The Duchess of Wrexe, Her Decline and Death

"You never can tell with girls. You're all so uncertain about one another—devoted one moment and enemies the next."

"Are we?" said Rachel slowly. "I don't think I'm like that—Oh! how hot it is!" She lay back against the grass with her arms behind her head.

"Do you like me?" Roddy said suddenly.

"I?… You!"

She slowly sat up and he saw at once that she knew now what he was going to say. At that moment, sitting there, staring at him, with her breasts moving a little beneath her white dress and her hands pressing flatly against the grass, in her agitation and the look in her eyes of some suddenly evoked personality that he did not know at all she was more elusive to him than she had ever been—

She was frightened—and also glad—but the change in her from the girl he had known all the summer was so startling that he felt that he was about to propose to someone he had never seen before.

"Do I like you?" she repeated slowly, and her lips parted in a smile.

"Yes," he said, looking at her hands that seemed to belong to the earth into which they were pressing—"Because I want you to marry me–"

The moment of her surprise had come before—now she only said very quietly—

"Why—what do you know about me?"

"I know—enough—to ask you," he said, stumbling over his words. He was now afraid that, after all, she intended to refuse him, and the terror of this made his heart stop. No words would come. He stared at her with all the fright in his eyes.

"Roddy" (she had never called him that before), "do you care–"

Then she stopped.

She began again. "I don't want to talk nonsense. I want to say exactly what I feel. I suppose most girls would want to be free a little longer, would want to have a good time another two or three seasons—but I don't—I hate being free—I want somebody to keep me, to prevent my doing silly things, to look after me … and … I'd rather you did it—than anybody else...." Then she went on quickly—"But it is more than that. I do like you most awfully, only I suppose I'm not the kind of girl to be frantically excited, to be wild about it all. I'm not that. I do like you—better than any other man I know—Is that enough?"

"I think—we can be most awfully good pals—always," he said.

"Oh!" she cried suddenly, putting her hand on his and looking straight into his face. "That's what I want—that, that—If that's it, and you think we can, why then, I'd rather marry you, Roddy dear, than anyone in the world."

"Then it's settled," he said. But he did not take her hand or touch her. They sat for quite a long time, looking at the rippling corn and the house, that was like a white boat sailing on the green far below them.

They said no word.

Then, without speaking, they got up from the grass and walked down the path to the little wood. But when they came to the place where they had been the night before he caught her to him so furiously that his own body was bent back, and he kissed her again and again and again.

BOOK II

RACHEL

CHAPTER I

THE POOL AND THE SNOW

"For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow.And trains of sombre men, past tale of number,Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go:But even for them awhile no cares encumberTheir minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken,The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumberAt the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the charm they have broken."Robert Bridges.

I

In the early days of the December of that year, 1898, the first snow fell.

Francis Breton, standing at his window high up in the Saxton Square house, watched the first flakes, as they came, lingering, from the heavy brooding sky; as he watched a great tide of unhappiness and restlessness and discontent swept over him. His was a temperament that could be raised to heaven and dashed to hell in a second of time; life never showed him its true colours and his sensitive suspicion to the signs and omens of the gods gave him radiant confidence and utter despair when only a patient quiescence had been intended. During the last three months he had risen and fallen and risen again, as the impulse to do something magnificent somewhere interchanged with the impulse to do something desperate—meanwhile nothing was done and, standing now staring at the snow, he realized it.

He had never, in all his days, known how to moderate. If he might not be the hero of society then must he be the famous outcast, in one fashion or another London must ring with his name.

And yet now here had he been in London since the end of April and nothing had occurred, no steps, beyond that first letter to his grandmother, had he taken. He had not even responded to the advances made to him by his old associates, he had seen no one save Christopher, Brun once or twice, the Rands and his cousin Rachel.

Throughout this time he had done what he had never done before, he had waited. For what?

A little perhaps he had expected that the family would take some step. Looking back now he knew that the shadow of his grandmother had been over it all. He had always seen her when he had contemplated any action, seen her, and, deny it as he might, feared her. She confused his mind; he had never been very readily clear as to reasons and instincts—he had never paused for a period long enough to allow clear thinking, but now, through all these weeks, he had been conscious that that same clear thinking would have come to him had not his grandmother clouded his mind. He felt her as one feels, in a dream, some power that prevents our movement, holds us fascinated—so now he was held.

The other great force persuading him to inaction was Rachel Beaminster, now Rachel Seddon.

Long before his return to England the thought of this cousin of his had often come to him. He would speculate about her. She, like himself, was by birth half a rebel, she must be—She must be. He had sometimes thought that he would write to her, and then he had felt that that would not be fair. Behind all his dreams and romances he always saw some destiny whose colours were woven simply for him, Francis Breton, and this confidence in an especial personally constructed God had been responsible for his wildest and most foolish mistakes.

Often had he seen this especial God bringing his cousin and himself together. Always he had known that, in some way, they two were to be chosen to work out, together, vengeance and destruction against all the Beaminsters. When, therefore, that meeting in the Rands' drawing-room had taken place he had accepted it all. She was even more wonderful than he had expected, but he had known, instantly, that she was his companion, his chosen, his fellow-traveller; between them he had realized a claim, implied on some common knowledge or experience, at the first moment of their meeting.

From the age of ten, when he had been petted by one of his father's mistresses, his life had been entangled with women; some he had loved, others he had been in love with, others again had loved him.

He did not know now whether he were in love with Rachel or no—he only knew that the whole current of his life was changed from the moment that he met her and that, until the end of it, she now would be intermingled with all his history.

At first so sure had he been of the workings of fate in this matter that he had been content (for the first time in all his days) to wait with his hands folded. During this period all thought of action against the Beaminsters on the one hand or a relapse into the company of the friends of his earlier London days on the other, had been out of the question. This certainty of Rachel's future alliance with himself had made such things impossibly absurd.

Then had come the announcement of her engagement to Seddon. For a moment the shock had been terrific. He had suddenly seen the face of his especial God and it was blind and stupid and dead....

Then swiftly upon that had come thought of his grandmother. This was, of course, her doing—Rachel was too young to know—She would discover her mistake: the engagement would be broken off.

During this time he had met Rachel on several occasions, and although the meetings had been very brief, yet always he had felt that same unacknowledged, secret intimacy. After every meeting his confidence had risen, once again, to the skies.

Then had come the news of her marriage.

From that moment he had known no peace. At first he had wildly fancied that this had happened because he had not come to her and more plainly declared himself; his picture of her idea of him was confused with all the dramatic untruth of his idea of her; then, interchanging with that, had come moods when he had seen things more plainly as they were and had told himself that all relations between herself and him had been invented by himself, that any kindness that she had shown him had been kindness sprung from pity.

During the early months of the autumn Rachel and her husband were abroad, and during this time, Breton told himself that he was waiting for her return before taking any action. Then a certain Mrs. Pont, a lady whose beauty had been increased but her reputation lessened by several scandals and a tiresomely querulous Mr. Pont, had suggested to Francis Breton a continuation of certain earlier relationships.

He knew himself well enough to be sure that one evening in Mrs. Pont's company would put an end to his struggles, so weak was he in his own knowledge that the only possible evading of a conflict was by the denial of the enemy's very existence.

He denied Mrs. Pont and, throughout those dark gloomy autumn weeks, clinging to Christopher and Lizzie Rand, waited to hear of Rachel's return.

Although he would confess it to no man alive, he longed now, with an aching heart, for some sort of reconciliation with the family. He would have astonished them with his humility had they given him any sign or signal. He fancied that Lord John or even the Duke might come.... Once admitted to his proper rank again and what a citizen he would be! Vanish for ever Mrs. Pont and her tribe and all that dark underworld that waited, like some sluggish but confident monster, for his inevitable descent. Wild phantasmic plans crossed his brain every hour of every day—nothing came of it all; only when at last it was announced that Sir Roderick and Lady Seddon had returned to England he discovered that he had nothing to do, nothing to say, no step to take.

That return had been at the end of October; from then until the end of November he waited, expecting that she would write to him; still, by this anticipation, were Mrs. Pont and Mrs. Pont's world kept at bay.

No word came. Driven now to take some step that would shatter this silence, he wrote to her a long letter about nothing very much, only something that would bring him a line from her.

For ten days now he had waited and there had come no word. As these first flakes of snow softly, relentlessly, fell past his window the nebulous cloud of all the uncertainties, disappointments, rebellions, of this pointless wasted thing that men called Life crystallized into form—"I'm no good—Life, like this, it's impossible—I'm no good against it—I'd better climb down...."

And here the irony of it was that he'd never climbed up.

The awful moments in Life are those that threaten us by their suspension of all action. "Just feel what's piling up for you out of all this silence," they seem to say. Breton's trouble now was that he did not know in what direction to move. His relation to Rachel was so nebulous that it could scarcely be called a relation at all.

He only knew that she alone was the person for whom now life was worth combating. He had told her in his letter that she could help him, and the absence of an answer spoke now, in this threatening silence, with mighty reverberating voice. "She doesn't care."

Well then, who else is there? Almost he could have fancied that his grandmother, there in the Portland Place house, was withdrawing from him all the supports in which he trusted.

Now the snow, falling ever more swiftly, ever more stealthily, seemed to be with him in the room, stifling, choking, blinding.

He felt that if he could not find company of some kind he would go mad, and so, leaving the storm and the silence behind him in his room, he went to find Lizzie Rand.

II

Lizzie Rand did not conceal from herself now that she loved him. So long had her emotional life been waiting there, undesired, that now it could be kept by her utterly apart from her daily habit, but it became a flame, a fire, that lighted with its splendid warmth and colour the whole of her accustomed world. She indulged it now without restraint, through the long dark autumn she had it treasured there; she did not, as things then were, ask for more than this splendid knowledge that there was now someone upon whom she loved to spend her care. She had not loved to spend it upon her mother and sister, but that had been a duty defined and necessary. Now everything that she could do for Breton was more fuel to fling to her flame. That further question as to whether he might care for her she kept just in sight, but nevertheless not definite enough to risk the absolute challenge.

At least, now, as the weeks passed, he sought her company more and more. She helped him, she cheered and comforted him, enough for her present need.

Even, beyond it all, could she survey herself humorously. This the first love affair of her life made her smile at her capture and defeat.

"Well, I'm just like the rest—And oh! I'm glad, I'm glad that I am."

Finally she knew that there was still a step that might be taken, between them, at any moment. He had, she knew, something to tell her. Again and again lately he had been about to speak and then had caught the impulse back.

This too she would not examine too closely, but from the moment that he should demand from her definite concrete assistance, from that moment she would be to him what she knew no one now living could claim to be.

Breton was glad when the little maid told him that Mrs. Rand was out, but that Miss Lizzie was at home. He saw her in the warm cosy room, sitting before the fire with her toes on the fender and her skirts pulled up, drying her shoes.

She looked up and smiled at him and told him to sit down, but did not move from her position.

"Mother's out at a matinee with Daisy. I got away early this afternoon. Do you hate snow, Mr. Breton?"

"I hate it to-day. I've got the dumps. I had to find someone to talk to or I'd have gone screaming into the street–"

"Couldn't find anyone better, so took me—thank you for the compliment. But I like the snow. Your pool's more like a pool now than ever, Mr. Breton."

He went across to the window and stood there looking at the little square now white with the gaunt trees rising black from the heart of it and the grey houses that hemmed it in. Over it the snow, yellow and grey and then delicately white, swirled and tossed.

He came back and sat down beside her and wondered at her neat comfort and air of calm control of all her emotions and desires.

She, looking at him, saw that he was ill. Dark lines beneath his eyes, his cheeks pale and an air of picturesque melancholy that made her want first to laugh at him and then mother him.

"I know what's the matter with you," she said, nodding her head.

"What?"

"Something to do. That's what you want." She turned towards him, looking at him with a little smile and yet with grave seriousness in her eyes. "Oh! Mr. Breton, why don't you? What is the use of sitting here month after month, doing nothing, just waiting for something to happen—something that can't happen unless you make it? Things don't fall into people's mouths just because they sit with them open."

He coloured. "Everybody's always scolding me," he said. "Christopher—you—everybody. Nobody understands—how difficult...."

He broke off. So intangible were his difficulties that no words would define them, and yet, God knew, they were real enough.

"I know—" she said, nodding her head. "It's the thought of them all at Portland Place that's holding you back. You began by fancying that you wanted to cut their throats, and you still wouldn't mind slaughtering them if only they in their turn would do something definite. It's their doing nothing that just holds you up. But really as long as your grandmother's alive I'm afraid that it's no good thinking of them. When she's dead—and she can't live for ever—anything may happen. Meanwhile why not show them what you can do?"

"But what can I do?" he answered her fiercely. "I've never been brought up to do anything—except what I oughtn't—There's my arm and one thing and another—Besides, there's more than that in it, Miss Rand. It's the fact that—well, that there's nobody that cares that's—so freezing. If only somebody minded–"

As he spoke Rachel rose, beautifully, wonderfully, before him. There, as she had been on that first day when she had had tea there, bending forward, listening, her dark wondering eyes on his face.

Lizzie at the sound of the appeal in his voice had felt her heart expand, beat, so that her body seemed to hold, suddenly, some great possession that hurt her by its force and urgency.

But she answered almost sharply:

"Nonsense, Mr. Breton. Excuse me, but I've no patience with that kind of thing. People are meant to stand alone, not to go leaning about for other people's support. You're cursed with too much imagination, Mr. Breton, and you remember too clearly everything that's happened before. Begin now, as though you were born yesterday, and startle the family by your energy–"

"Now you're laughing at me," he said hotly. "I dare say I deserve it, but I don't feel as though I could stand—very much of it from anyone to-day–"

Then he was astonished by the sudden softness of her voice. "No, no, please," she said; "I understand so well. But indeed you have got friends who believe in you. Dr. Christopher, myself, if you'll count me, and lots more. You'll win everyone in time if you're not impatient and don't despair. Don't think of your grandmother too much. The mere fact of your not seeing her makes you imagine her as something portentous and dreadful, and she weighs you down, but she isn't really anything at all. She can't stop one's energies if one's determined to let them go. Please, please don't think I'm laughing. I only want to help–"

"I know you do," he answered warmly, "I owe you more than I can say. All these last weeks you and Christopher have been the two people who've held the world together for me. But there's more than you know, Miss Rand. There's–"

He bent towards her. She knew that the confidence was at last to be hers. It needed her strongest control to prevent the trembling of her hands. His eyes were alight, his whole body eloquent. At the thought of what he might be about to tell her the room turned before her.

Voices in the little hall. Then the door opened and in came Mrs. Rand and Daisy. They had been to the play—Such nonsense. One of these new, serious plays with long, long conversations—Mrs. Rand wanted tea. Daisy wanted admiration.

Between Lizzie and Breton the precious cup had fallen, smashed to the tiniest atoms.

Meanwhile aimless conversation was more than he, in his present mood, could endure.

He made some excuse and, scarcely knowing what he did, found his hat and coat and went out into the square.

III

There had come to him one of those agonies of loneliness that no argument, no reasoning can destroy.

The absence of any letter from Rachel seemed to show that she had abandoned him. In all this vast thickly peopled world there was now no one to whom his presence or absence, his fortunes or disasters mattered. The snowstorm gathered him into its folds; the snow fell against his mouth, his eyes, and before him, behind him, around him there was a world deserted of man, houses blind and without life.

The snow might fall now to the end of time. It would creep up and up, falling from the heavens, rising from the earth, swallowing all creation—the end of the world.

He pressed into the park and there under the trees stretching like gallows against the throttling sky temptation to give it all up, to go under and have done with it all, leapt, hot and fierce, upon him. Mrs. Pont and the others were waiting for him. They would be good to him. The Upper World would not hear nor see nor think of his disasters, and slowly, with the others, life would recede, he would crumble and decay and cease to care, and death would come soon enough.

Then the wind smote his face and tore at his coat: the snow died away, beyond the black bare trees a very faint yellow bar threaded the thick grey—promise that the storm was at an end.

Suddenly with the cessation of the storm the long field of white seemed good and restful, and beyond the park the houses showed light in their windows.

The yellow spread through the sky, and stars, very slowly, came and the wind died away.

Courage filled him. Rachel might never come or write or care, but he would make the thought of her the one true thing in his heart, and with that he would do battle so long as he could.

Christopher and Miss Rand … he thought of them as he trudged his way home—and when he saw the white silence of Saxton Square and the golden sky breaking above its peace and quiet he thought that, for a time longer, he would keep his place and hold his own.

CHAPTER II

A LITTLE HOUSE

"Each in the crypt would cry,'But one freezes here! and why?'When a heart, as chill,'At my own would thrillBack to life, and its fires out-fly?'Heart, shall we live or die?The rest … settle by-and-by!'"Robert Browning.

I

Rachel at Seddon Court watched, from her window, that first fallen snow.

Seddon Court is about three miles from the town of Lewes and lies, tucked and cornered, under the very brow of the Downs. It is a grey little house, old and stalwart, with a courtyard and two towers. The towers are Norman; the rest of the house is Tudor.

Beyond the actual building there are gardens that run to the very foot of the Downs, with only a patch and an old stone wall intervening. Above the house, day and night, year after year, the Downs are bending; everything, beneath their steady solemn gaze, is small and restless; as the colours are flung by the sun across their green sprawling limbs the house, at their feet, catches their reflected smile and, when the sun is gone and the winds blow, cowers beneath their frown; everything in that house is conscious of their presence.

Rachel had been at Seddon Court for a month and now, at the window of her writing-room, looking across the garden, up into their dark shadows, she wondered at their indifference and monotony. Anyone who had known her before her marriage would be struck instantly, on seeing her now, by a change in her.

Her whole attitude to the world, during her first season in London, had been an attitude of wonder, of expectation, of the uncertainty that comes from expectation.

With that expectation were also alarm, distrust, and it was only when some sudden incident or person called happiness into her face that that distrust vanished.

Now she was older, that hesitation and awkwardness were gone, but with their departure had vanished, too, much of her honesty. Her dark eyes were as sincere as they had ever been, but to anyone who had known her before her attitude now was assumed. Nothing might catch her unprepared, but what experiences were they that had taught her the need for armour?

Sitting in her room looking on to a lawn that would soon be white and to Downs obscured already by the thick tumbling snow, she knew that she was unhappy, disappointed, even alarmed. Suddenly to-day the uneasiness that had been gathering before her throughout the last weeks assumed, on this afternoon, the definite tangibility of a challenge.

"What's the matter—with me, with everything?… What's happened?"

Her room, dark green and white, had no pictures, but a long low book-case with grave handsome books, an edition of someone in red with white paper labels and another edition of someone else in dark blue and another in gold and brown, an old French gilt mirror, square, with a reflection of the garden and the foot of the Downs in it, an old Queen Anne rosewood writing-table, some Queen Anne chairs, a gate-legged table—a very cool, quiet room.