The Duchess of Wrexe, Her Decline and Death

But although he had thus reassured Roddy he was not, in his heart, so certain. He seemed to see a long chain of events (he dated his own observation of them from the time of Rachel's coming out), that had led both Rachel and the Duchess to the climax of their actual challenge one to another. It was not that that meeting in Roddy's house had been of itself so important, it was rather that the fates had selected it as a definite culmination of the struggle. That meeting stood for a sharp visualization of much more than the personal conflict.

She had been glad to go, he did not in any way see her death as a tragedy, but her departure had marked the opening of a new period, a new personal history for the remaining characters, ultimately perhaps a new social epoch for everybody—

Meanwhile he was happy about Roddy and Rachel for the first time since their marriage and, as he was a man who lived in the lives of his friends, their happiness meant his own.

He found Lord John with Roddy, Rachel was with Aunt Adela, but "would be back for tea." Lord John, rather solemn and awkward in black clothes, was demanding comfort and assistance from his friends. His trouble was that he did not miss his mother as fundamentally as he desired, and that, at the same time, life was now most terribly different. His brothers, Vincent and Richard, had instantly after the funeral adapted themselves, with gravity and assurance, to the new conditions.

Lord John had never adapted himself to anything, but had fitted his stout body into the soft places that life had offered to him and had been placidly grateful for their softness. Only once had he shown energy of his own initiative and that had been in the matter of his nephew Francis, and of that now he did not dare to think.

He could never, so long as he lived, forget the slightest detail of that horrible quarter of an hour with his mother when she discovered his iniquity—and yet, even now, he felt, obscurely but obstinately, that he had done right. Nevertheless he would never again take life into his own hands: upon that he was absolutely resolved. What he needed now was reassurance from his friends. He had always before found that life arranged itself about him in a comfortable way and he confidently expected that it would do so now, but meanwhile he must have kind looks and words from somebody. He was a man who hailed with joy the opportunity of bestowing affection upon a friend who was not likely, at a later time, to rebuff him. He had never been quite sure of Rachel—she was so strange and uncertain—but upon Roddy, helpless, good-natured, and a man of his own world, he felt that he could rely. He spent therefore many hours at Roddy's side, rather silent, smiling a great deal, playing chess with him, sticking little flags on the War Map.

At times, as he sat there, he would think of his mother, of the Portland Place house shortly to be sold, of a world altered and alarming, and then he would wonder how long the time would be before he might again take up his old habits, his old houses, his old comforts, and then his fat cheerful face would gather wrinkles upon its surface. "It's after a thing like this that a feller gets old—Richard and Adela and I—We'll have to make up our minds to it."

Christopher found them busied with the map, discussing the probable hour of Mafeking's relief. Lord John looked at Christopher a little anxiously, perhaps he was going to be down upon him! But Christopher was a very quiet and genial Christopher. He sank down into a chair with a sigh of comfort, waved his hand to them.

"Don't you mind me. I'm tired to death. Was up all last night with a case–"

"You see," said Roddy, "there's Ramathlabama. Well—Plumer lost a lot o' men there and they say his crowd have had fever too and there ain't much to hope for there—now Roberts–"

But Lord John's attention was distracted. He wished to be quite sure that Christopher did not regard him with severity.

"You look fagged out, Christopher."

"I am!" said Christopher, smiling.

"I'm feeling a bit done up, too. Think I'll take Adela abroad somewhere for a little."

"I should," said Christopher. "Excellent thing for both of you."

"Now where do you suggest?"

"Oh, anywhere different from London. Go on a cruise–"

"Adela's a bad sailor—wretched. I'm not very good myself."

They discussed places. Christopher was more than friendly. There had been occasions when he had been the stern family physician and had treated Lord John with some severity. Now there was implied a new comradeship as though they had passed through perils together and would have always between them in the future a strong bond of friendship.

John felt that the atmosphere at this moment was so friendly and comforting that he would not risk the disturbance of it.

He got up.

"Think I'll be going on, Roddy. Don't like leaving Adela alone. Rachel will be on her way here now, so I'll be getting back."

He was staying with Adela at a quiet little hotel in Dover Street.

"Well, good-bye for the moment, Christopher. Adela'd be very glad if you'd come in and see her. Come and have lunch with us to-morrow."

"Thanks, I will."

He stood, for a moment, looking out upon the park, warm and comfortable under the sun. He thought of Rachel. He had regained the old Rachel the other night at Beaminster—dear Rachel!

Rachel, Roddy, Christopher—how nice they all were! There was, he felt, a new feeling of security amongst them all. Yes, he really did believe that life, now, was going to be very comfortable and safe and easy....

"So long, Roddy."

He beamed happily upon them and went.

Jacob, the dog, came in from his afternoon walk, very grave, paying no attention to Christopher, but going at once and lying, full length, near Roddy's sofa, his head between his paws, his eyes fixed upon his master.

"What's happened to all your other dogs?" asked Christopher. "They must be missing you very badly."

"Oh, they're down at Seddon, got a jolly good man there whom I can trust—don't think they miss me. This beggar would though. Funny thing, Christopher—when I was goin' about and all the rest of it I thought nothin' of this dog, couldn't see why Rachel made such a fuss of it—now—why I don't know how I'd ever get on without it, so understandin' and quiet with it all too. Nothin' like a trouble of some sort for showin' who's worth what, whether they're dogs or people...."

"I hope the funeral did Rachel no harm," Christopher said.

"Not a bit of it. She'd had a last interview with the old lady and knew, after that, she'd never see her again. In a way she hasn't felt it, but in a way too I believe she'd like to have all the old time over again and see whether she couldn't manage it better … she said to me she'd never understood the old woman until that last talk with her, not that there was much love lost between 'em even then. Was Breton there?"

"No—He scarcely could go, in the circumstances."

"Funny feller, Breton. What puzzles me is what did he go and give up Rachel so easily for? I couldn't tell you why, but that day he came here I was as sure as I was lyin' here that whatever there was between them was finished. I wouldn't have said what I did, seemed to take it so quietly, if I hadn't seen in a minute it was all over."

"Ah, you don't know Francis," said Christopher. "It's all romantic impulses that set him going—Rachel romantic impulse on one side, getting back to the family romantic impulse on the other. He knew if he went off with her that getting back to the family would be over for ever as far as he was concerned. He knew that he'd never cease to regret it.... John Beaminster coming to him gave him what he'd been waiting for, longing for. He seized it–"

"Yes, but it was more than that," said Roddy slowly. "It all lies with Rachel. He never got close to her any more than I've done. I know now that she's fond of me, but it's by the child I'll hold her and by my helplessness, nothin' else. And she'll have her wild moments when myself and everythin' about me will seem simply impossible, just as if she'd gone off with Breton she'd have had her comfortable domestic sort of longin's and hated him and everythin' about him. I believe Breton knew—just as I knew—that never tryin' to hold her was the way to keep her, and he'd have had to have her if he'd gone off with her....

"Anyway, Rachel wouldn't be so adorable if there wasn't a lot of her that no one man could master. But I've been given all the tricks in the game by bein' laid up like this—just when I thought I'd lost all worth havin' in life and never a chance of a kid again!… Funny thing, Life!

"But she's mine! Christopher, and no one can take her. Breton's got his idea of her; there is a bit of her that he stirred that I never could touch, but it don't matter—she's the most wonderful creature on this earth and I'm the luckiest beggar."

"She'll be quieter," said Christopher, "now that the Duchess is gone. They were always conscious of one another...."

"And now there'll be the kid instead. If he's a boy I swear he shall be the best rider, the best sportsman in this bloomin' old world—not that I'd mind a girl, either. I'd like to have a girl—just the time for a woman nowadays. Whichever way it is I'll be contented. Not, you know," he added hastily, "that I'm going to be a sort o' blessed angel with domestic bliss and never wantin' to get off this old sofa and the rest—not a bit of it—it's damned tryin' and I curse hours together often enough. Peters has the benefit of it. I wasn't born an angel and I shan't die one...."

"Nobody wants you to," said Christopher.

"Well, you needn't worry. But it's funny how I get talkin' nowadays—never used to say a word—now I gas away.... Well, cheers for the new generation, cheers for young Roddy Secundus.... Long life to him!"

"There's one thing," said Christopher, looking at him. "Whatever inspired you, that day you had the scene here, to behave to Frank Breton as you did? To give them both carte blanche—it wouldn't be the way of most husbands confronted with such a question—it was the only way for Rachel … but how did you know her well enough? You'll forgive my saying so, your method as a rule is to drive straight in, let fly all round, and then count the bits."

"If you love anybody," said Roddy, with confusion and hesitation, "as much as I love Rachel you become wonderfully understandin'.... Look here," he broke off, "don't let's talk any more rot. Just drop all jaw about feelin's and such. There's been an awful lot of it lately."

He would say no more; they got the war map and, very happily for the next quarter of an hour, moved flags up and down its surface.

Then came Rachel and, after her, tea. They were a quiet but very happy company during the next half-hour.

"How's Aunt Adela?" asked Roddy.

"Very well, considering," said Rachel. "Of course she's confused and lost her bearings rather. She misses the Portland Place house more than anything, I think—she was there so long. But Uncle Vincent was right; it would have been very bad for her if she'd stayed in it.... She's quiet and depending a lot upon Lizzie–"

When tea was ended Rachel said, "Dr. Chris, I've got something to say to you. I'm going to tear you away from Roddy for five minutes if you'll come upstairs."

"Well, that's a nice sort of thing–" protested Roddy.

"I won't keep him." She took him up to the little drawing-room and as they sat there by the window together he thought of that day when he had told her the Duchess was downstairs with Roddy. They had all travelled a long way since then.

"There's a favour I want you to grant me."

"Anything in the world."

"It's about Francis—" She gave him the name with a little hesitation and with an air of restraint as though about the very whisper penalties could linger.

"You're the best friend that he's got—the best friend any man could have—and I want you to care for him, to look after him, to watch over him. I know," she went on hurriedly, "that you always have done that, but I want you to feel now that you're doing it a little for my sake as well as your own. I want you to be the one link that I've still got with him."

"But Roddy asked him–" began Christopher.

"Oh yes! I know—Roddy was splendid. But of course that can't be. We can't meet, at any rate for years. Besides, that time is so utterly done with. There's only Roddy now for me in all the world. But I know, better, I expect, than you think, how weak Francis is, how much he depends upon what the people whom he cares for say to him—and so I want you–"

"But of course," Christopher said. "He knows that he can count on me whatever happens—he's always known that."

He stopped and waited for her to continue; he saw that she had more to say.

"It's so strange," she said, staring, her eyes deep and black seeing into sacred places that were known only to her, "how grandmother's death has cleared, amazingly, the air. The motive for almost everything has gone. I didn't see—I hadn't the least idea—how all my thoughts and actions and wishes and impulses came from my sense of opposition to her. Francis saw that—knowing that we both hated her—and that was why I was so difficult with Roddy, because I thought that grandmother had arranged the marriage and had him under her thumb—I had no idea of the kind of person Roddy was."

"Nor had I—nor had anyone," said Christopher.

"That whole affair with Francis was in idea—always—more than in fact. I knew, and I believe that he knew, that it was simply a piece of wild rebellion on my part; and on his—well, he's like that, romantic, rebellious, responding in a minute to everything, but wanting, really, all the time to be safe and proper. That day we met in his rooms, we both knew, at heart, that something was missing—something one had to have if one was going to break away altogether. He was always a rebel by force of circumstances, never by real inclination."

She put her hand on Christopher's knee and drew very close to him. "Chris dear, I'm terrified now when I think of how near I was to absolute, complete disaster. If it hadn't been for Roddy's accident and for Lizzie … Lizzie's been to all of us everything in the world.

"Do you remember once telling me about Mr. Brun's Tiger? I've often thought of it since and it seems to me now that to all of us—for Roddy and Francis and Lizzie and me—the moment of our consciousness came. Ever since that day when they carried Roddy back to Seddon each one of us has had to wait, just holding ourselves in.... But, you know, Dr. Chris, that's the secret of the whole matter. It wasn't I, or Breton, or even Lizzie or Roddy that defeated grandmother—it was simply Real Life. First the War, then Roddy's accident—Roddy's accident most of all. We had, all five of us, been leading sham lives, then suddenly God, Fate, Providence, what you will, steps in, jerks us all back, takes away from all of us what we thought we wanted most, puts us in line with the real thing—our Tiger, if you like. Grandmother simply couldn't stand it. Lizzie and Roddy are real—half of Breton and me, and most of grandmother unreal—Well, Lizzie and Roddy have just put things straight quietly.... Grandmother's generation saw things 'through a glass darkly'—They're gone. It's all going to be 'face to face' now."

Christopher looked at her, smiling. She was so young, so adorably young with her seriousness.

She broke in—"What rot I'm talking! It only comes to this, that I wish now, like anything, that I'd been nicer to grandmamma. One sees things always too late.... I'd like to have another try, to begin with grandmamma again, to be more tolerant, to hate her less. But I expect in the end it would be the same. She'd have had me tied up, without a will of my own, without a word to say!… that was her idea of controlling us all. It's over, it's done with—no one, I expect, will have her kind of power again.... But she was fine! I only see now how fine she was!

"No one, I expect, will have her kind of power again...."

Now she stood away from Christopher, looking at him and also beyond him, as though she were finally, once and for all, surveying, cataloguing that same power—

"She wasn't terrible, she wasn't fine, she wasn't really anything except a kind of peg for all sorts of traditions to hang on to. In herself she was just a plucky, theatrical, obstinate old woman. It was simply the idea of her that frightened us all. I remember the first time that I saw Yale Ross's picture of her—He'd caught all the ceremony and the terror. It was then that I had the first faint suspicion that she didn't, in herself, live up to the picture in the least.

"I suppose," she went on, coming up closer to him, "that that's why no one will ever be like her again—because no one will ever be taken in so completely by shams again, never by the empty shell of anything. But that's just how she influenced us—all of us. Myself, you, Lizzie, Roddy, Francis … we were all mixed up in it—

"And then the first moment that we really came into contact with her she wasn't anything—wasn't simply there. Do you know, Dr. Chris, seeing her now, just an old sick woman, conscious that everyone was escaping her, I almost love her!… I do indeed!"

She sprang up and stood before him and laughed, crying—

"I'm grown up, Dr. Chris, I'm grown up! It's taken a time, but it's happened at last! Meanwhile I shall be the most perfect wife, the most perfect mother, and when the Tiger is restive there'll be the youngest Seddon to put it all into. Oh! What a child that child will be! Roddy and his impatience, me and my tempers–"

She laughed and for an instant her old fierce defiance was there then, as though some spirit had flashed, before his eyes, through the window into space and freedom it was gone. She herself proclaimed its dismissal.

"It's gone—it's all gone—Dr. Chris. I'm the happiest woman in England!"

But even as she spoke her eyes were wistful; half-seen, half-recalled, eloquent with a colour, a flame that was too fierce for her present world, hung before her the memory of a moment when, in a darkened room, she had caught a letter to her lips, had sunk upon her knees before a passion whose face she had scarcely seen but whose voice she had heard and still now, in her new life, remembered. She had had her moment … the last strains of its dying music were still in her ears. She caught her breath, then, turning, dismissed it; and, standing back from Christopher, gave him her last word—

"But look after Francis. Be with him as much as you can.... He needs all that you can spare—He's got to be—he's simply got to be—the success of the family!"

CHAPTER XIII

EPILOGUE—PROLOGUE

"Third Apparition—A Child Crowned …"

Macbeth.

I

Late on the evening of May 17th Christopher heard of the relief of Mafeking. It was too advanced an hour, he understood, for the town to display its triumph that evening. Let Christopher wait.

The following night Brun, whom he had not seen for many months, appeared. The clocks had struck nine and Christopher was finishing his dinner, when the little man, shining and dapper, pleased and impersonal, was shown in.

"Hullo!" cried Christopher; "thought you were abroad somewhere."

"I saw you at the Duchess's funeral. Of course I was there. What do you suppose? Meanwhile come out now and see your fine people make manifestations."

"Is there a noise?"

"A noise! Mon Dieu! But come and look!"

They went out together. Harley Street was silent and deserted and above it a night sky, scattered with stars, was serenely still. But, beyond the further roofs and chimneys, golden light hovered and a confused murmur, like the buzzing of bees, hummed upon space.

Through Oxford Street a great crowd of people was passing, but it was a crowd hurrying to find some other crowd. Oxford Street was plainly not the meeting-place. There was a good deal of shouting and singing; young men, five abreast, passed, girls with "ticklers" and whistles screamed and laughed and sang; merry bells were ringing, lights flared in the windows and now and again a rocket with a whiz and a shriek flashed into the sky and broke with a little angry splutter into coloured stars.

They crossed into Bond Street, down which other people were hurrying; sometimes a roaring echo of a multitude of discordant voices would be carried to them and then would be hidden again as though some huge door in front of them were swinging to and fro.

At the end of Bond Street, suddenly, as they might turn the corner of some sea road and, instantly, be confronted with the crash of a plunging surf, they met the crowd.

"Look out!" cried Brun, clutching hold of Christopher's arm. "We don't want to get drawn into this!"

Although they had apparently been walking quietly down Bond Street with no crowd about them, they now were pursued, upon all sides, by people. They raised themselves on to a doorstep, hanging there, bending their feet forward, and feeling that if the crowd in front of them were for a moment to give way down they would go!

Meanwhile, along Piccadilly, towards the clubs and Hyde Park Corner, a thick mass of human beings was pressing. This gathering seemed, of itself, to lack all human quality.

A face, a voice, a hand, a cry–these things might now and again, as fish flash in a stream, detach themselves; sometimes a light from a flaring window or an illumination would fling into pale, unreal relief a bundle of faces that represented, at that instant, a piece of human history, but sank instantly back again into chaos.

One might fancy that this was no crowd of human beings, but some new, unknown creature, dragging its coils from the sluggish bed of some hidden river, stamping to destruction as it went.

Then as though one were watching a show, with a click, the human element was back again. There two girls, their hats pushed aside, their hair half uncoiled, their cheeks flushed, their eyes partly bold and partly frightened, were screaming:

"Oo're yer 'itting? Don't again then. Good old England! Gawd save–"

It was not on the whole a crowd stirred only by national joy and pride. It may, in its units, when it first left its many homes, have announced its intention of giving "a jolly 'ooray" for our splendid country and our Beloved Queen, but, once in a position from which there was no returning, once in the hands of a force that was stronger than any felt before, it had forgotten the country and its defeats and successes. Only two courses open. Either admit fear, feel that the breath of you is slowly but quite surely in process of being crushed out of you, feel that your arms and legs are being torn from you, that your ribs are being smashed into powder and that your heart is being pressed as flat as a pancake, let then panic overwhelm you, fight and scream to get out and away from it, see yourself finally falling, trampled, kicked, your face squashed to pulp, your eyes torn out, your breath strangled in your body … so much for Fear. Or, on the other hand arouse Frenzy!

Be above and beyond your body, scream and shout, rattle rattles and blow whistles, trample upon everything that is near you, smack faces with your hand, pull off clothing and scatter hats and bonnets, scream aloud, no matter what it is that you are screaming, let your voice exclaim that at length, at length, you, a miserable clerk on nothing a week, in the City, are, for the first time in your existence, the Captain of your soul, the ruthless master of a wretched, law-making tyrannous world.... So much for Frenzy!

Either way, be it Frenzy or Fear, the Country has not much to say to it at all. With every moment it seems that from the Circus more bodies, more arms and legs are being pressed and crushed and packed; with every moment the clanging of the bells is louder, the fire in the sky higher and wilder, the singing, the screaming, the oaths and the curses are nearer, the defiance that loss of individuality gives.

"Let's get back," said Brun. He turned, but, at that moment, someone from behind him cried, "Oo are yer shoving there?" He was pushed, with Christopher, half falling, half clutching at arms and shoulders, forward into the street.

They righted themselves, Brun fastened upon Christopher's arm, shouting into his ear, "We'd better go along with the crowd for a bit. We'll get a chance of cutting up Half Moon Street. Can't do anything else."