II
Many eyes were upon her as she moved across to Lord John. This girl, with the foreign colour and bearing, having, apparently, so little of the Beaminster about her and making so quickly so conventional a marriage ("One hadn't expected her to care about a man like Seddon"), stirred their curiosity.
Monty Carfax, licensed transmitter of public opinion, reported her unpopular. "Met her one week-end at the Massiters'—that very time when Seddon proposed. Didn't like her and, really, can't find anyone who does. Conceited, farouche. It's my opinion Roddy Seddon finds her difficult." "Yes, but she's interesting," someone would reply, "unusual. Dissatisfied-looking—not at all happy, I should say."
Lady Adela, stiff, awkward but important, in an ugly grey dress found Lord Crewner the only helpful person in the room. He seemed to understand the way that worries accumulated about one and yet refused to be defined.... He stayed near her throughout the afternoon. She saw Rachel moving across to her brother and the sight of her stirred all her discomfort.
"Why need she look as though she hated everyone?" she thought.
Rachel came at length to Uncle John and found him talking to Maurice Garden. That large and prosperous gentleman hastily proclaimed his delight in meeting Rachel again, but she had very little to say to him.
He left them, secretly determined that he would never speak to the girl again if he could help it.
Uncle John regarded her with an air of supplicating nervousness.
"Come along, my dear," he said. "We haven't had a talk for weeks. Let's find a corner somewhere–"
They found a corner and then were both of them uncomfortable. The girl whom Uncle John had known and loved had had her tempers and intolerances, but she had also had her wonderful spontaneous affections and tendernesses.
Now she sat there looking straight before her and replying only in monosyllables to his questions.
She was saying to herself: "Shall I go? Shall I go?"
At last he said timidly:
"You'll see mother before you leave?"
"Yes," Rachel said.
"I'm afraid she's not very well."
"Not very well?" Rachel looked up at him sharply, Lord John stared away from her. No one had ever said that publicly before, Lord John himself wondered at his words when he had spoken them.
"Of course she doesn't admit it," he said hurriedly. "No one says anything about it—even Christopher. I oughtn't perhaps to have said anything myself—but I thought–" He broke off. Rachel knew that he meant that she should be kind and considerate on this visit.
Before she could say anything the Duke came up and joined them.
It always amused Rachel to see her two uncles together. The Duke was a little dried-up wasp of a man, absolutely selfish, with a satirical tongue and a self-conceit that nothing could pierce. He wore high white collars, over which his brown sharp face searched for compliments. He walked on his toes, his hands were most wonderfully manicured and his trousers were so stiff and rigid over his thin little legs that they looked like iron. The one soft spot in him was a strangely tender affection for his sister Adela which was in no way returned; for her, and for her alone, he would forget his selfishness. Richard and John he despised.
"Well, John," he said. "Well, Rachel?"
"Well, Uncle Vincent," she said. The Duke was afraid of Rachel because her tongue was as sharp as his, but he respected her for that.
"Going up to see mother?"
"Yes," said Rachel. Should she go? Should she go?
Suddenly, arising, as it seemed, out of that crowd of moving figures and coming and standing there in front of her, was her answer.
Yes, she would go. All these months of indetermination should be ended. She should know, once and for all, what this Francis Breton meant to her, what that other life of hers meant to her, and so, in opposition, what Roddy meant to her. She would, as Christopher would have put it, grapple with her Tiger....
Instantly, the relief, the glad, happy relief showed her how wretched life had been.
"What about this war, Uncle Vincent?" she said.
"Well—hem—well—no need to worry—I assure you—no need to worry!"
"It seems a pity," said Lord John, still looking furtively at Rachel and wishing that he could carry her off into some other corner and just ask her whether she were really happy or no.
"Why, John," said the Duke, cackling. "You'll have to go out, 'pon my word, you will—fight 'em, by Jove—Ha! ha! You'd make a fine soldier, old boy."
Rachel got up, hating Uncle Vincent very much. She put her hand on Uncle John's fat arm.
"You may go, Uncle Vincent," she said. "We all give you leave—Uncle John we love too much: if it's a question of bravery he'd be quite certainly the first of this family." She gave his arm a squeeze.
Uncle Vincent looked at her, smiling—
"Well," he said. "None of us would dream of going … we're all much too comfortable."
"I'll see you before I go, uncle dear," she whispered to Lord John. Then she moved away.
Slowly making her path through the room she left it and climbed the great stone staircase.
III
Outside her grandmother's door she paused; so she had always paused, and now, as she waited there, all the procession of other days when she had stood there came before her. Conditions might be changed, but her agitation was the same. Never until she died would she open that door without wondering, in spite of common sense, whether she might not be caught by some disaster before she closed it again.
She went in and found her grandmother sitting back in her stiff chair and looking at some patterns of bright silks that lay on a little table beside her.
A great fire was burning and the room seemed to Rachel intolerably hot; she noticed at once that what Uncle John had said was true. Before she had heard Rachel's entrance the Duchess looked an old, tired woman. Her head was drooping a little over the blue and purple silks; she seemed half asleep.
But at the sound of the door she was alert; when she saw that it was her granddaughter who stood there, tall and stately, her large black hat shadowing her face, she seemed in a moment to be transformed with energy and life—her head went up, her eyes flashed, her hands stiffened on her lap.
"May I come in for a moment, grandmother?" Rachel said.
By the door she had wondered—how could she be afraid of this old sick woman? Now as she crossed over to the fire her sternest self-command was summoned to control her alarm. She was frightened by nothing but this—here it was indeed as though there were some spell that seized her.
"Certainly, my dear—come in." The Duchess gave a last look at the silks and then turned to her granddaughter. "I'm afraid you'll find it very hot—I must have a fire, you know."
She had a trick of drawing in her lower lip as she spoke, so that her words hissed a little over her teeth. She did not do this with everybody and Rachel believed that it was only because she had noticed that Rachel as a little girl had been frightened of it that she did it now.
Rachel sat down opposite her and the heat of the fire and a scent of something that had violets and mignonette in it—a scent that was always in the room—stifled her so that her head began to swim and the rings on the Duchess's hand to hypnotize her.
"There's a great party going on downstairs," she said.
"Yes. I know. John came up for a moment and told me about it—and how are you?"
"Very well, thank you, grandmamma. Roddy and I have been ever so sociable lately, given several dinner-parties and one musical thing."
"You're not looking very well. Roddy here?"
"Yes."
"Hope he'll come and see me before he goes. Hasn't been to see me much lately."
Their eyes met. Rachel held her ground and then, beaten as though by a physical blow, lowered her gaze.
"Oh! hasn't he? He's been here a lot, I thought. He's been very busy over some horses that he's had to go up and down to Seddon about."
"H'm. Well—I dare say he'll remember me again one day—so we're in for a war?"
"Yes. They don't seem to think it very serious though—Uncle Richard says–"
"Your Uncle Richard knows nothing about it—nothing. However, I don't think anyone need be alarmed."
There was in this last sentence a ring in the Duchess's voice that flung her words out for the nation to grasp at. "No need, my good people, for you to worry—I have this in hand."
"Well, I'm very glad," said Rachel. "It's such a long while since anything has happened that it seems quite odd for everyone to have something to talk about except dinner-parties and scandal–"
The old woman looked across at her and then very slowly a smile rose, stiffened between her old dried lips and stayed there—
"What would you say, my dear, if Roddy thought it his duty to go and defend his country?"
There was, suddenly, the sharp ring in her voice that Rachel knew so well.
"I know," Rachel said quietly, "that Roddy would do his duty, and of course I would want him to do that."
The Duchess, with her eyes still upon her granddaughter's face, said—"I've heard a good deal about a young friend of yours lately."
"Who is that, grandmamma?" Rachel said, and, in spite of herself her hand trembled a little against her dress.
"Nita Raseley."
Rachel caught her breath.
"I gather that you and she haven't seen so much of one another lately."
"Oh! I think we have. We never were great friends, you know."
"Did she enjoy her time at Seddon? A clever little thing. I shouldn't drop her, Rachel, if I were you."
"She seemed to enjoy Seddon, grandmamma. I must be going, I'm afraid, with the patient Roddy waiting for me. Shall I tell him to come up?"
The old hand struck the arm of the chair and the rings flashed.
"No, thank you, my dear. If he can't come of his own accord, I'd prefer that he had no prompting. There was a time when it was otherwise."
Rachel got up. Their eyes met again, and their hatred for one another was so settled, so historic, so traditional an affair, that their glance now was almost friendly.
Then Rachel bent down very slowly and kissed her grandmother's cheek. How much, she wondered, did she know of the Nita affair? Nita's spite would, assuredly, have found a happy ground in which to plant its seed. Oh! how she loathed this thick clouded atmosphere, this deceit, this deceit! It seemed that, at every turn since her marriage, she had been dragged into an atmosphere of disguise and subterfuge and double-dealing.
Well, she was soon to be done with it. At the thought of what her grandmother would say did she know of her friendship with Breton her heart beat triumphantly. There at any rate was a weapon!
"Well, good-bye, my dear. Come and see me again soon."
"Yes, grandmamma—good-bye."
IV
In the carriage with Roddy she suddenly laughed.
All those people, moving so solemnly with such self-importance about that room. The Duke, Lord Richard, Aunt Adela … Norris, the footman....
Over them all that fierce commanding portrait. And upstairs that old, sick woman....
And beyond, away from that house, a war that that old woman and those self-important people saw only as a means of increasing their own self-importance.
It was all as a box of tin soldiers and a parcel of stiff china-faced dolls—
What were they all about? What did they think they were all doing? What, after all, was she, Rachel? Had they no conception of the sawdust that they all were beside this real, swiftly moving, death-dealing War that was suddenly amongst them?
"What is it?" said Roddy.
"Grandmother—grandmother—my dear, delightful, wonderful grandmother. To think of her sitting all alone up there in her bedroom and all those people moving about downstairs—all so conscious of her. And yet she does nothing—nothing." Rachel, in her excitement, struck her knee with her hand. "She isn't even clever, really—She's never in all her life been known to say a witty thing—never. She doesn't really know much about politics.... She just sits there and acts—That's what it's always been, acting the whole time. If it's effective to be old and feeble she is old and feeble—if it's effective to be fantastic she is fantastic—She just sits still and takes people in. Why, if she'd wanted she could have been going out all these thirty years, I believe!"
"You're always unfair to her, Rachel," said Roddy. "You know she has ghastly pain often and often."
"Yes. I'll give her that," said Rachel. "She's brave—brave as anything. And after all," she added, "she couldn't affect me more if she were the wittiest woman in the world–"
Roddy yawned—"Dam dull party," he said.
CHAPTER VII
RACHEL AND BRETON
"We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go
Always a little farther: it may be
Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow,
Across that angry or that glimmering sea.
… but surely we are brave
Who make the Golden Journey to Samarcand."
The Golden Journey to Samarcand.James Alroy Flecker.
I
Rachel now awaited her meeting with Breton with restless impatience. It should afford her, beyond everything, a solution. She was young enough and inexperienced enough to make many demands upon life—that it should be romantic, that it should, in the issues that it presented, be honest and open and clear, that it should allow her to settle her own place in it without any hurt to anyone else, that it should, in fact, arrange any number of compromises to suit herself and that it should nevertheless be so honest that it would admit of no compromises at all.
She approached life with all the reckless boldness of one who has never come into direct contact with it. Neither her relations with her grandmother nor with Roddy had as yet taken from her any of her youngest nor simplest illusions. Were life drab and uninteresting, why, then one turned simply to the place where it promised colour and adventure.
She had not yet discovered that when we go deliberately to grasp at happiness we are eternally eluded.
But in spite of her desire for honesty she refused to face the actual meeting with Breton. She knew him so slightly as Francis Breton and so intimately as an idea. What she felt in her heart was, that her grandmother had hoped to catch her by marrying her to Roddy and that nothing could prove so eloquently that she had not been caught as her friendship with Breton.
"I will show her and I will show Roddy that I am my own mistress, free whatever they may say or do."
Breton—seen dimly as a rebel against a harsh dominating world—was the figure of all romance and freedom. "Roddy doesn't care what happens to me. He'll do anything grandmother tells him to...."
She was now out to attack the Beaminster fortress; she did not as yet know that half of her was urgent for its defence.
II
When the afternoon arrived she took a cab and was driven to Saxton Square. She mounted the stairs, knocked on the door and was admitted by his ugly man-servant.
"Is Mr. Breton at home?" she asked.
"Yes, my lady," he answered and smiled; she disliked his smile and before she passed into the room had a moment of wild unreasoning panic when she wished that she were not there, when Roddy's face came to her, kind and loving and homely.
She stepped forward into the room, heard the door close behind her and felt rather than saw him as he came forward to greet her.
Then she heard him say—
"Oh, I'm so glad you've come. I was so afraid lest something should stop you."
His windows, although only on the first floor, had a wide sweeping view; a world of chimneys and towers glittering now beneath the sinking sun.
His room was simple and had the effect of cleanly emptiness; a table arranged for tea, two rather faded arm-chairs, a dark green carpet, a book-case, two large framed photographs on the walls, one of some street in Bombay, the other of the Niagara Falls.
The sunshine lit the bare room and their faces and she was suddenly comfortable and at ease.
He drew one of the easy chairs forward to the window.
"Sit down in the sun; Marks will bring the tea in a moment."
She sat back in the chair and looked out on to the shining roofs and towers, not glancing towards him, but acutely aware of him, of all his movements. He sat down upon the broad window-seat near her and looked at her.
She knew that she had never been conscious, physically, of anyone before. Roddy's clumsy hands and rather awkward body had always simply belonged to Roddy and stayed at that; now she felt as if Francis Breton's hand, close, as she knew, to hers, was joined to her by a running current of attraction.
Although he was not touching her, it was as though she were chained to him. If he moved she felt that she must move with him and every motion that he made seemed to rouse some response in her.
She was aware, of course, as she was always aware with him, of the way that intimacy between them had moved since their last meeting. All her romantic evocation of life as she wanted it to be helped her to this. It was as though she said to herself, "Here at least is my true self free and dominant. I must make the most of it"—and yet, with that, something seemed to warn her that freedom too easily obtained carried at its heart disappointment. The ugly man-servant brought in tea and then disappeared. Breton moved about, waited upon her, then sat down closer to her, leaning forward and looking into her eyes.
It was part of his temperament that he should take her coming to him as an instant acknowledgment of the complete fulfilment of his wishes. He always saw life as the very rosiest of his dreams until it woke him to reality. He was ruled completely by the mood of the moment, and his one emotion now was that Rachel was divinely intended for him alone of all human beings—
But he could not wait.... He knew, by this time, that reflection was always a period of disappointment. He was unhappily made in that he yielded to his impulses of regret as eagerly as to his impulses of anticipation—One mood followed so swiftly upon another that collision might seem inevitable.
They were, both of them, young enough to see life as something that would inevitably, in a short time, condemn them both to years of sterile monotony. Rachel indeed felt that she was already caught....
They must, both of them, therefore, make the best of their time.
"I was so afraid," he repeated again, "lest something should have stopped you."
"I would have asked you to come to us, only I'm afraid that my husband still–"
"Oh! I quite understand."
"It's natural—Roddy's like that. If he wants to do a thing he doesn't care for anybody and just does it. But if nothing makes him especially want to do it, then he just takes other people's opinions. Now he might ask you suddenly to come and see us—simply because he took it into his head. Then nobody could stop him.... He's very obstinate."
She was rather surprised at herself for talking about Roddy. She had a curious feeling about him as though she were going on a journey and had just said good-bye to him and had a rather desolate choke in her throat because she wouldn't see him again for so long.
"Oh! but I'm glad you've come! If you knew the times and times when I've imagined this meeting—thought about it, pictured–"
She saw that his hand was trembling on the window-ledge—
"I oughtn't to have come, perhaps—But I don't know. I've felt so indignant at the way that grandmother is treating you. I wanted to show you that I was indignant...."
"You don't know," he said, "what a help you've been to me already—You showed me the very first time that we met that you did sympathize...."
His voice was tender, partly because her presence moved him so deeply and partly because the sympathy of anyone about his own affairs made him instantly full of sorrow for himself—When anyone said that they thought that he had been badly treated he always felt with an air of surprised discovery: "By Jove, I have been having a bad time!"
"Yes—Wasn't it strange, that first meeting in Miss Rand's room? We seem to have known one another all our lives."
She looked at him. "That you should hate grandmamma so," she said, "was a great thing to me. I'd been all alone—fighting her—for so long."
Rachel felt, in the glow of the occasion, that, all her days, there had been active constant war-to-the-knife in the Portland Place house.
"She's been the curse of my life," he said bitterly. "Always keeping me down, making me unable to do myself justice. Why should she hate me so?"
"She hates us," cried Rachel, "because we're both determined to be free. We wouldn't have our lives ruled for us. She wants everyone to be under her in everything."
They glowed together, very close to one another now, in a glorious assertion of rebellious independence. He put his hand upon the back of her chair—
"Now," he said, his voice trembling, "now that we've got to know one another, you won't go back on it, will you? If I couldn't feel that you were behind me, after being so encouraged, it would be terrible for me—worse than anything's ever been for me."
"You needn't be afraid," she said, not looking at him, but tremendously conscious of his hand that now touched her dress. Then there was a long and very difficult silence during which events seemed to move with terrific impetus.
She was overwhelmed by a multitude of emotions. She was past analysis of regret or anticipation. Somewhere, very far away, there was Roddy, and somewhere—also very far away—there was her grandmother, but, for herself, she could only feel that she was very lonely, that nobody cared about her except Breton and that nobody cared about him except herself—and that she wanted urgently to be comforted and that he himself needed comfort from her.
She knew that if she were not very strong-minded and resolute she would cry; she could feel the tears burning her eyes.
"Perhaps I oughtn't to have come—Oh! it's all so difficult—with grandmother—and everything—I thought I could—could manage things, but I can't—We oughtn't—I wanted to do what was best. I—I didn't know—You–"
Then the tears came—She tried desperately to stop them, then they came rushing; she buried her head in her hands and abandoned herself to weeping that was partly sorrow for herself and partly sorrow for Breton and partly, in the strangest way, sorrow for Roddy.
He was on his knees by her chair, had his arm about her, was crying:
"Oh! Rachel—Rachel—Rachel—I love you. I love you—Don't cry—Don't—Rachel–" He kissed her again and again and she clung to him like a frightened child.