woman and that the scene might be too much for her strength. "Not she," he grimly decided, "that's the kind of thing she lives on. Anyway, I owe her one. Didn't do her any harm comin' to me the other day, won't do her any harm now.Iknow her."
His scheme must be carried out at once. He felt that he could not wait a moment. He would have liked to have had them all there, before him, to-night.
"Why, by this time to-morrow, old boy, it will all be straight. Thank God, my brain cleared, in spite of this damn weather."
He rang the bell and Peters, large, solemn, but bending a loving eye upon his master, appeared.
"Writing things, Peters."
He wrote swiftly two notes.
"Very close to-night, sir."
"Yes, Peters, very."
"You're looking better, sir ... less tired. Your dinner will be up in a quarter of an hour. Nice omelette, nice little bird, nice fruit salad, sardines on toast."
"Thank you, Peters, I'm hungry as—as anything."
"Very glad to hear it, sir."
"I want these two notes sent by hand instantly, do you see?"
"Yes, Sir Rod'rick."
"At once."
"Yes, Sir Rod'rick."
Roddy lay back and surveyed the black sky.
"Nasty storm comin' up—look here, Peters, give me that bird book over there. That big one. Thanks."
Peters retired.
Meanwhile Her Grace had found this close evening very trying. That visit to Roddy had not harmed her physically, but had made her restless. The very fact that it had not hurt her, urged her to have more of such evenings. Having shown them once what she could do she would like to show them all again, and yet with this new energy was also lethargy so that she sat, thinking about her adventures, but felt that it would be difficult to move.
Then this thundery afternoon really did drag the strength from her. She allowed her fire to fall into a few golden coals, she allowed Dorchester to move her from her high-back chair on to a sofa that was near the wide window, now flung open. She could see roofs, chimneys, towers of churches, all dingy grey beneath the leaden sky.
She lay there, a book on her lap, but not reading; she was thinking of Roddy. For perhaps the very first time in all her life she regretted something that she had done. Nobody but Roddy could have called this regret out of her and now, she would confess it to no living soul, but she lay there, thinking about it, remembering every movement and gesture of his, seeing always that, at the end, he had wanted her to go, had, as her sharp old eyes had seen, hurried her away.
There had been so splendid a chance, she had shown her love for him so magnificently that he could not but have been touched and moved had she only left Rachel alone. Ah! that girl! again, again.... The Duchess looked at the plain roofs that lay dry and sterile beneath the torrid sky and wished, not by any means for the first time, that she had left that marriage with Roddy alone.
Roddy would have married some other girl, Nita Raseley or such, and he would have been mine ... mine!
Hard and utterly selfish in all her ordinary dealings with a world that she professed to despise but really adored, her love for Roddy was a little golden link to a thousand softnesses and, as she termed them, weak indulgences. Why had she loved him so? She was like the grim pirate of some conventional fiction. See him on his dark vessel surveying with cold and cruel eye the beautiful captives provided by the stricken ship, on every side of him! See him select, for the very flavour that the contrast gave him, some ordinary slave from the crowd to whom he shows weak indulgence! So much blacker, he feels, does this kindness make his infamies.
But the Duchess's career as the dark pirate of her period was swiftly vanishing; the black hulk of her vessel remained, but upon its boards only the little slave was to be seen, and even he, with furtive eye, sought his way of escape.
Yes, on this torrid evening every soul in that vast city, surely, felt that he was alone, abandoned, in a desert of a world. But the fear that she was losing even Roddy brought the Duchess very close to panic. She had not grasped before how resolutely she had been using him to bolster up life for her, how important his friendly existence was for her.
Since his marriage that friendliness had grown, with every hour, weaker. Something she must do now to repair her error of the other day; she was even ready to pretend affection for her granddaughter if that would bring Roddy back to her.
She watched the sky and longed for the threatened storm to break; her bones were indeed old and feeble to-day, to move at all was an effort and, with it all, there was a sense of apprehension as though she were some terrified bird conscious of the hawk's approach, she who had, until now, been herself the hawk. She remembered the day when she had realized more poignantly than ever before, that the hour must come—and indeed was not far away—when she would inevitably meet death. She had loathed that realization, attempted to defy it, been defeated by it. Now on this evening, she suspected again the invasion of that same power. But to-night there was no resistance in her, she lay there, whitely submitting to the tyranny of any enemy. She could scarcely breathe; London, like a scaly dragon, flung its hot breath upon her and withered her defiance. She would have moved away from the window had not those grey roofs held her, by their ugly indifference, with a terrible fascination. "I'm going—I'm going—and they don't care. Just like that—just like that—long after I'm gone."
The evening slipped away and Dorchester, coming to her, thought that she was sleeping; she did not disturb her, but ordered her evening meal to be kept until she should wake.
The Duchess did sleep. She awoke to find, in the sky above the now vanishing roofs, a golden glow and in the room behind her the shaded lamps, the fire burning, and her table spread.
But she had had a horrible dream; she struggled to recall it and, even as she struggled, trembling seized her body as the vague horror that it had left behind it still thrilled and troubled her.
She could recollect nothing of her dream except this, that she had died, and that being dead, she was immediately aware that God awaited her. She could remember her frantic effort to reassert all those earthly convictions that had been based on the definite creed that the Duchess existed butnotGod. She had still with her the sensation of hurry and dismay, the dismal knowledge that she had only a moment with which to break down the discoveries of a lifetime and place new ones in her stead.
She had, above all, the horrible knowledge that her punishment was settled, that at last she was in the hands of a power stronger than herself and that nothing, nothing, nothing could help her.
She was frightened, but she knew not by what or by whom. She tried to tell herself that she had been dreaming, that this breathless evening was responsible, that she would be all right very soon. But she was seized by that terrible vague uncertainty that had been with her so much lately, uncertainty as to what was real and what was not. She looked at the French novel lying upon her lap; that was real, she supposed, and yet as she touched its pages her fingers seemed to seize upon nothing, only air between them.
The fits of trembling shook her from head to foot and yet she could scarcely breathe, so close and heavy was the night.
"That was only a dream—only a dream. Suppose it should be true though. What if Iwereto die—to-night?"
Dorchester came to her and was alarmed.
"Dinner is ready, Your Grace."
Her mistress did not answer, but lay there, looking through the open window and shivering.
"Your Grace will catch cold by that open window. I had better close it."
"It's stifling—stifling."
"Will you have dinner now?"
"No—no. Why do you worry me? I can eat nothing."
Dorchester was seriously alarmed; an evening like this might very easily.... She determined to send word round to Dr. Christopher.
She went away, gave directions about the dinner, saw that her mistress's bedroom was warm and comfortable.
She came back. The Duchess was sitting up, colour in her cheeks and her eyes sparkling. On her lap lay a note.
"I've had a dream, Dorchester—a horrid dream. I was disturbed for a moment. I think I will eat something after all."
"The way she goes up and down!" thought Dorchester. "Must say I don't like the look of her—not knowing her own mind, so unlike her—Who's the letter from, I wonder?"
It was the letter, plainly, that had done it. Sitting up and enjoying her soup, forgetting that black sky and the Dragon's scaly menace, the Duchess knew that that dream—that dream about God—had been as silly, as futile as dreams always are.
The note, brought to her by Norris and lying now beside her plate, had told her so. The note of course had been from Roddy. It said:
"Dear Duchess,I don't want to ask anything impossible of you, but, encouraged by your coming to me the other day and hearing that you took no harm from your expedition, I am wondering whether to-morrow afternoon about five you could come again and have tea with me. There is something about which you can help me—only you in all the world. If I don't hear from you I will conclude that you can come—five o'clock.Your affectionate friend,Roddy."
"Dear Duchess,
I don't want to ask anything impossible of you, but, encouraged by your coming to me the other day and hearing that you took no harm from your expedition, I am wondering whether to-morrow afternoon about five you could come again and have tea with me. There is something about which you can help me—only you in all the world. If I don't hear from you I will conclude that you can come—five o'clock.
Your affectionate friend,
Roddy."
That letter showed the perfection of his tactful understanding....
No absurd talk about her age, her feebleness, the weather, but simply it was taken for granted that of course she would be there. Well, of course, shewouldbe there—nothing should stop her. She was aware that Christopher, hearing that to-night she had not been so well, would certainly forbid her to move. He should, therefore, know nothing about it, nothing at all. His visit would be paid in the morning—she would have the afternoon to herself—Norris and Dorchester should help her to the carriage.
Christopher expected, on his arrival, to find her in a very bad way, exhausted by the closeness of the evening: it was possible that he might have to remain all night. He found her in bed, a lace cap on her head, a crimson dressing-gown about her shoulders, and all her rings glittering upon her fingers. An old-fashioned massive silver candlestick with six branches illuminated the lacquer bed, the black Indian chairs, the fantastic wall-paper. The windows were closed and the dry heat of the room was appalling.
She was in her mildest, most amiable mood, had enjoyed an excellent dinner, laughed her cracked, discordant laugh, was delighted to see him.
"Sit down, there, close to me. Have some coffee."
"No, thank you."
"Dorchester can bring it in a minute."
"No, really, thank you."
"Who sent for you?"
"Lord John."
"Yes, I thought so. Pretty state of things with them all hanging round like this waiting for me to die—never felt better in my life."
"So I see—delighted. I'll go."
"Not a bit of it. Stay and talk. I feel like telling someone what I think of things, although you've heard it all often enough before. But the truth is, Christopher, Ididhave a nasty dream—a very nasty dream—and the nastiest part of it was that I couldn't remember it when I woke up.
"But it's the weather—I was frightened for a minute although I wouldn't have anyone else know."
"But you had a good dinner."
"Splendid dinner, thank you."
She lay back in bed and looked at him; delightful to think that she would play a little game with him to-morrow; he would in all probability be angry when he knew—that would be very amusing; delightful, too, to think that, just when she was afraid that she had seriously alienated Roddy away from her, he should write and say that he needed her. She would go to-morrow and would be exceedingly pleasant to him and would reassure him about Rachel....
Yes, she had seldom felt so genial. She told Christopher stories of men and women whom she had known, wicked stories, gay stories, cruel stories, and her eyes twinkled and her fingers sparkled and her old withered face poked out above the dressing-gown, with the white hair, fine and proud beneath the lace cap.
Once she said to him: "You think all this queer, don't you?" waving her hand at the bed, the chairs, the paper. "This colour and the odds and ends and the rest."
"It's part of you," he said; "I shouldn't know you without them."
"I love them," she breathed. "Ilovethem. Oh! if I'd had my way I'd have been born when one could havepiledup and splashed it about and had it everywhere—jewels, clothes, processions—Ah! that's why I hate this generation that's coming; the generation that you believe in so devoutly, it's so ugly. It wears ugly things, it likes ugly people, it believes in talking about ugly morals and making ugly laws...." Then she laughed—"It's funny, isn't it? I had to use the age I was born into, I cut my cloth to it, but what a figure I'd have made in any century before the nineteenth. All the old times were best. You could command and see that you were obeyed.... None of your Individualism then, Christopher."
She was silent for a time and he said nothing. He was thinking about Breton, wondering where he was, feeling that he should not have let him go. She said suddenly:
"Christopher, do you think there's a God?"
"I know there is."
"Well, I know there isn't—so there we are. One of us will find that we've made a mistake in a few years' time."
He said nothing. At last she began again:
"You're sure of it?"
"Quite sure."
"So like you—and you get a deal of comfort from it, no doubt. But what kind of a God, Christopher?"
"A just God—a loving God."
"How any doctor can say that truthfully! The pain, the crime you must have seen——"
"Exactly. I've known, I suppose, of as much misery, as much agony, much wickedness as most men in a lifetime. I've never had a case under my notice that hasn't shown the necessity for pain, the necessity for struggle, for defeat, for disaster. If this life were all, still I should have had proof enough that a loving God was moving in the world."
She lay back, smiling at him.
"You're a sentimentalist of course. I've heard you talk before. You're wrong, Christopher, badly wrong. I shall prove it before you will."
"Well," he said, smiling back at her, "we'll see."
"Oh, yes, you're a sentimentalist of the very worst—I don't know that I like you the less for it. I'm an old pagan and it's served me all my life. Ah! there's the thunder!"
She sat up in bed, her cap pushed back, her skinny arms stretched out in a kind of ecstasy. "There! That's it! That's the kind of thing I like! There's your God for you, Christopher."
A flash of lightning flung the room into unreality.
"I'd hoped for one more good storm before I went. I've been waiting all day for this."
He never forgot the strange figure that she made; she displayed the excitement of a child presented with a sudden unexpected gift.
He himself had known many storms, but, perhaps because she now made so strange a central figure of this one, this always remained with him as the worst of his life. He had never heard such thunder and, as each crash fell upon them, he felt that she rose to it and exulted in it as though she were a swimmer meeting great ocean rollers.
There was at last a peal that broke upon them as though it had tumbled the whole house about their ears. Deafened by it he looked about him as though he had expected to find everything in the room shattered.
"Thatwas the best," she cried to him.
At last she lay back tired, and he bade her good night.
She held his hand for a moment. "I regret nothing," she said, "nothing at all. I've had a good time."
But, after he had left her, the sound of the rain had some personal fury about it that made her uneasy.
She called to Dorchester. "I think I'd like you to sleep here to-night, Dorchester. I may need you."
"Very well, Your Grace."
"After all," she thought as, the candles blown out, she lay and listened to the rain, "that dream may come back...."
"A place may abound in its own sense, as the phrase is, without bristling in the least."—The American Scene.Henry James.
"A place may abound in its own sense, as the phrase is, without bristling in the least."—The American Scene.
Henry James.
The storm savagely retreating left blue skies, spring, and the greenest grass the parks had ever displayed, behind it. Roddy, lying before his window, watched the pond, gleaming like blue grass but crisped by the breeze into a thousand ripples. Two babies ran, tumbled, screamed and shouted, and all the many-coloured ducks, the ducks with red bills, the ducks with draggled feathers, the ducks in grey and brown, chattered beneath the sun.
By midday a note had arrived from Breton saying that he would be with Roddy at half-past four; there was no word from the Duchess. He knew therefore that his plan had prospered. But, with those morning reflections that freeze so remorselessly the hot decisions of the night before, he was afraid of what he had done; he was afraid of Rachel.
He was afraid of Rachel because he recognized, now that he was on the brink of this plunge, how much deeper and more dangerous it might be for him than he had thought. During these last months he had been slowly capturing Rachel; that capture was the one ambition and desire of his life.
But in the very intensity and ardour of his desire he had learnt more surely than ever the strange contradictions that made her character. His accident had increased his own age and so emphasized her youth; she was ever so young, ever so impulsive; her seriousness was the seriousness of some very youthful spirit, who, guessing at the terrific difficulty of life, feels that the only way to surmount it is to close eyes blindly and leap over the whole of it at once. This was what he knew in his heart—although he would never have put it into words—as her adorable priggishness.
She had found her solution and everything must fit into it, but, since she had finally resolved it, nothing would fit into it at all—and there was the whole of Rachel's young history!
To Roddy one thing manifest was that a very tiny blunder might shatter the bond that was forming between them, and it was eloquent of a great deal that, whereas before in the Nita Raseley episode, it had been Rachel who feared the one false step, it was now Roddy. What it came to was that, in spite of everything, he was still unable to prophesy about her. She was still unrealized, almost untouched by him, that was partly why he loved her so.
Roddy's brain had been alive last night and ready to grapple with anything; to-day he felt stupid and confused. "We're in for a jolly good row," he thought, "far as I can see. There's no avoidin' it. Anyway, some clearin' up will come out of all of it."
So intent was he upon Rachel that he scarcely considered the Duchess. He had not very much imagination about people and made the English mistake of believing that everyone else saw life as he did. He had, for that very reason, never believed very seriously in the Duchess's passion for himself; he liked her indeed for her hardness and resented any appearance of the gentler motions—"She'll like tellin' us all what she thinks of it"—placedherin the afternoon's battle. He might have taken it all, had he chosen, as the most curious circumstance, that he should be "arranging things"—eloquent of the changed order of his life and of the new man that he was becoming.
He lay there all the morning, nervous and restless—Rachel had looked in for a moment and had told him that she was going to see Christopher, that she might not return to luncheon. He had fancied that, in those few moments, he had divined in her some especial thrill—"We're all going to be tuned up this afternoon."
If he found—and this was the question that he asked himself most urgently—that Rachel really had, in the competent interpretation of the term, "deserted" him for Breton, what would be his sensations? Being an Englishman he would, of course, horsewhip the fellow, divorce Rachel and lead a misanthropic but sensual existence for the rest of his days. But here the wild strain in Roddy counted. That is exactly what Roddy would not do. What was law for the man must be law also for the woman.
He had, on an earlier day, told her that were he to present her with a thousand infidelities, yet he would love her best and most truly, and therefore she must forgive him. Well, that should be true too for her.... Any episode with Breton seemed only an incident in the pursuit of her that Roddy had commenced on that day that he had married her.
And yet was not this readiness on his part to forgive her sprung from his conviction that she would have told him had she had so much to confess to him? Let her relations with Breton remain uncertain and shifting, then she might have found justification for her silence; let them once have found so definite a climax and she must have spoken—Roddy had indeed advanced in his knowledge both of her and himself since two years ago.
By the early afternoon he was in a pitiable state. Should he send notes to the Duchess and Breton telling them both that he was too unwell, too cross, too sleepy, too "anything" to see them? Should he retire to bed and leave Peters to make his excuses? Should he disappear and tell Rachel to deal with them?Whata scene there'd be between the three of them!
His illness had made a difference to his nerve, lying there on one's back took the grit away, gave one too much time to think, showed one such momentous issues.
On the events of this afternoon might hang all his life and all Rachel's!
His capture of her was indeed now to be put to the test!...
Rachel came into his room at four o'clock. She carried a great bunch of violets and a paper parcel.
She smiled across the room at him; a cap of white fur on her head, and the hand with the violets held also a large white muff.
"Roddy—I'm coming to have tea with you—alone. You'll be out to everyone, won't you? But first, see what I've brought you."
She was dreadfully excited, he thought, as though she knew already the kind of thing that awaited her. Her smile was nervous, and that trembling of her upper lip, as though she would, perhaps, cry and perhaps would laugh but really was not sure, always told him when she was afraid.
"See what I've brought you!" She put the violets down upon the table beside him—"Now! Look!" She undid the paper and held up to his gaze a deep, gleaming silver lustre bowl, a beautiful bowl because of its instant friendliness and richness and completeness—"I found it!" she said, "staring at me out of a shop window, demanding to be bought. I thought you'd like it."
She put it on his table, found water and filled it, then arranged the violets in it.
"Oh! my dear! it's beautiful!" he said, and then, with his eyes fixed upon her face, watched her arrange the flowers. But he brought out at last, "I'm afraid I can't promise to be alone for tea."
"Oh!" she stepped back from the flowers and looked at him. They faced one another, the silver bowl between them. She stood, as she always did, when she had something difficult to face, her long hands straight at her side, her hands slowly closing and unclosing, her eyes fixed upon some far distance.
"Roddy, please!" she said, "I do want to be alone with you this afternoon. I have a special, very special reason. I want to talk."
"You see——" he said.
"No," she cried impatiently. "Wemusthave this afternoon to ourselves. Tell Peters that you're too ill, too tired, anything. I'm sure, after all that storm last night, it would be perfectly natural if you were. Now, please, Roddy."
"I'm awfully sorry, Rachel dear. If I'd only known. If you'd only told me last night."
"I didn't know myself last night. How could I? But now—it's most awfully important, Roddy. I've—I've something to tell you."
His heart beat thickly, his eyes shone.
"Well, they won't stay long, I dare say."
"Who are they?"
"Oh! nobody—special. Friends——"
"Then if theyaren't specialput them off. Roddy dear, I beg you——"
"No, Rachel, I can't——"
"Well—you might——" For a moment it seemed that she would be angry. Then suddenly she smiled, shrugged her shoulders—at last, moved across and touched the violets; then, with a little gesture, bent down and kissed him.
"Well, my dear, of course you will have your way. But am I to be allowed to come or are these mysterious friends of yours too private—too secret?"
"Not a bit of it. I want you to come."
"I'll go and take my things off. I hope they'll come soon; I'm dying for tea, I've had such a tiring day, and last night——"
"How was last night? You haven't had time to tell me."
She was by the door, but she turned and faced him. "Oh! I was so silly. The weather upset me and I went and fainted at Lady Carloes'."
"Fainted!" His voice was instantly sharp with anxiety.
"Yes—in the middle of dinner.Sucha scene and Uncle Richard thought I let down the family dreadfully."
"I hope you went straight to bed—Ah! that was why you saw Christopher this morning!"
"Yes, that was why! No, I didn't come straight back last night—I went round to Lizzie's—I was frightened and felt that I couldn't come back all alone."
They were both of them instantly aware that someone else lived at 24 Saxton Square beside Miss Rand. There was a sharp little pause, during which they both of them heard their hearts say: "Oh! I hope you aren't going to letthatlittle thing matter!"
Then Roddy said—"Well, dear. I'm jolly glad youdidgo to Lizzie. I hate your fainting like that. What did Christopher say this morning?"
"Oh! nothing—I'll tell you later."
She was gone.
When she returned Peters was bringing in the tea and they could exchange no word. The spring was beginning, already the evenings were longer and a pale glow, orange-coloured, lingered in the sky and lit the green of the park with dim radiance. Within the room the fire crackled, the silver shone, the lustre bowl was glowing—
Rachel went across to the table, then staring out at the evening light said, "Roddy, whoareyour visitors?"
Peters answered her question by opening the door and announcing—
"Mr. Breton, my lady."
She took it with a composure that was simply panic frozen into stillness. She saw him come, straight from the square immobility of Peters, out to meet her, noticed that he looked "most horribly ill" and that his eyes cowered, as it were, behind their lashes, as though they feared a blow—she saw him catch the picture of her, hold her for an instant whilst his cheeks flooded with colour, then all expression left him; he walked towards her as though the real Francis Breton, after that first glance had turned and left the room, and only the lifeless husk of him remained.
For herself, after the word from Peters, her mind had flown to Roddy. He knew everything—there could no longer be doubt of that—but oh! how she turned furiously now upon the indecision that had allowed to surrender her courage and her self-respect! With that she wondered what it was that her grandmother had told him. Perhaps he believed worse than the truth. Perhaps he thought that nothing too bad....
And what, after all, did he intend to do? This meeting had sprung from some arranged plan and he had, doubtless, now, some end in view. Had he meditated some vengeance upon Breton? At all costs, he must be protected.
Meanwhile Breton had, apparently, taken it for granted that she had known about his coming.
"How do you do, Lady Seddon?" he said, shaking her hand.
"You don't know my husband," she said quietly. "Roddy, this is Mr. Breton."
Breton went over to the sofa and the two men shook hands.
"How do you do?" Roddy said, smiling. "My word, the fellerdoeslook ill!" was Roddy's thought. He did not know what type of man he had expected to see, but it was not, most certainly, this nervous rather pathetic figure with the pointed beard, the white cheeks, the blue eyes, the armless sleeve, that uncertain movement that invited your consideration and seemed to say, "I've had a bad time—not altogether my fault. I'm trying now to do my best. Do help me."
"Just the sort of feller women would be sorry for," Roddy thought. But he was rather happily conscious that, although he was lying there helpless on his back, he was on the whole in better trim than his visitor.
Breton, before he sat down, turning to Roddy, said, "I was very nearly wiring to you my excuses, Sir Roderick. I've been most awfully unwell lately and all that thunder yesterday laid me up. I got sunstroke once in Africa and I've always had to be careful since."
"Jolly good of you to come," said Roddy. "Sorry it was such short notice. But I can never tell, you know, quite how I'll be from day to day."
Breton sat down and the two men looked at one another. To Breton, whose imagination led him to live in an alternation of consternation and anticipation, the whole affair was utterly bewildering. He had reached his rooms, on the night before, soaked to the skin, and had found Roddy's note waiting for him. It had seemed to him then as though it were, in all probability, some trick of the devil's, but he had of course accepted it as he accepted all challenges.
He had supposed that he would be confronted by a raging, tempestuous husband. He would welcome anything that would bring him again into contact with Rachel and he always enjoyed a scene. But he had never, for an instant, imagined that Rachel would be present. The sight of her took all calmer deliberation away from him because he wished so eagerly to speak to her and to hear her voice.
They were sitting with the table between them and they were both of them conscious first of Roddy, lying so still and watching them from his sofa, and then of the last time that they had met and of that last kiss they had taken. But Rachel, with strange relief and also with yet stranger disappointment, was realizing that Breton's presence gave her no spark, no tiniest flame of passion. She was sorry for him, she wished most urgently that no harm should come to him, she would, here at this moment, protect him with her life, with her honour, with anything that he might demand of her, but her emotion, every vital burning part of it, was given to her retention of Roddy.
She might have felt anger because she had, as it were, been entrapped, she might have felt terror of the possible results to herself ... she felt nothing except that she must not lose Roddy.
"I know now," she said, perhaps to herself, "I know at last what it is that I have wanted. And, knowing this, if, just grasping it, I should lose it!"
"Tea, Mr. Breton—sugar? Milk? Would you take my husband's cup to him? Thank you so much. Yes, he has sugar——"
"I was so sorry," Breton said, "to hear of your accident. You must have had a bad time."
"Yes," said Roddy, laughing. "It was rotten! But what one loses one way one gains in another, I find. People are much pleasanter than they used to be."
Roddy, as he looked at them both, had something of the feeling that a schoolboy might be expected to have did he suddenly find that some trick that he had planned was having a really great success.
He was strangely relieved at Breton's appearance, he was more sure than ever of his retention of Rachel, he had, most delightfully up his sleeve, the imminent appearance of the Duchess. As he looked at his wife he could see that she was appealing to him not to make it too hard for both of them. He could, now that he had seen Breton, flatter himself with something of the same superiority that Rachel had once shown on beholding Nita Raseley.
Breton, as the moments passed, felt firmer ground beneath his feet. Rachel, wondering how she could contrive their meeting, had chosen this, the boldest way, had begged her husband to invite him, planned to make him a friend of the house. And yet with all this new confidence, he felt too that there was something that he missed in Rachel, some response to his thrill, he could see that she was ill at ease and was relying on him perhaps, "to carry it off."
So he carried it off, talked and laughed about his experiences, the countries that he had seen, things that he had done, and, as always when he was striving to make the best impression, made the worst, letting that note of exaggeration, of something theatrical that was dangerously near to a pose, creep into his voice and his attitude.
Rachel and Roddy said very little. He stopped, felt that he had been speaking too much, and, sensitive always to an atmosphere that was not kindly to him, cursed himself for a fool and wished that he had never spoken at all.
There was a little pause, then Roddy said, "That's very interesting. I've never been to South America, but I hear it's going to betheplace soon. Everyone's as rich as Cr[oe]sus out there, I believe. Another cup, Rachel dear, please—Oh! thank you, Mr. Breton."
Breton brought the cup to Rachel and then stood there, with his back to Roddy, his eyes upon Rachel's face, trying to tell her what he was feeling. Quietly Roddy's voice came to them both.
"Thereisone little thing—one reason why I wanted you to come this afternoon, Mr. Breton."
Rachel got up, her eyes fixed intently upon Roddy's face. "No, Rachel, don't go. It concerns us all three." Roddy laughed. "I don't want any of us to take it very seriously. It is entirely between ourselves. I do hope," he went on more gravely, "that I haven't been takin' any liberty in arrangin' things like this, but it seemed to me the only way—just to stop, you know, the thing once and for all."
Breton had left the table and was standing in the middle of the room. A thousand wild thoughts had come to him. This was a trap—a trap that Rachel....
The room whirled about him—he put his hand on to the back of a chair to steady himself, then turned to Rachel, seeking her with his eyes.
He saw instantly in her white face and eyes, that never left, for an instant, her husband, that there was nothing here of which she had had any foreknowledge.
"It's only," said Roddy, "that somebody came to me, a few days ago, and told me that you, Mr. Breton, and my wife were on friendlier terms than I—well, than I would, if I had known, have cared for——"
Breton started forward. "I——" he began.
"No, please," said Roddy. "It isn't anythin' that I myself have taken, don't you know, for a second, seriously. I have only arranged that we three should come like this because—for all our sakes—if people are sayin' those things it ought to be stopped. It's hard for me, you see, bein' like this to know quitehowto stop it, so I thought we'd just meet and talk it over."
Roddy drew a deep breath. He hated explaining things, he disliked intensely having to say much about anything. He looked round at Rachel with a reassuring smile to tell her that she need not really be alarmed.
She had left the table and stood facing both the men. Full at her heart, was a deep, glad relief that, at last, at last, the moment had come when she could tell everything, when she might face Roddy with all concealment cleared, when she might, above all, meet her grandmother's definite challenge and withstand it.
But, indeed, she was to meet it, more immediately and more dramatically than she had expected. Even as she prepared to speak, she caught, beyond the door, strange shuffling sounds.
The door, rather clumsily, as though handled with muffled fingers, slowly opened.
Framed in it, leaning partly upon Peters, and partly upon a footman, staring at the room and its occupants from beneath the sinister covering of a black high-peaked bonnet, was the Duchess.
The old lady caught, for a second, the vision of her grandchildren, beat down from her face the effect that their presence had upon her, then moved slowly, between her supporters, towards the nearest chair.
"Her dignity consisted, I do believe, in her recognition, always sure and prompt, of the dramatic moment."—Henry Galleon.
"Her dignity consisted, I do believe, in her recognition, always sure and prompt, of the dramatic moment."—Henry Galleon.
Rachel came forward: Roddy from his sofa said something.
She was, it seemed, unconscious of them all, fixing her eyes upon a large black-leather arm-chair, settling slowly down into it, dismissing Peters and the footman with "Thank you—That is very kind": then, at last leaning her hands upon her ebony cane, raised her eyes and smiled grimly, almost triumphantly, at Roddy.
He had been aware, at that first glimpse of her in the doorway, that he was ashamed of himself. He should not have done it.
She was older, feebler, more of a victim than he had ever conceived her possibly to be, and in some way the situation that awaited her changed her entirely from the old tyrant who had sat there talking to him only a week ago into someone who demanded of one's chivalry, of one's courtesy, protection.
Roddy had also caught the light of fierce recognition that had leapt up into Breton's face as he had realized who it was that stood before him. Breton must have many old scores to pay.... Roddy was suddenly frightened of the emotions, the fierce resentments, the angry rebellions that he had brought so lightly into collision.
But the smile that the Duchess flung to him had in it no fear. It said to him: "Oh, young man,thisis your little plot, is it? Oh, Roddy, my friend,howyoung you are andhowlittle you know me if you think that I am in the least embarrassed by this little gathering. I'm glad that you've given me a chance of showing what I can do."
She dominated the room; she was, from the minute of her appearance, mistress of the situation. They realized her power as they had never realized it before.
Sitting there, leaning forward upon her cane, she remarkably resembled Yale Ross's portrait. She was even wearing the green jade pendant, and her black dress, her bonnet, her fine white wrists, a gold chain with its jangling cluster of things—a gold pencil, a card case, a netted purse—these flung into fine relief the sharp white face lit now with an amused, an ironic vitality.
She was old, she was ill, she was being trodden down by generations hungrier than any that she had ever known, but she was as indomitable as she had ever been.
She looked about the room; her glance passed, without any flash of recognition, without sign or signal that she had realized his presence, over the fierce figure of her grandson.
"Well, my dear," she said to Rachel, "I'm sure this is all very pleasant and most unexpected. Let's have some tea."
"I'm afraid," said Rachel, "that it's been standing some time. Let me ring for some fresh."
"No—I like it strong. It used always to be strong when I was younger. This new generation likes things weak, I believe."
Rachel, looking at her grandmother, felt nothing of Roddy's compunction. She did not, even now, grasp entirely Roddy's intention; she had no sure conviction of the climax that he intended; but shedidknow that here, at last, was her chance; she should lift, once and for all, out from all the lies and confusion that had shrouded them, her attempts at courage and honesty, attempts that had wretchedly, most forlornly failed.
Breton should know, Roddy should know, the Duchess should know, and she herself should never again go back.
Breton did not move from the corner where he was sitting; he waited there, his hand pressing hard upon his knee.
Roddy said, "Most awfully good of you, Duchess, to come out again. I wouldn't have dared to ask you to come if Christopher hadn't said that last time did you no harm."
"Only for you, Roddy," she answered him almost gaily, "and Rachel of course. To-day's a nice day. All that thunder has cleared the air."
What her voice must have seemed to Francis Breton, coming back to him again after so vast a distance, bringing to him a thousand memories, scenes and faces that had been buried, a whole world of regrets, and disappointments.
Rachel gave her her tea; brought a little table to her side.
"Thank you, my dear. Howareyou, Rachel? You're not looking very well. Richard, who came in to see me this morning, told me that you were ill at dinner last night. He seemed quite anxious."
"It was nothing, thank you, grandmamma. That thunder always upsets me. I was sorry to interfere with Lady Carloes' dinner-party."
"Not much of a party from what Richard told me. And she had in a harpist afterwards. Why a harpist? Poor Aggie Carloes! Always done the wrong thing ever since she was a child. Yes, her little drawing-room's so stuffy, they tell me—must have been intolerable last night."
It was for all three of them a quite unbearable situation. Roddy had never, even when he was a boy of sixteen, been afraid of her; now at last he understood what the power was that had kept her family at her feet for so many years, indeed, he seemed now to perceive in all of them—in Breton, in Rachel, as well as in the Duchess—a strain of some almost hysterical passion, that, held in check though it was, for the moment, promised to flare into the frankest melodrama at the slightest pretext.
Anything better than this pause; he plunged.
"You won't forgive me, Duchess," he said abruptly. "I believe I've done a pretty rotten thing. I didn't intend it that way. I only meant just to clear everything up and make it all straight for everybody, but if I've been unpardonable just say so and give it me hot."
He paused and cleared his throat. "I wonder if you'd mind, Rachel," said the Duchess, "passing me that little stool that I see over there—that little brown stool. Just put it under my feet, will you? Thank you."
Roddy desperately proceeded.
"It's only this. You said the last time you came that you had heard—that you knew—that you were afraid that Rachel and your grandson, Mr. Breton, were—had been—seein' too much of one another. You just put it to me, you know—Well," he went on, trying to make his voice cheerful and ordinary and failing completely, "lyin' on one's back one gets thinkin' and broodin', specially a feller who hasn't been used to it, like me. I got worried—not because I didn't trust Rachel—and Mr. Breton, of course, all the way, because I do; but simply that, you know, it's rotten for a feller to be lyin' helpless on his back, thinkin' that people are talkin' about his wife—you know how malicious people are, Duchess—and I thought it jolly well must be stopped, don't you know, and I wanted it stopped quick and straight and clean, and I didn't see how it was goin' to be stopped unless I'd got us all friendly together here and just squashed it, all of us. And so—well, to speak—well, here we are.... And," he concluded, trying to smile upon everyone present, "I do hope it's all right. It didn't seem then a poor sort of thing to do, but somehow gettin' you all here as a surprise...." He broke off, made noises in his throat, and felt that the room was of a burning heat.
He remembered, vaguely, that he had designed this meeting as a punishment to the old lady; he had only succeeded, however, in revealing his own cowardice; the first glimpse of her had made a poor creature of him. Oh! how he wished himself now well out of it! And yet, behind that thought was the knowledge of the little speech that he was soon to make and the way that, with it, he would win Rachel and hold her for ever! After all, it came to that, absolutely: Rachel was the only thing in all the world that mattered.
The Duchess flung upon him a kindly satiric glance, then, turning from him, bent her sharp little eyes upon Rachel, leaning forward upon her cane so that it appeared that it was now only with Rachel that she had any concern.
"Had I known that my few careless words!"—She broke off with a little impatient gesture.
"Ah! Rachel, my dear, I'm truly sorry. My stupidity...."
But Rachel, her eyes upon Roddy, had got up, had moved across to Roddy's sofa, and stood there, above him. Her eyes moved, then, slowly to her grandmother.
"There was no need," she said, her voice low and trembling, "for this. If I'd done, as I should, it couldn't have happened. I'm responsible for all of it and only I. Roddyhasgot you here on false pretences, grandmamma. If you'd rather go now...."
"Thank you," the Duchess said, "I'd much rather stay. It amuses me to see you all together here."
"Then," said Rachel, "I'll say what I ought to have said before. Roddy," turning passionately round to him, "you shall have everything—everything—from the very beginning. Mr. Breton—Francis—will agree that that's what we should have done—long ago."
Breton made a movement as though he would rise, then stayed.
"Aren't we, my dear Rachel," said the Duchess, "making a great deal of a very small affair?"
But Rachel, speaking only to Roddy, sinking her voice and bending a little down to him, began, "Roddy, one thing you've got to know—it's been from the beginning only myself that was to blame. Francis"—she paused, for an instant, over the name—"Francis, please," as he moved again from his corner, "letmetell Roddy...."
She went on then more firmly, turning a little round to her grandmother again: "Roddy, I don't want to defend myself—it's the very last thing I can try to do—I only want to tell you—all three of you—exactly the truth. You know, Roddy, that when I said I'd marry you it wasn't a question of love between us at all. We had that out quite straight from the beginning. I was awfully young: I wanted safety and protection and so I took you. You rather wanted me, and grandmother wanted you to marry me, and so there you were too. Then I met my cousin—I'd heard about him since I'd been a baby and he'd heard about me. We had a lot in common, tastes and dislikes—all kinds of things. We met and he stirred in me all those things that you, Roddy, had never touched. I had found marriage wasn't the freedom I had thought that it would be. I was fond of you, you were fond of me, but there was something always there jogging both of us—just putting us out of patience with one another. Things got worse. You never could explain what you felt. I tried, but the whole trouble wouldn't go into words somehow.
"Francis and I wrote to one another a little and then one day—as grandmamma has so kindly told you—(here her voice was sharp for a moment)—I went to his rooms." Rachel stopped. She was looking straight in front of her, her hands clenched. She seemed to dive deep for courage, to remain for an instant struggling, then to rise with it in her hands. Her voice was strong and unfaltering. "We found that we loved one another. We told each other ... it seemed to Francis then that the only thing was for us to go away together. But I refused. Odd though it may seem, Roddy, I cared for you then more than I'd ever cared for you before, and I think it's gone on since then, getting stronger always. I wouldn't go and I wouldn't see Francis again and we weren't to write again—unless I found that our living together, Roddy—you and I—was hopeless. Then I said I'd go to him."
Her voice sank and faltered—"There did come a day when I thought that—we couldn't get on any longer. You know what finally ... Lizzie Rand found out. She knew that I intended to go away with Francis. She fought to prevent it—she was splendid about it, splendid! We quarrelled, and in the middle of it, came your accident.... I wrote afterwards to Francis and told him that it was all over—absolutely—for ever. Since then—only once...." She broke off, recovered: "Since then there's been nothing—no letter, no meeting—nothing. My whole life now is wrapped up in you, Roddy, and Francis knows that. I've told you the whole truth!" She turned from him, fiercely, round to her grandmother. "I don't know whatyoutold Roddy, what you made him believe—you've wanted, always, to harm me with Roddy if you could. At least, now, you can't tell him more than I've done."
The Duchess stared first at Rachel, then at Roddy. She had behaved from the beginning as though Breton did not exist.
Some of her amiability had left her. Her lips were tightly drawn together as she listened and her rings tapped one against the other.
"This is all rather tiresome," she said sharply. "Very like you, Rachel, to do these things in public. You get that from your mother. But you're strangely lacking in humour. It all comes from my own very unfortunate remark the other day. Not like you, Roddy dear, to arrange this kind of thing. Stupid ... distinctly—I'm sure now, however, that you're satisfied. Rachel's certainly been very frank—and now perhaps we might leave it."
It was then that Francis Breton came forward into the middle of the room, his face grey with anger, something suddenly unrestrained and savage in his eyes so that the room was filled with a wind of angry agitation.
He stood in front of his grandmother, but turned his head, sharply, now and again, round to Roddy. So agitated was he that his words came in little gasps, flung out, in little bundles together, and strangely accented as though he were speaking in a language that was strange to him.
The sarcastic smile came back into the old lady's eyes and she leaned forward on her stick again, looking up into his eyes.
"I didn't know—I didn't know—that we were going to meet like this. You didn't know either or you wouldn't have come, but I've been waiting for years for this. It's been nice for me, hasn't it, to sit by whilst you've done everything to make things wretched for me, to ruin me, to push me back to where...."
Roddy's voice interrupted.
"Mr. Breton, I think you forget——"
Instantly Breton stopped. He forced control upon his voice, he stammered, "I'm ashamed—I oughtn't to have—But sitting there—not being allowed to speak—you must excuse me——"
He turned round to Roddy. "You must think me the most complete blackguard. It's only a climax to everything that's happened since I came back. I don't want to defend myself, but it isn't—it isn't all so simple as just talking about it makes it look. You're the kind of man to whom everything's just black or white—you do it or you don't—but I—I've never found that. I've been in things without knowing I've been in them. I've done things that would have turned out straight for any other fellow, but they've always been crooked for me. Something always blinds me just when I need to see straightest. That's no excuse, but it's an awful handicap.
"I won't hide or pretend about it. Why should I? I loved Rachel. We've only met so little—really only that once in my rooms—that you can't grudge us that. We had things—heaps of things—in common long before we knew one another. It wasn't like any ordinary two people meeting, and I knew so well that she could make all the difference to my life that I took the chance of knowing her even though she wasn't ever going to belong to me. I don't think I ever really believed that I'd be the man. I know now that she's yours altogether and you ought to have her—now that I've seen you I know that. And last night when I faced the fact that I'd have to go all my life without her I realized what she told me long ago, that it was much better just to have my idea of her and not to have had my regret about having spoiled anything for her. I've no confidence in myself, you see. If I thought I were the kind of man just to carry her off and make her happy for ever and ever, then I suppose I'd have been bolder about her long ago, but I know, even if she didn't belong to you at all, that I should be afraid that I'd spoil her life just as I've always spoiled my own.
"I expect this is all very confused. It's all so difficult and you don't want long explanations, but I'm only trying to say that you needn't ever have any fear again that I'm going to step in or try to have any part in her. We've got our things together that nobody can take from us. We've seen each other so little that most people would say it wasn't much to give up. But things don't happen only when you're together...." He stopped suddenly, seemed to stand there confused, turned and flung a fierce, defiant look at his grandmother—exactly the glance that an angry small boy flings at someone in authority who has seen fit to punish him—then went back to his corner and stood there in the shadow, watching them all.
Even as he finished speaking he had realized finally that his relationship with Rachel was over, closed, done for. He had known it on that afternoon in the park—He had realized it perhaps again in the heart of the storm last night, but now, when he had seen the soul pierce, through Rachel's eyes, to her husband, he knew that Roddy, one way or another, had at last won her.
Moreover, to anyone as impressionable as Breton, Roddy's helplessness, his humour, his bravery had, on the score of Roddy alone, settled the matter. Breton had his fierce moments, his high inspirations, his noble resolves!... Now, as he looked this last time upon Rachel, his was no mean spirit.
Rachel drew a sharp breath and looked at Roddy with wide eyes, flooded with fear. He had heard now everything that they had to say; although she had watched him so closely she could not say what he would do. As she saw the two men there before her she felt that she knew Francis Breton exactly, that she could tell what he would say, how he would see things, what would anger him or surprise him.
But about Roddy she was always uncertain: she was only now, very slowly, beginning to know him, but she was sure that if Roddy were to beat her she would care for him the more, but if Francis Breton were to beat her she would leave him for ever.
A flush meanwhile was rising over Roddy's neck, up into his face, to the very roots of his hair.
"It's rather beastly," he said, speaking very slowly and trying to choose his words, "all this talkin'. I might have known, if I'd been able to think about it, what it would be like, but there, I never did. I had a kind of idea that we'd all get it over sort of in five minutes and then have tea, don't you know, and all go away comfortably. I don't feel now that you've rightly got all that everybody thinks about it. It was very decent of you, Mr. Breton, to say exactly—so plainly, you know—how you felt. But I don't want to talk a lot—I can't you know, anyhow.
"It's only this. I wanted the Duchess to hear me say, amongst ourselves, that I knowallabout it, that weallknow all about it and that there isn't anything for anyone to talk about because there isn't anything in it, and if I hear of anyone sayin' a word they've just got to reckon with me. Rachel and I know one another and, Mr. Breton, I hope you'll go on bein' a friend of ours and come and see us often. Of course you and Rachel have a lot in common and it's only natural you should have.