CHAPTER IX
THE DARKEST HOUR
"So God help us! and God knows what disorders we may fall into.... Home and to bed with a heavy heart."
_Diary of Samuel Pepys._
I
During that terrible December week in 1899, England suffered moredefeats to her arms than during any other week of the century.Magersfontein, Stormberg, Colenso, their names leapt one after anotheron to the screen.
London was dismayed; London was impatient. Easy enough to declare thatthe most criminal blunders had been perpetrated, easy enough to explainhow one would oneself have conducted this or that, manoeuvred hitheror thither some pawn in the game.
Dismay remained--a wide active alarm at the things that Life, sosuddenly real and dominating and destructive, might in the future bepreparing.
To Lord John this terrible week was simply the climax to a succession ofdisturbing revelations of reality. All his days had he been denyingLife, wrapping it up in one covering after another, calling it finally abox of chocolates or a racing card, a good cigar or a pretty woman,knowing, at his heart, that somewhere in the dark forest the wild beastwas waiting for him, hoping that he might survive to the end withoutfacing it.
Now it was before him and its glittering eyes were upon him.
He had gone on the Friday of this week, to pay a week-end visit at acountry house near Newmarket. Many jolly, happy week-ends he had spentat this same house on other occasions, now, from first to last, it wasnightmare.
On the Monday morning at breakfast a sudden conviction of the impossiblehorror of this world struck at his heart. It came as a revelation, lifewas for him never to be the same again. His hostess, a large-bosomedwhite-haired lady, planted at the end of the table like an enormousartificial toy in the middle of whose back some key must be turned ifthe affair is to amuse the crowd, suddenly horrified him; the women ofthe party, their noses a little blue, their cheeks a touch too white,their voices hard and sharp, the men, red and brown, boisterously heartyabout the animals they hoped to kill before the day was done, the coldfood in a glazed and greedy row, the hot food--kidneys, fish, bacon,sausages, sizzling and scenting the air--: the table itself with itsracks of toast and marmalade and silver and fruit: the conversation thatsounded as though the speakers were afraid that the food would alldisappear were they spontaneous or natural--all these things suddenlyappeared to Lord John in a very horrible light, so that, in an instant,racing and women and clothes and food were banished from a naked bitingworld in which he was a naked solitary figure.
He caught a train as one flies from some horrible plague: he arrived inLondon, breathless, confused, miserable, the foundations of Life brokenfrom beneath him.
Here he found Lady Adela in a like condition.
He had never cared very greatly for his sister, he had not found hersympathetic or amusing, she had never appealed to him for assistance,nor challenged his violent opposition. He had never enquired very deeplyinto her interests; she had much correspondence and many acquaintances.She ran, he supposed, the house or, at least, directed Miss Rand to runit for her.
He thought her a rather stupid woman, but then all the Beaminstersthought one another stupid because they believed so intensely in theDuchess and she had always made a point of seeing that, individually,they despised one another, although collectively they faced the world.
Finally, Adela had always seemed to him unsympathetic towards Rachel andthat he found it very hard to forgive--but then, he often reflected theywere all, with the exception of himself, a most unsentimental family. Hewondered sometimes why he was so different.
On the afternoon of his return from Newmarket, however, he began towonder whether, after all, Adela had not more in common with him than hehad ever expected. He had lunched at the club, had plunged down into theCity to enquire about some investments, it had begun to rain, and he hadreturned with the weight of that gloomy day full heavily upon him.
He did not, as a rule, have tea, but to-day he needed company, and hefound Adela in the little sitting-room next to the library, a littleroom with faded wall-paper, faded pictures (groups, some of them, ofhimself and Vincent and Richard at Eton and Oxford), faded arm-chairsand faded chintzes--a nice, cosy, friendly room, full of oldassociations and old hopes and despairs.
This room did not often see either Lady Adela or John, but to-dayNorris, for reasons best known to himself, had put tea there and, toboth of them, as they sat over the fire with the great house so stilland quiet about them, the shabby intimacy of the little place wasgrateful.
John, disturbed, himself, out of his normal easy geniality, noticed thatAdela also was disturbed.
That dry and rather gritty assurance that had all her life protected herfrom both the praise and abuse of her fellow-men and women was, to-day,absent. She seemed really grateful to John for coming to have tea withher to-day. He wondered whether she felt as he did that this war, withall its horrors, foreboded, in some manner, special disasters upon theBeaminster family, as though it were a portent, to be read of all men,of the destruction and ruin of that family.
"Poor Adela," he thought, "she's very plain. If she asks me to help herI will. She's got something on her mind."
"Rachel's here," Lady Adela said, looking at her brother nervously.
"Now?"
"Yes, she's with mother. She came to say good-bye to her. She and Roddyare going down to Seddon to-morrow."
"Yes, I know----" said John.
"She's very queer--very odd. I don't pretend to understand her."
"We're all queer just now," said John. "Down at the club to-day it wastoo awful. No other subject--fellows killed, fellows going out to bekilled. Blunder, blame, disgrace--all the time. But what's Rachel beendoing odd?"
"You understand her better than I do," said his sister. "She alwaysliked you better. I did my best with her, but she never cared about me.But now I understand her less than ever. She's so excited and hard andunnatural. Something's happened to her that we don't know about, I'msure."
John said nothing. He was unhappy enough about Rachel, but he did notintend to talk to Adela about it. He would rather not talk to anyoneabout it because talking only brought it more actually in front of him.Besides, he did not know what to say. He knew that he had been cowardlyabout Rachel. He had tried to pretend to himself that she was happy whenhe had known that she was not and so, for the sake of his comfort, hehad stifled the most genuine emotion in his life; that indeed was theBeaminster habit.
"She's not happy," continued Adela. "I'm sure I don't know why--Roddy'svery good to her--very good. She's so queer. She wants to have Miss Randdown with her at Seddon for Christmas."
"Miss Rand?"
"Yes--she asked me whether I'd let her go. She's got to give a dance anda dinner-party or two and asked me whether she might have her help. Ofcourse I said 'Yes.' Miss Rand hasn't been looking at all well for sometime now. A change will do her good."
"What did Miss Rand say when you told her?"
"Oh, she was odd. She has been odd lately. At first she thought shewouldn't go. Then she said she would. I told her it would do her good."
"How's mother been the last two days?"
"Oh! the same. She won't say anything--she confides in nobody."
John looked at his sister and wondered why it was that he had never,during all these years, considered her as a personality or as anythingactively happy or miserable. She had had, he suddenly supposed, a lifeof her own that was, in a way, as acute and sensitive as his and yet hehad never realized this.
He had always taken his mother's word for it that Adela was a dried-upstick who resented interference; now he was sure that that judgment wasshort-sighted, and then, upon this, came criticism of his mother;therefore, to banish such disloyalty, he said hurriedly:
"I didn't enjoy the Massiters a bit--longed to get away--Sunday wasmiserable----"
Adela said--"I never could bear them--John----" she stopped.
"Yes," he said, looking acr
oss at her. His large good-tempered eyes methers and then the colour mounted very slowly into her cheeks. He hadnever seen her agitated before--
"John--" she began again. "I must do something. I can't sit here--justquietly--going on as though nothing were happening. I know--all one'slife one's stood aside rather, I've never wanted to interfere withanyone. But now, this war has made one feel differently, I think."
"Well?" said her brother.
"Well--an organization is being formed--women, you know--to help in someway. They're going to do everything, make clothes, have sales andconcerts and get money together. It's to be a big thing--Nelly Ponsonby,Clara Raddleton, lots of others.... They've asked me to be on thecommittee----"
"Well?" said John, "why not?"
She looked at him appealingly. "Mrs. Bronson's on it too--one of theoriginators of it."
"Oh!" John was silent. Here was, indeed, a question. Mrs. Bronson, theBeaminster arch-enemy. Mrs. Bronson, who had snapped her bejewelledAmerican fingers at the Duchess--Mrs. Bronson, who called theBeaminsters the most insulting names. Why, a fortnight ago any alliancewith such a woman was unthinkable, incredible--
"I believe," went on Lady Adela, "that she herself proposed that Ishould be asked...."
A fortnight ago ... and now--
John knew that he was glad that Adela wished to join the committee, heknew that he was closer to Adela now than he had ever been at any momentduring their lives together.
He looked across at her and their eyes met and in that glance exchangedbetween them barriers were broken down, curtains turned aside--theywould never be strangers again.
"Mother isn't well." Adela said quite firmly. "Hasn't been well for along time--we've all known it. She has felt this war and--and otherthings very much. She will feel my going on to the same committee asMrs. Bronson--she will certainly feel it. But I think it's my duty to doso. After all, on an occasion like this family feeling must give waybefore national ones." Why did not the walls and foundations of No. 104Portland Place rock and quiver before the horrid sacrilege of suchwords? John, himself, almost expected them to do so and yet he was ofhis sister's opinion.
"I think you are perfectly right, Adela," he said.
"Oh! I'm so glad that you do. I don't want to worry mother, just now.I'm frankly rather nervous about telling her--but it must be done."
"It's odd, Adela," said John, leaning back in his chair and crossinghis fat legs. "But something real like this war, a ghastly day with boysshouting horrors at you followed by another ghastly day with more boysshouting more horrors, it does shake one's life up. I've been verycowardly, Adela, about a number of things. I see that now. I've neverreally wanted to see it before. It makes one uncomfortable."
"I don't think one ought to give way," said Adela with a slight returnto her gritty manner, "to one's feelings too much. But certainly one isbeginning to see things differently, which is a dangerous thing forpeople of our age, John."
"Yes," said John, "I suppose it is." He paused and then broughtout--"There's Francis, Adela. We've all been very wrong aboutFrancis. I've felt it for a long time, but hadn't the courage....He's been behaving very well all this time--One oughtn't to holdaloof--altogether----"
"Mother refuses to have his name mentioned----"
"We must take into account," John said very slowly and now withoutmeeting his sister's eye--"that mother is not so well--scarcely so surein her judgment----"
He broke off. There was a long pause and they looked away from oneanother, as though they had been guilty conspirators. Norris came in totake the tea away.
"Has Lady Seddon gone?"
"Yes, my lady. She was with Her Grace a very short time----"
Adela turned impatiently to John. "So like Rachel. She might at leasthave come to say good-bye to us."
When Norris had gone John got up and walked a little about the room.
He stopped beside his sister and put his hand on her shoulder:
"If there's anything I can ever do to help you, Adela, tell me----!" hesaid.
"Thank you, John," she answered.
II
Rachel had never understood why it was that she was driven so constantlyinto her grandmother's presence. The impulse that drove her had in it,perhaps, something of defiance and something of challenge as though shecried to some weakness in her that it should not master her and that shewould just show it how little those visits mattered to her. It had allbegun from some reason of that kind, and lately, when she grew older,she discovered that her grandmother was more terrible throughimagination than she was through actual vision.
There was never absent from Rachel a lurking presentiment of what hergrandmother might one day do, and she went to see her now to discoverwhat she might be at, to prove to her that, whatever she be doing,Rachel was "up" to her.
On this particular occasion the visit was a very brief one, but therewas one moment in it that after events always produced for Rachel as amost definite and (on the part of the Duchess) omniscient omen.
Rachel had said that she had come in only for a moment to say good-bye.She had talked a little and then, rising, stood by the fire.
As she stood there her grandmother suddenly looked at her--a glance thatRachel had not been intended to catch. There was there a malicioushumour, a consciousness of some power, of some disaster that could bedelivered, triumphantly, at an instant's notice.
Very swiftly Rachel gathered her control, but she had felt what thatlook conveyed.
"Francis ... she knows ... what is she going to do?"
She strung her slim, tall figure to its finest restraint and without aquiver in her voice (her heart was beating wildly), "Good-bye,grandmamma. I promised Roddy to be back."
But the old lady looked at her--
"How you do hate me, my dear," she said almost complacently.
Rachel compelled the other's eyes. "Would I come to see you so often ifI did?" she said.
"Yes, my dear, you would. You've got a sense of humour hidden somewherealthough, God knows, we've seen little enough of it lately. Oh! yes,you'd come all right--if it were only to see me growing older andolder."
Rachel turned flaming. "There, at any rate, you're unjust. It's you thathave always hated me from the beginning--since I was small. Hated me,been unjust to me----"
Her body trembled with agitation--she was not far from one of her oldtempests of passion.
But the Duchess smiled. "You exaggerate, Rachel, your old fault. At anyrate, I'll be gone soon, I suppose--it will seem trivial enough oneday...." Then as Rachel, turning to the door, left her--"But hurt a hairof Roddy's head, my dear, and--well, you'll hate me more than ever----"
III
When Rachel had gone the Duchess felt very ill indeed. She had only totouch a bell and Dorchester would be with her, but she did not intend tosummon Dorchester before she need.
She felt now, at this minute, that her spirit of resistance had almostsnapped. Again and again, throughout the last months, the temptation tolie down and surrender had swept up, beaten about her walls and thensunk, defeated, back again.
But this last week of disaster had tried her severely. Her pride in lifehad been largely her pride in the arrangement of it and now all thatarrangement was tumbling to pieces and she powerless to prevent it. Forthe first time in all her days she felt that she would like to havesomeone with her who would reassure her--someone less acid thanDorchester.
Why had she never had a companion--a woman like Miss Rand who wouldunderstand without being sentimental?
There was pain in every muscle and nerve of her body: it swept up anddown her old limbs in hot waves.... She clutched the arms of her chair.
Even her brain, that had always been so sharp and clear, was nowconfused a little and passed strange unusual pictures before her eyes.That girl ... yes ... Dorchester had been very clever about that:Dorchester had been in communication with Breton's man-servant for along time past. To go to tea there ... to be alone with him ... Roddy--
And a
t that dearly loved name all was sharp and accurate. Night and dayshe was terrified lest she should suddenly hear that he was off to SouthAfrica. She believed that that would really kill her. Roddy--herRoddy--to go and make another of those ghastly tragedies with which thenewspapers were now full. But let Rachel disdain him and he would gomerely to show her how fine a fellow he was--what idiots men were!
Or let this other thing become a scandal, then surely he would go.
She shook there in her chair and then with her eyes fixed on the fireprayed to whatever gods or devils were hers that he might not go.Anything, anything so that he might not go. Break him up, hurthim--only, only he must not go.
She prayed, thrusting her whole soul and spirit into her urgency--
Then, even as she sat there, her darkest hour was suddenly upon her. Itleapt upon her, as it were a beast out of some sudden darknesses--leaptupon her, seized her, tore her, crushed her little dried withered soulin its claws and tossed it to the fire.
She was held by the sudden absolute realization of Death. She had neverseen it or known it before. Others had died and she had not cared; manywere dying now and it did not concern her.
But this beast crouching in front of her, with its burning eyes on herface, said to her: "All your life I've been beside you, waiting for thismoment. I knew that it would come. I have waited a long time--you haveplayed and thought yourself important and have cared for meddling in theaffairs of the world, but Reality has never touched you. You havegathered things about you to pretend that I was not there. You havemocked at others when they have seen me--you have enjoyed theirterror--now your own terror has come."
Death.... She had never--until this instant--given it a thought.Everything was gone before its presence. In a week or two, a month ortwo, silence--
Rachel--she saw her standing there by the fire, full of life and energy,so young, so strong.
She, the Duchess of Wrexe, the great figure, courted by kings, princes,artists, all the men and women of her time, now must crumble into theveriest dust, be forgotten, be followed by others, banished by this newworld.
She and her Times were slipping, slipping into disuse. Who cared now forthose other glories? What minds now were fit to tackle those minds thatshe had known? What beauty now could stand beside that beauty that hadshone when she was young?
The beast crouched nearer. The room darkened. She could feel the hotbreath, could be dazed by the shining of those eyes. Behind her, aroundher, the trumpery toys that she had gathered faded.
Darkness rose; a great space and desolation was about her--She tried tosummon all her energy.
She cried out and Dorchester, coming in, found that her mistress had,for the first time in her life, fainted, bending, an old, broken woman,forward in her chair.