CHAPTER IV
RACHEL--AND CHRISTOPHER AND RODDY
I
Christopher had snatched his first holiday for two years and was abroadduring the January of 1899 when the Seddons were in town.
February, March and April they spent at Seddon Court, and it was nottherefore until early in May that Christopher saw Rachel.
She had dreaded with an almost fantastic alarm this meeting. No otherhuman being knew her so honestly and accurately as did Christopher, andthe change in her that he would at once discern would, when she caughtthe reflection of it in his eyes, mark definitely the sinister countryinto which these last months had carried her.
It had seemed as though some malign spirit had been determined to makethe most of that quarrel that Nita Raseley had provoked.
Both Roddy and Rachel hated scenes--upon that, at least, they wereagreed--and from their determination never to have another arose adeliberate avoidance of any plain speaking. Rachel, longing for honesty,found herself caught in a thousand deceits--Roddy, avoiding any kind ofanalysis, found that everything that he provided in conversation seemedto lead to danger.
He was now always ill at ease in Rachel's company; he had stood on thatfatal evening, more strongly for the Beaminster interest than he hadintended, but from his very determination to maintain his newindependence, he produced the Duchess for Rachel's benefit at every turnof the road.
Roddy knew that the Duchess feared that Rachel would lead him from herside and that she received with rejoicing every sign on his part ofirritation against Rachel. She had wanted him to marry her granddaughterbecause that bound him more closely to her, but she had not, perhaps,been prepared for the probable effect of Rachel's character upon him.
The Duchess therefore made, throughout these months, a third member oftheir company. Roddy, finding Rachel's society a growing embarrassment,spent more and more of his time with his animals and his tenants andlabourers. But all this time he was conscious, in a dumb way, ofunhappiness and a puzzled dismay, so that his very affection for Rachelproduced in him a growing irritation that it should be so needlesslythwarted. Things were all wrong and his resentment of his own failure toright them reacted, without his will, upon the very person whom hewished to propitiate.
For Rachel these months were baffling in their hideous discomfort. Heraffection for Roddy was there, but it was swallowed by her desperateefforts to analyse a situation that was, in definite outline, nosituation at all.
As Roddy withdrew, her loneliness wrapped her round, and in every daythat added to her distance from Roddy she saw the active and malignantagency of her grandmother. She was intelligent enough to be aware thatin this constant vision of the Duchess she was outstepping theprobabilities; but her early years and the precipitation with which shehad been shot out of them into an atmosphere that unexpectedly resembledtheir own earlier surroundings seemed to point to some diabolicalagency.
"Oh! when I get free of this," had been her earlier cry, and now theforeboding that she was never to be free of it until she died terrifiedher with its possibility. Imagine her brought up in a stuffy house withwindows tightly closed, in full vision of a high road, imagine herpromised the freedom of the road at a future time; imagine herliberated, at last, rushing into the new life and finding that, afterall, the walls of the house were still about her, and about her now forever.
Her one reserve during the early months of the year at Seddon had beenher letters to Francis Breton. His letters to her had been a series ofself-revelation; he had restrained himself in so far as appealing to hersimply on the score of their relationship and his enmity to the head ofthe house. She had replied revealing her sympathy, hinting at rebellionon her own side and feeling, after the writing of every letter, a hatredof her own deceit, a curiously heightened sense of affection for Roddy,above all a conviction that impulses were, of their own agency, workingto some climax that she could not, or would not, control.
The foreign blood in her, the English blood in him, baffled theiradvances toward one another. Everything that Rachel did now seemed toRoddy so close to melodrama that it was best to use silence for hisweapon. All Roddy's actions were to Rachel further illustrations ofBeaminster muddle and second-rate personality.
Had Roddy called out of Rachel the great depth of passion and realitythat she inherited from her mother her own love of him would have solvedeverything--but that he could not call from her, nor ever would.
For Rachel, she saw in him now a possibility of perpetual infidelity,and at every suspicion of it her disgust both at herself and him grewbecause that possibility did not move her more.
They came up to London at the beginning of May and hid, verysuccessfully from the world, the widening breach.
To Rachel, it was sheer terror to discover the thrill that the adjacenceof Elliston Square to Saxton Square gave her. In this oneself-revelation there was enough to present her with night after nightof sleepless misery. She visited the Duchess and found that her presencewas continually demanded. Every visit was a battle.
"Show me how you are treating him, whether he cares for you. Have youfound him out? Tell me everything----"
"I will tell you nothing. I will come here day after day and you shallgather nothing from me. I have escaped you."
"Indeed you have not escaped me. My power over you is only nowbeginning----"
No word between them but the most civil. There was no trace in the oldwoman now of her earlier irony--no sign in Rachel of irritation orrebellion.
But the girl knew that war was declared, that her only ally was one inwhose alliance lay, for her, the very heart of danger.
All these things she might hide from the world--from Christopher sheknew that she could hide nothing.
II
It was on an early afternoon in May that Christopher had tea withRachel. He had waited for his visit with very real anxiety; the lettersthat he had had from her had been unsatisfactory, not because they wereactively expressive of unhappiness, but because there was an effort inevery word of them--Rachel had never found it difficult to write to himbefore.
He was also uneasy because he had been against this marriage from thebeginning. He did, as he said to the Duchess, know Rachel better thananyone else knew her; he knew her from his love for her, and also fromthat scientific study that he applied in his profession. And he hadfound, too, in her, as he had found in Breton, some strain of fiercehelplessness, as of an animal caught in a trap, that especially movedhis interest and affection--
Was Rachel's marriage a disaster? If so she had certainly managed toconceal it, for even the Duchess did not know--of that he was sure.
If Rachel were indeed unhappy would she come to him as she used to cometo him?
What change had marriage wrought in her?
It was one of those May days when the weather is hot before London isready. It was a day of tension; buildings, streets quivered beneath asun in whose gaze there was no kindliness nor comfort. Christopher drovefrom Eaton Square, where, for some hours he had been engaged inpreventing an old man from dying, when both the old man himself and allhis friends and relations were convinced that death was the best thingfor him--
Sloane Street ran like white steel before his eyes, not dimly veiled ashe had so often seen it; Park Lane offered houses that stared withhaughty faces upon a world that would, they knew, do anything formoney--
Elliston Square itself was white and sterile; the town was, on thisafternoon, irritated, sinister ... feet ached upon its pavements andhearts were suddenly clutched with foreboding.
As he ascended in the lift to her flat he knew that, did he find thatthis marriage was, truly, a misadventure for Rachel, then, until hisdeath, he would reproach himself for some weak inaction, some hesitationwhen first he had heard that it was to be.
He _had_ protested, but now he felt that he should have done more.
Soon he had his answer to all his questions.
He saw at once that Rachel was no longer the impulsive, nervous gi
rlwhom he had always known. She was a girl no longer.
Her eyes greeted him now steadily, she seemed taller and her body was inperfect control--very tall and slim and dark, her cheeks pale butshadowed a little with the shadow deepening beneath her eyes. Her mouth,that had always been too large, had had before a delightful quality ofuncertainty, so that smiles and frowns and alarms, distress andhappiness all hovered near. It was now grave and composed.
Her limbs had always moved unsteadily and with the awkward lack ofcontrol of a child, now there was no kind of impulse, every movement wasconsidered, and that was the first thing that Christopher saw, thatnothing that Rachel now did or said was spontaneous.
There was less in her now to remind him of her foreign blood.
The flat was comfortable, but more commonplace than it would have beenhad it been Rachel's only.
He kissed her, as he had always done, and he fancied that she clung fora moment to him, as her hands went up to his coat.
He settled his big loose body and looked across at her.
Christopher was no subtle analyser of other people's emotions. His ownfeelings were never complicated and he expected life to run on plain andsimple lines of likes and dislikes, sorrow, anger, love and hatred. Ifsomeone of whom he was fond made a direct appeal to him his simpleremedies were often wonderfully useful--he was no fool and he had beenbrought, during a great number of years, into the most direct relationswith men and women, but, if that direct appeal was not made, then he wasfrightened and baffled.
He was frightened of Rachel now; he knew instantly that instead ofappealing she would defend herself from him.... Some mysteriousconviction seemed to forebode that he would not be able to help her. Hewas, essentially, of those who, believing in goodness and virtue and theglorious Millennium, are contented, quite simply, with that belief andmight, if they stated those simplicities, irritate the scoffers. But hewas saved because he made statements on the rarest occasions and livedhis life instead.
Here, however, was a crisis in his relations with Rachel that noplatitudes could satisfy. Did he not touch her now he might never touchher again.
In a situation that was beyond him he was always hopelesslyself-conscious. His love for Rachel was so tremendous a thing in himthat a statement of it should surely have been the simplest thing inthe world. But he saw in her eyes that to challenge her with--"My dear,you know how I love you. Tell me what's the matter," would frighten herto absolute silence. "I'm going to tell you nothing," she seemed to sayto him, "unless you move me in spite of myself. But, if I don't tell younow I shall never tell you."
"Well, my dear," he said, smiling at her, "how are you after all thistime?"
"I'm all right," she answered, smiling back at him. "It is good to seeyou again. Tell me all about your holiday."
"Tell me about yours first."
"Oh! There isn't very much to tell. I enjoyed it all enormously, ofcourse."
"What did you enjoy most?"
"Oh! some of the smaller towns--Rapallo, for instance.--Oh! yes, andBologna was fascinating."
"Not Rome and Florence?"
"In a way. But there were too many tourists. Rome one's got to stay in,I'm sure. That first view was disappointing."
"And how did Roddy--if I may call him Roddy--enjoy it?"
"Immensely, I think. He liked the country better than the towns though."
"You saw lots of pictures?"
"Heaps. Roddy enjoyed them enormously. I'd no idea he knew so much aboutthem. Oh! it was all lovely, and such colours, such light--London seemslike a cellar, even in June."
There followed then a pause that swelled and swelled between them untilit resembled some dreadful monster, horribly stationed there to separatethem.
Christopher looked at Rachel, but she refused to meet his eyes.
"I've lost her. I shall never see her again!" he thought with despair.Two years ago he would have gone to her, put his arms around her,kissed her and drawn from her at once her trouble.
He could not do that now.
"Your turn, Dr. Chris dear. Tell me about your holidays."
"Oh, mine don't count. I went to Brittany first, then up to St. Andrewswith another man to play golf."
"You're looking splendidly well and you're thinner. What was Brittanylike?"
"Delightful. Have you ever been there?"
"Never. I must get Roddy to take me. Just suit him, I should think."
To Christopher's intense relief tea was brought. He came to the tableand then, for an instant, he did catch her eyes, saw tears in them, andbehind the tears some appeal to him to help her. Her hand was shaking.
"How silly of me to spill your tea. I'm so sorry. Let me pour itback...."
"Rachel----" he began, but a servant entered with something and hewaited. When they were alone again, standing over her as though he wereafraid that she would escape him, he plunged.
"Rachel dear. We're talking as though we'd never met before. You'venever been shy with me like this. If marriage is going to make astranger of you, I shall break young Seddon's neck----"
"No," she said in a voice that was between laughter and tears. "Ofcourse, Dr. Chris. Things are just the same between us, only,only--well, I'm married and--one thing and another, you know."
He caught both her hands.
"You're perfectly happy?"
She met his eyes.
"Perfectly."
"Happier than you've ever been in your life?"
She dropped her eyes.
"Happier than I've ever been in my life."
"And you'll come to me just the same if there's any kind of trouble?"
"Of course."
"You promise?"
"I promise."
They talked then, for a little time, of other things. But he was notsatisfied. Rachel's soul, caught away in alarm, was still beyond hisgrasp.
At last, feeling that the moments were precious and that Roddy might atany instant appear, he sat down on the sofa beside her.
"Rachel dear. Something's worrying you. You won't tell me?"
"Nothing's worrying----"
"Ah, but I know--well, if you won't you won't--but if you knew how muchI loved you you'd feel that you were cruel not to let me help you."
"_Dear_ Dr. Chris--but there is _nothing_."
But her eyes were full of tears.
"Look here," he said. "Perhaps you'll feel later on you can talk to me.Just come straight away if you do feel that."
He went on. "Don't be frightened, my dear, if there are a whole heap ofnew emotions, new instincts, stirred in you by marriage. Just take themall as they come. It's all progress, you know. Don't be frightened ofanything. Just take the animal by the head and look at it."
That led him to speak about Brun's Tiger. He explained it--the force inpeople, the way they either grappled with the creature, and at lasttrained it to help them with their work in the world, or ignored it,silenced it, allowed it at last to die, and so, cosy and lazilycomfortable, passed to their day's end, but had, nevertheless, missedthe whole purpose of life.
He enlarged on that and showed the connection of the individual Tigerwith the welfare of the world, so that everyone who denied his Tigeradded to his world's muddle and confusion, and at last there would comean inevitable crisis when war would spring up between those who hadgrappled with their Tiger and those who had not.
"One knows one's own Tiger--absolutely of oneself one knows it and has,of oneself, the choice whether to grapple or not--at least that's what Igathered he meant--I know it struck me at the time."
"Oh," she said, with a sigh that quivered through her whole body. "It'sso _easy_ to talk.... But it's true what he says. I know it."
At last Christopher got up to go. He did not know whether he had doneany good; he felt that he was a miserable failure, and he had aforeboding that one day he would be ashamed indeed that he had nothelped her.
"Do something," a voice seemed to tell him. "You'll regret ... all yourlife you'll regret."
&n
bsp; He turned and held again her hands in his.... "Rachel--dear--tellme----"
Her hands were chill and lifeless. Her voice caught. "Oh! Dr. Chris!..."Then she suddenly stepped back from him--
"_It's_ all right.... I'm all right. Come again soon, Dr. Chrisdear--come soon."
He left her and found his way into the hot, breathless street.
After he had gone Rachel sat, staring beyond the room out on to thewhite walls of the houses and the green branches of the trees in thesquare.
Roddy came in.
All the afternoon he had been thinking about her; at one moment he wasfurious with the discomfort that life was now becoming to him, atanother moment he was imagining little plans that would sweep all thediscomfort away.
All this spring they had been miserable together. Now was beginning atime that was always jolly in London and yet he could not enjoy a momentof it. Did she dislike him instead of liking him, or did he like herinstead of loving her, it would all be so easy--just the same as anyother couple.
Ever since that silly Nita incident there had been this restraint, andyet how could that be the cause?
Rachel had made nothing of it; it was because it had meant so little toher that he had chafed so at the remembrance of it.
She was fond of him--he knew that--she was miserably unhappy.
He loved her--and he was miserably unhappy.
Damn this weather.
He looked at her, wondered what would happen did he cross over andsuddenly kiss her, knew that he would see her struggle to be kind, togive him what he wanted, knew that that would hurt most damnably, andthat he would be in a bad temper for the rest of the evening and wouldwonder why--
So, with a muttered word he went out and up to his dressing-room, had abath, and then lay reading with serious brows _The Winning Post_ untilhis man told him that it was time to dress.
Slowly and with the absorbed care that he always gave to thesepreparations he made himself ready for the Beaminster dinner.