II
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 to her than 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 your real friends—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. "It was a 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!
"There was a 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 was splendid about it!
"Well, when she burst out about all the family cutting me and everybody casting me out, the opportunity was too good. I couldn't help 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't intend to 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 been such a 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...."
III
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—That is a 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."
CHAPTER XI
THE LAST VIEW FROM HIGH WINDOWS
"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.
I
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."
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, how wonderful she 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 should think so. 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...."
II
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. You are clever 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 we can meet. 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.