II
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. "We must have 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 they aren't special put 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. Such a 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 let that little thing matter!"
Then Roddy said—"Well, dear. I'm jolly glad you did go 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, who are your visitors?"
Peters answered her question by opening the door and announcing—
"Mr. Breton, my lady."
III
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 feller does look 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 be the place 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.
"There is one 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 quite how to 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.
CHAPTER VIII
A QUARTETTE
"Her dignity consisted, I do believe, in her recognition, always sure and prompt, of the dramatic moment."
—Henry Galleon.
I
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, this is your little plot, is it? Oh, Roddy, my friend, how young you are and how little 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 she did know 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. How are you, 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. Roddy has got 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, "let me tell 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 what you told 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.