II
The coming of Miss Rand puzzled him. He had, of course, known of her for a long time—"Adela Beaminster's secretary, most capable woman, simply runs the whole place."—As a human being she simply did not occur to him.
Now she seemed to be the one person whom Rachel wished to know. Another instance of Rachel's unexpectedness. When Lizzie came he was still more astonished. This tidy, trim little woman looked as though she ought always to have a typewriter by her side; her sharp eyes were always restlessly discovering things that were out of order. Roddy found himself fingering his tie and patting his hair when she was with him—not, he would have supposed, the sort of woman for whom Rachel would have cared.
Then after a while he discovered another astonishing thing. Miss Rand did not like his wife, did not like her at all. He watched and fancied that Rachel soon discovered this and was doing her utmost to force Miss Rand to like her.
Miss Rand was always pleasant and polite; she was an immense help about dinners and this dance that was to be given early in the New Year, but she yielded to none of Rachel's advances, was always reserved, unresponsive.
Roddy was afraid of her but believed in her. She liked animals and loved the house and the Downs and the country.—"She's all clean and bright and hard," he thought; "no emotion about her, no sentiment there. A man 'ud have a stiff time love-making with her."
But it gradually appeared that, whatever her feelings might be towards Rachel, she was ready to like Roddy. She walked with him, asked him sensible questions, listened attentively to his rather lumbering explanations. After a time, he almost forgot that she was a woman at all—"Damn sensible and yet she never makes you feel a fool."
He liked her very much, though she obviously preferred Jacob, the mongrel, to all other dogs in the place. He wondered as the days passed whether she might not help him with Rachel. He would not speak to anyone living about his own feelings for Rachel and his unhappiness, but he thought that, perhaps, in a roundabout way, he might obtain from Miss Rand some general wisdom that he could apply to his especial case.
The afternoon of Christmas Eve was cold and foggy and Roddy and Lizzie sat over the fire in the hall waiting for Rachel, who had gone out for a solitary walk. Roddy looking at his companion approved of the sharp delicate little face with the firelight touching it to colour and shadow; her dress was grey with a tiny brooch of old gold at her throat, and she wore one ring of small pearls; the look of her gave him pleasure.
"I wonder," Miss Rand said, "that you don't go where you'll get better hunting—you don't hunt round here at all, do you?"
"A bit"—Roddy looked gravely at the fire—"I go very little though. You see, Miss Rand, it's a case of bein' born down here and likin' the place, don't you know. Of course I'd love to have been born in a huntin' country, but bein' here I've got fond of it, you see, and wouldn't leave it for any huntin' anywhere."
She looked at him sharply: "You do love the place very much—I envy you that."
Even as she spoke her consciousness of "the place" faced her; she had always known that she was more acutely aware of the personality of her surroundings than were most of her friends, but her experience here was different from anything that she had ever known before.
She remembered that in the train she had been warned of some coming event and now, sitting opposite to Roddy beside the blazing fire, she was sharply and definitely frightened.
Rachel had already appealed to her; Roddy was appealing to her now, but stronger than either of these demands was some force in herself, warning her and raising in her the most conflicting, disturbing emotions.
The very silence of the house about them, the long green stretches of the level fields, came almost personally and presented themselves to her, and in her heart, growing with every moment of passing time, was her hatred of Rachel and, from that, tenderness for Roddy, who could thus be left, so pathetically unhappy, so eloquently without words that might express his unhappiness.
Something she knew was soon to occur that would involve all three of them in a common crisis.
It was almost as though she must leap to her feet and cry to the startled and innocent Roddy, "Look out!" her finger pointing at the closed door behind him.
Meanwhile Roddy had been considering her. She said that she envied him the place. That was pleasant of her, and he warmed to the urgency with which she had said it. If she felt in that way about such things, why then, all the more, he thought, he could speak to her about his trouble with Rachel. Perhaps, too, although this he would not admit to himself—his conviction that Lizzie disliked Rachel gave him more courage.
Everyone thought Rachel so wonderful—wonderful of course she was, but a complete sense of that wonder must blind the looker-on to Roddy's point of view.
"Places," he said moodily, "ain't everythin'—course I love this old bit o' ground, but when you love anything a lot you're disappointed because every feller don't see it exactly as you do."
Lizzie looked at him.
"I should have thought, though, Sir Roderick, that you were a very, very happy person."
Roddy considered, then slowly shook his head—"No, Miss Rand, not exactly—no, you know, I shouldn't say that exactly—but then, I suppose, no man on this earth is absolutely happy."
"Well," said Lizzie, "a great many people would envy you—your health, your home, your wife, you've got a good deal, Sir Roderick."
As she spoke her anxiety to help him seized and held her. He wanted advice so badly, advice that she could give him, and this English strain in him prevented him from speaking. Had she gone more deeply into her motives she would have known that her anger with Rachel, even more actively prompted, it seemed, by the stones and the fields and the hills around her, was urging her interference.
"People envy me," said Roddy, "but then, Miss Rand, people don't know. It's all my own fault, mind you, that I'm not perfectly happy. It's all because I'm such a fool, not able to see what people are gettin' at, always blunderin' in at the wrong moment and blunderin' out again when I ought to be stayin' in, and that sort o' thing. I used to think," he concluded, "that all the talk about people's feelin's, studying them and so on, was rot, but now I'm not so sure. I'd give anythin'—" he stopped abruptly.
"It is all rot," Lizzie said sharply—"I can only speak as a woman, of course, but I know that what every woman ever born into this world has wanted is just to be taken by someone stronger than herself and be beaten or kissed, loved or strangled as the case may be. Believe me, it is so."
Roddy looked at her, some new thought, perhaps a prologue to some new determination, shining from his eyes.
"By Jove!" he said. "I believe you're right, Miss Rand—I do indeed. Every woman, would you say?"
"Every woman," said Lizzie firmly.
Their eyes met. The sure steadiness of her gaze, the way that she sat there, her little body so sure and resolute, her very neat composure an argument against lightheaded reasoning, encouraged him beyond any help that he had yet found.
Their gaze seemed long and intimate; the colour rose and flushed his brown cheeks and into his eyes there crept that consciousness of a victory about to be won, although the odds were hard against him. The door opened behind him and he turned at the sound and saw that Rachel had come in.
Her entry gave him now, as it always did, a conviction that during her absence he hadn't had the least idea as to how splendid she really was. She brought into that little stone hall a wild colour, a strong, fine challenge to anything small, or shackled or conventional.
Her walk had given her cheeks a flame, the black furs round her throat, the black coat falling below her knees, a red feather in her round black fur cap, all these things set off and accentuated the brilliant fire and energy of her eyes.
As she came towards them then so splendid was she that Lizzie was herself for an instant lost in admiration—She lit the hall, she lit the house, she lit the country and the evening sky.
To Roddy, as he looked at her, there stole the spirit of some pagan ancestor telling him that here was his capture, that this fine creature was his to bind, to burden, to chastise, as his lordly pleasure might be.
Rachel, meanwhile, had come in from her walk, unappeased, unsated; the exertion had only succeeded in stirring in her a deeper, more urgent uneasiness. During these last weeks she had known no moment of peace. She had come down to Seddon determined to do her duty to Roddy; she had found that at every turn her duty to Roddy involved more than any determination could force her to give.
She had not known what that last interview with Breton would do to every situation that followed it. It seemed to her then that those last words with him would make her duty plain, they had only made her duty harder.
She could not now act, think, sleep, move but that last kiss, those last words of his, that last vision of him standing, struggling so finely for control—these things pursued her, caught her eyes and held them.
All her duty to Roddy could not hide from her now that she had, at one flaming instant, known what life at its most intense could be. She had felt the fire—how cold to her now these antechambers, these passages so chill, so far from that inner room. Lizzie had then occurred to her as the strongest person she knew. She sent for Lizzie, found instantly that Lizzie disliked her, suspected then that Lizzie knew about Breton.
She knew Lizzie for her enemy.... During the last week also she had detected a new attitude in Roddy; she had felt in him some active growing impatience that quite definitely threatened her safety. That wild lawlessness in Roddy that she had always known, that had produced the Nita episode and others, was now turning towards herself.
But most of all did she fear her thoughts of Breton. She drove him again and again and again from her mind, she called all her strength, mental, moral, and physical, to her aid—always, with a smile, with one glance from his eyes he defeated her.
Day and night he was with her, and yet at her heart she did not even now know whether it were Francis Breton whom she loved, or the life with Roddy, the whole Beaminster scheme of things that she hated. Every day it seemed to her that Lizzie was more watchful, Roddy more impatient, Breton more insistent—but afraid of them all as she was, fear of herself gave her the sharpest terror.
She rang for tea, reproached them because they had waited for her. Then they were—all three of them—silent.
One of the footmen brought in the five o'clock post with the tea and laid Rachel's letters on the table at her side.
Lizzie had leant across the table for something and saw, as though flashed to her by some special designing Providence, that the letter on the top of the pile was in Francis Breton's handwriting.
Rachel, busied with tea, had not looked down. Now she did so; the handwriting rose, as though she had at that instant heard his step beyond the room, and filled first her eyes, then her cheeks, then her heart.
Her eyes met Lizzie's and for the barest moment of time their challenges met. Rachel seemed to hesitate, then, gathering up her letters, looked round at Roddy and said, "I think I'll just go up and take my things off, this fire's hotter than I expected—I'll be back in a moment."
She walked slowly across the room and up the broad staircase.
III
She did not switch on the light. The evening dusk left the room cool and dim, but by the window, standing so that green shadows met the grey and through them both a pale light trembled before it vanished, she took the letter in her hand, allowing the others to drop and be scattered, white, on the floor at her feet.
She held the envelope; he had written and he had sworn to her that he would not do so—she should have been furious at his broken word, scornful of him for his weakness, indignant at his treating her so lightly.
But she could not think of that now, she could only think of the letter. The envelope was so precious to her that it seemed to return the caress that his fingers gave it and to have of itself some especial individuality. She traced his hand on the address, treasured every line and mark, and then at last tore it open. It was not a very long letter. He had written to her:
"You will despise me for breaking my word. Perhaps you won't read this—but I can't help it, I can't help it, and even if I could I don't think that I would. I know that my writing to you is just another of the rash, foolish, silly weak things that I've gone on doing all my life, but let it be so. I don't pretend to be fine or brave and I have tried all these weeks, tried harder than you can know. I've written to you every day letter after letter, and torn them up—torn them all up. I've fancied that perhaps you've forgotten by now and then I've known that you've not and then I've known that it were better if you did.
I love you so madly that—(here he had scratched some words out)—I must tell you that I love you so that you can hear me and not only my walls and furniture and my own self. I'm trying not to be selfish. I know that I'm doing something now that is hard on you, but my silence is eating me, thrusting, killing—I shall be better soon—I will be sensible—soon—I will be–
But now, oh, my darling! for a moment at least I have caught you and held you throbbing against me, and put my hands in your hair and stroked your cheeks and kissed your eyes.
Don't write to me if you must not, don't be angry with me for this.
I will try not to break my word again."
As the letter ended so silence came back into the room that had been beating and throbbing with sound.
The pale light had gone, only the Downs were dim grey shapes against a darker sky—the ripple of some water slipping and falling came from the garden.
The letter fell from her hands and lay white with the others on the floor.
She tumbled on to her knees by the window and her heart was the strangest confusion of triumph and fear, exultation and shame.
For a little time she lay there and felt that she was in his arms and that his lips were on her mouth and that her hand pressed his cheek.
She got up, turned on the lights, took off her walking things, brushed her hair and washed her hands, picked up the other letters, but put his in the inside of her dress—then went down to the others.
IV
She found Lizzie sitting alone—"Where's Roddy?"
Lizzie looked up at her. "He had to go and see about a horse or something."
Rachel came down to the table and poured out some tea and then sat smiling at Lizzie; Lizzie smiled back.
"I hope you liked your walk."
"Yes, there's a storm coming up. You've no idea how deeply one gets to care for these Downs—their quiet and their size."
They were silent for a little and then Rachel said:
"Miss Rand—I do hope—that this really has been something of a holiday for you, being here, away from all your London work!"
Lizzie's eyes were sharp—"Yes—It's delightful for me. The first holiday I've had for years...."
"Don't think it impulsive of me—but I've asked you here hoping that we'd get to know one another better. I've wanted to know you, to have you for a friend—for a long time. I've always admired so immensely the way that you've helped Aunt Adela—done things that I could never possibly have done–"
She stopped, but Lizzie said nothing—Then she went on more uncertainly—
"You see, I hoped that perhaps you'd teach me a little order and method. I've married so young—I've hoped...." Then almost desperately—"But you know, Miss Rand, I don't feel as though your coming here has helped us to know one another any better."
The storm had come up and the sky beyond the house was black. Lizzie's face, lighted by the fire, was white, sharp and set—there was no kindness in her eyes.
"Perhaps, Lady Rachel," she said slowly, "I'm not a very emotional kind of woman. If one's worked, as I have, since one was small—had to earn one's living and fight for one's place—it makes one perhaps rather self-reliant and independent of other people—Our lives have been so different, I'm afraid," she added with a little laugh, "that I'm a dried-up, unsatisfactory kind of person—I know that my mother and sister have always found me so."
"Yes," Rachel said, "our lives have been different. Perhaps if mine had been a little more like yours—perhaps if I had had to work for my living—I...."
She broke off—a little catch was in her voice—she rose from her chair and went to the window and stood there, with her back to Lizzie, gazing into the darkening garden.
She knew that Lizzie had repulsed her; she was hardly aware why she had made her appeal, but she was now frightened of Lizzie and to her overstrung brain it seemed that she could now see Lizzie and Roddy in league against her.
She heard a step and turning round found Peters, the butler, large, square, of an immense impassivity.
"Please, my lady, might I speak to you a moment?"
She went out.
Lizzie, left in the darkening room, could think now only of the letter. The sight of that handwriting had stirred in her passions that she had never before imagined as hers—that first pathetic appeal of Roddy and then the sight of that letter!
Her brain, working feverishly, showed her the words that that letter would contain—the passion, the passion! There in the very face of her husband, Rachel was receiving letters from her lover, letters that she could not wait a moment to read, but must go instantly and open them.
This hour brought to a crisis Lizzie's agony. Had such a letter been written to her!
She tortured herself now with the picture of him as he sat there in his room in Saxton Square writing it! It appeared to her now as though they two—there in the very throne of their triumphant love—had plotted this insult, this snap of the fingers, to show her, Lizzie Rand, how desolate, how lonely, how neglected and unwanted she was!
That then, after this, Rachel should appeal to her for friendship! The cruel insult of it.
She felt as she heard the fast drops of rain lash the window-frames, that no revenge that she could secure would satisfy her thirst for it.
V
Roddy, meanwhile, had gone out to the stables. That little talk with Lizzie had determined a resolution that had been growing now within him for many weeks.
That little woman, with her assured air and neat little ways, knew what she was about—knew moreover what others were about. She had watched and had given him the tip—He would take it.
Roddy's mind was of far too simple an order to admit of more than one point of view at a time. He saw Rachel now as a dog or horse, of whom he was very fond, who needed, nevertheless, stern discipline. He wondered now how it was that he had allowed himself for so long to remain indecisive.
"London muddles a feller," he concluded; "the country's the place for clear thinkin'."
He looked at his horses with great satisfaction, they were in splendid condition—he had never known them better. He also was in splendid condition—never been better.
As he walked away from the stables and turned towards the end of the garden bounded by the gryphons and the stone gate, he felt his body at its most supreme perfection. He thought, on that afternoon, that he was strong enough for anything, and perhaps never before in his life had he been so conscious of the glories of physical things; of all that it meant to have fine muscles and a strong heart and lungs of the best and thews and sinews as good as "any feller's."
"I'm strong enough for anythin'–" He turned back his arm and felt his muscle. He cocked his head with a little conceited gesture of satisfaction—"I was gettin' a bit fat in London—got rid of all that."
To walk, to ride, to fight, to swim, to eat and sleep, to love women and drink strong drink! God! what a world!
And then, beyond it all, Rachel, Rachel, Rachel! He had her now—she should be under his hand, she should be his as she had never been since the first week of their marriage.
"No more nonsense, by God!" he said triumphantly to himself—"no more nonsense."
He leaned on the stone gate and looked out over the fields—The gryphons regarded him benevolently.
He was conscious, as he stood there, of the Duchess—what was the old lady doing? He'd like to see her. He felt more in sympathy with her than he had been for a long time past. "She's right after all. You've got to stand up and run people. No use just lettin' them handle you."
There was a storm coming up. The white lights of the higher sky were being closed down by black blocks of cloud that spread, from one to another, merging far on the horizon above the hills into driving lines of rain. The white chalk hollows above Lewes stood out sharp and clear; the dark green of the fields was now a dull grey, the hedges were dark and a thin stream that cut the flat surface of the plain was black like ink.
Roddy welcomed the storm. Had he been superstitious the physical energy that now pervaded him might have frightened him. He felt as though with one raising of his arm he could hold up those black clouds and keep them off. The rain and the wind had not more force than he—
Life was a vast pæan of strength—"The weak must go"—He was, at this hour, Lord of Creation.
As he went back to the house the rain met him and whipped his cheek.
"By Gad, I'd like to find the old lady sittin' in the house, waitin' for a chat," he thought.
When he came down to dinner, he came as one who rules the world. That simple clear light was in his eyes that was always there when he had found the solution to something that perplexed him. His expression too was one that belonged to Rachel's earlier experience of him, one that she had not seen on his face for a long time past. His strong but rather stupid mouth had somewhere in its corners the suspicion of a smile. His chin stuck out rather obstinately—the light in the eyes, the smile, the set lips, these things revealed the old Roddy.
After dinner Lizzie went off to her room.
For a while Roddy and Rachel sat there—She read some book, her eyes often leaving the page and staring into the fire.
Then she got up and said good night. She came over and bent down and kissed him. He caught her arm and held her.
"I say, old girl, it's time we had the same room again—much more convenient." He heard her catch her breath and felt her tremble. She tried to draw her arm away, but he held her.
"Oh! but soon, Roddy—Yes—but not just now—I–"
"Yes—now. I'll see about it to-morrow." She stepped back from him, dragging herself away, and then put her hand to her forehead with a desperate gesture.
"No, no—not–"
He got up and smiling, swaying a little, faced her—
"Yes—I've made up my mind—all this business has got to come to an end—Been goin' long enough."
"What business?"
"Seein' nothing of you—nothing from mornin' till night. You know, old girl, it isn't fair—if we didn't care about one another–"
"Yes, I know—but don't let's discuss it to-night. I'm tired, headachy—this storm–"
He said nothing—She looked at him and at the steady stare in his eyes and the smile at his mouth turned away.
She moved towards the door—He said nothing, but his eyes followed her.
"Good night," she said, turning round to him—but he still said nothing, only stood there very square and set.
For a long time he sat, looking into the fire—Then he went up to his room and very slowly undressed. Afterwards he came out, carefully closing the door behind him, then, in dressing-gown and pyjamas, went down the passage to Rachel's door.
The house was very still, but the storm was raging and the boughs of some tree hit, with fierce protesting taps, a window at the passage-end.
He knocked at her door, waited, then heard her ask who was there.
"It's I, Roddy," he said. There was a pause, then the door was opened. He came in and stood in the doorway. Rachel was sitting up in bed, her face very white, her eyes fixed on him.
"I'm sleepin' here to-night, Rachel," he said.
Her voice was a whisper—"No, Roddy—no—not—not–"
"Yes," he said firmly.
"No, not to-night."
"Yes—to-night—now."
He walked carefully across the room, took off his dressing-gown, and hung it over a chair. He looked about the room.
"Too much light"—he said and, going to the door, switched off all the lights save the one above the bed.