CHAPTER III
RODDY MOVES
"... But the Red Dwarf, although as malevolent as possible, found that his ill-temper had no effect against true love, which always won in the end, even with quite stupid people."
_Grimm's Fairy Tales._
I
It would have been quite impossible for Roddy to have given any cleardescription of his experiences since the event of his accident. There,surely, like a gleaming sword, that cut his life into two pieces, thefact itself was visible enough, and there floated before him, again andagain, the casual canter, the especial view that was before him justthen, a view of undulating Downs, somewhere to his left white chalkhollows in grey hills and to his right a blue strip of sea, the wonderthat was in his mind about Rachel, his thoughts chasing back over allthe incidents of their life together, then suddenly the jerk, hisconsciousness of falling with the ground rising in a high wall to opposehim, and then darkness.
After that there was nightmare in which pain and Rachel, Rachel andpain, mingled and parted, were confused and then separate, and with themdanced shapes and figures, sometimes in a turmoil that was horrible,sometimes in silence that was the most terrible of all. Clear after thatfirst period of misty confusion was the day when he was told his fate.
He had come out from the heart of the more terrible pain--No longer hadhe to lie, knowing that soon, after another minute's peace, agony wouldrise before him like a creature with a wet pale malignant face, and thenafter looking upon him for a moment, would bend down and, with itshorrible damp fingers, would twist and turn his bones one againstanother until the supreme moment came when nothing mattered and noagony, however bad, could touch his indifferent soul.
He was now simply weak, weak, weak--nothing mattered. In his dream hefancied that someone had said that he would never rise from his backagain. For days after that it lingered far away from his actualconsciousness. Really it had not mattered; something, this dream, thatconcerned him, but what could concern him except that people should keepquiet and not fuss?
For instance he loved to have Rachel with him, he was miserable were shenot there, but at the same time he was conscious that she _did_ fuss,was not quite like Miss Rand.
But of this thing that he had heard he thought nothing. "There's_something_ that I ought to think about. I don't know _what_ it is--Oneday when I'm stronger I'll look into it."
There came a day when he _was_ stronger, a day, late in January, of apale wintry sun and watery gleams. They had placed his bed so that hecould see his beloved Downs and the little road that ran from their footout into the village.
On this morning he was wonderfully better--he had slept well, breezesand pleasant scents came through the open window, geese were cackling, adonkey's braying made him laugh "Silly old donkey," he said aloud to noone in particular. Then he was aware of Jacob, sitting bunched into aheap in the middle of the floor, his brown eyes peering anxiouslythrough his hair. At every sound his ears would rise for a moment, buthis eyes were fixed upon Roddy.
The dog had been in Roddy's room a good deal during these last weeks,had been wrenched away from it. Roddy found that he was touched by thisdevotion; Jacob apparently cared more for him than did the otherdogs--"Not a bad old thing--Often these mongrels are more human--But,Lord! he _is_ a sight!"
The nurse was sitting sewing by the window. Roddy lay, happily, thinkingthat now at last that jolly bad pain really _did_ seem to have been leftbehind. He was immensely, wonderfully better; it would not be long,surely, before he was quite fit again, before he....
Then down it swung, swung like an iron door shutting all the world awayfrom him, inexorable--"Always on your back ... never get up again!"
His hand gripped the bed-clothes.
"Nurse."
"Yes?"
"Tell me--am I dreaming or did someone say something the other dayabout--about my never being able, well, to toddle again, you know?"
"I'm afraid----"
"Thanks."
He closed his eyes and then summoned all the grit and determination thatthere was in him to face this fact. He could not face it. It was asthough he were struggling up the side of a high slippery rock--up hewould struggle, up and up, now he was at the top, down he would slipagain--it could not, oh! it could not be true!
It _was_ true. As the days passed grimly in silence, he accepted it. Ithad always been his creed that in this world there was no place for themaimed and the halt. He was sorry for them, of course, but it was betterthat they should go; they only occupied room that was intended forlustier creatures.
Well, now he was himself of the halt and maimed--that was ironical,wasn't it? Indeed he would much rather that he had pegged outaltogether--better for everybody--but, as things were, he would squarethings out and see what he could make of it all. Then he saw as, everyday, he grew stronger, that he had no resources; everything in his otherlife, as he now had come to think of it, had depended upon his physicalstrength, every pleasure, every desire, every ambition had had to dowith his body--everything except Rachel.
In his other life half his happiness arose simply from the sense of hisphysical movement, his consciousness that, as the rivers flowed and thewinds blew and the sun blazed, so did he also live and have hisbeing--And with all this, most intimately was his house mingled. Thatgrey building and he grew and moved and developed together; life couldnever be very terrible for him so long as he had his place to come backto, his place to care for, his fields and his gardens, his horses andhis dogs to look after. Now he could do nothing more for it--perhaps oneday he would be wheeled about its courts and paths, but oh! with whatpitying eyes would it look down upon him, how sorrowfully his gryphonswould greet him, with what memories they would confront him!
He could not bear now to look out upon the Downs on the little villagepath--His bed was moved. A day arrived when he felt that it was all,really, more than he could endure. He was in wild, furious rebellion,surly, sometimes in raging tempers, sometimes sulking from day to day.He cursed all the world. Even Christopher could do nothing with him--
Then upon this there followed a period of silence. He lay there andbeyond "Yes" and "No" would answer no one. His eyes stared at the wall.Christopher feared at this time for his sanity.
Suddenly the silence was broken. He must go to London because he couldnot endure the memories that this place thronged upon him--At thebeginning of March he was moved to the house in York Terrace.
II
The little house by the park helped him to construct his new life. Thenormality that there was in Roddy, the same balance of common sense,fostered his recovery. He was not going to die--Life would be aninfernal trouble were he always to be in rebellion against it--he mustsimply make the best of the conditions. And then, after all, he hadRachel. Rachel had been a heroine during this time, and to his love forher he now clung, passionately, tenaciously, the one thing left to himout of his great catastrophe.
She seemed, during these months, to have thought for nothing else in allthe world. She was not so useful in a sick room as Miss Rand--Miss Randwas wonderful--but there were certain moments when she would bend downand kiss him or would look at him or would take his hand, when hewondered whether love for him had not crept into her heart after all.
Funny when he had gone out for his ride on that eventful morningexpecting that he had offended her for ever! Well, if his accident hadwon Rachel for him, it had been worth while!
But there were other days when he knew for a certainty that it was notso, knew that it was pity that moved her; affection too perhaps, butnothing more than affection....
Nevertheless he hoped that this might be the beginning of somethingelse; he would lie for hours looking out at the park and creatingvisions.
He made now something tolerable of his life. People showed a wonderfulkindness and there was always someone to entertain him, some new presentthat someone had sent him; people could not be kind enough. He wasgrateful for all of this, but he spent many, many ho
urs in thinking. Hefound that he had never thought before; he found that he would have goneto his grave without thinking had not the great catastrophe occurred. Hethought of a great many things, but especially of what other people'slives were like. There were, he supposed, a great number of people whohad had misfortunes as overwhelming at his--How had they behaved? Andwhat, after all, were all the other people, in all their differentcircumstances, doing? Before this it had only occurred to him to beinterested in the people who were leading lives like his, now hewondered about everybody.
Little things became of the greatest importance. Every day he read thepaper with absorbed care from the first line to the last. Thearrangement of the room interested him and he would give its details,minutely, his consideration.
He was greatly interested in gossip and he would chatter, happily, allthe afternoon did someone come and visit him. To everyone it was anamazing thing that he should take it all so easily. No one had evergiven Roddy credit for the strength of character that was in him andthey did not perhaps recognize that his earlier impatient condemnationof other people--"Why the devil don't the feller stand up to it like aman?"--made him now conscious that he was himself at last faced with asimilar test to which he himself must stand up.
But, beyond question, he could not have held the position as he did hadit not been for Rachel; he seemed to see that here was a chance ofseizing her and making her really his own, a chance that would never behis again. He was making an appeal to her--she was closer to him, hethought, with every day.
So his natural humour and spirits returned--At present life wastolerable; he suffered very little pain and he was aware that a numberof people to whom he had never meant anything whatever now cared for himvery much indeed.
He was ashamed when he heard of the men who were dying and suffering fortheir country--"He would have had to have gone to Africa," he toldhimself, "if he'd not had his accident. Then enteric or a bullet andgood-bye to Rachel altogether!"
III
He had often, during those long hours, thought of the Duchess. He had,always, in his heart, considered her affection for him strange; he knewthat it was difficult for her to be patient with fools and he knew thathis own intellectual gifts were on no very high level. He based herfriendship for him on the naive transparency with which he displayed hisfrankly pagan indulgences. His love for Rachel and this accident hadchanged all that. He was still pagan enough at heart, but there wereother things in his world. Principally it occurred to him now that onecouldn't judge about the way things looked to other people, and theDuchess, of course, always _did_ judge; if they didn't look her way, whythen wipe them out!
He had, in fact, much less now to say to the Duchess; he was afraid thathe would no longer agree with her about things--"Of course she knows theworld and is a damn clever woman, but she's jolly well too hard onpeople who aren't quite her style--She'd put my back up, I believe, ifshe talked." He had, indeed, always been uncomfortable at the old lady'sapproaches to sentiment. She was never sentimental with other people--He_hated_ sentiment in anyone except, of course, Rachel and she never_was_ sentimental.
He looked out now upon the road that ran through the park beyond hiswindow, watched the nursemaids and the children, the old gentlemen, thegirls, the smart women and the pale young men with books and the smartyoung men with shiny hats, and he wondered about them all.
Sometimes when the grass, was very green, when high white clouds piledone upon another hung above the pond whose corner he could just see,thoughts of his little grey house, his gardens, the Downs, his horsesand dogs would come to him--
"Come out! Come out!" a sparrow would dance on his window ledge--
"Damn you, I can't!" he would cry and then his eyes would fly toRachel's photograph--"If I get her it will be worth it, won't it, Jacob,my son?"
He talked continually to Jacob and found great comfort in the stolidassurance with which the dog would wag his stump of a tail--"He's morethan human, that dog," he would tell Rachel; "funny how I never used tosee anything in him."
Of course there were many days when life was utterly impossible; then hewould snap at everyone, lie scowling at the park, curse his impotence,his miserable degraded infirmities. "Curse it, to die in a ditch likethis--to be broken up, to be smashed...."
His majestic butler--now the tenderest and most devoted ofattendants--stood these evil days with great equanimity.
"Bless you, of course he's bound to be wild now and again--wonder is itdon't happen more often--It does him good to curse a bit."
So things were with him until the day of the Duchess's visit. Hissurprise at seeing her was confused with an assurance that "she had comefor something." After her departure what she had come for was plainenough to see.
He had not taken her words about Breton at first with any credulity. Hisprincipal emotion at the time had been anger with the old woman, a greatdesire that she should go before he should forget himself and bedisgraced by showing temper to anyone so old and feeble--But when shehad gone, he found that peace had left him now once and for all.
He knew that the Duchess hated Rachel and he was ready to allow for thebias and exaggeration that spite would lend, but, when that was takenaway, much remained.
Rachel knew Breton, that was certain; she had never told him. Breton'sname had occurred sometimes in conversation and she had always spoken ofhim as though he were a complete stranger. Rachel knew Breton and shehad never told him....
He might tell himself that she had not told him because she knew that hewould instantly stop the acquaintance--It was, of course, simply afriendship that had sprung up because Rachel was sorry for hisostracism. Roddy thought that that was just like Rachel, part of herwarm-hearted interest in anyone who seemed to be unfairlytreated--yet--she had never told him.
Then, lying there all alone with no one in whom he could confide, theresprang before him suspicions. If she had known this scoundrel of acousin of hers, if she had been so careful to keep from her husband allcognizance of her friendship, did not that very silence and deceit implymore than friendship? Was Breton the kind of man to abstain fromsnatching every advantage that was open to him? Did not this explainRachel's avoidance of Roddy during the last year, her moods ofrestraint, repentance, her sudden silences?
Then upon this came the thought, how much of all this did the worldknow? Perhaps it was true once again that the husband was the last to beinformed, perhaps during the last year all London Society had mocked atRoddy's blindness.
The Duchess, he might be sure, had not spared her tongue--TheDuchess ... he cursed her as he lay there and then wondered whether heshould not rather thank her for opening his eyes, then cursed himself fordaring to allow such suspicions of Rachel to gain their hold upon him.
In Roddy there was, strong beyond almost any other principle, a sturdyhereditary pride. He was proud of his stock, proud of his ancestors andall their doings, worthy and unworthy, proud of his own pluck andstanding--"Different from all these half-baked fellers with only theirown grandmothers to go back to." It had been this arrogance, with otherthings somewhat closely allied, that had endeared him to the Duchess.Now it was that same pride that suffered most terribly. Here was somedisaster hanging over his head that threatened most nearly the honour ofhis family--Let Breton touch that....
He was alone on that evening after the Duchess's visit; Rachel had goneout to a party; she went, he had noticed, reluctantly, protested againand again that she wished she could stay with him, seemed to hang abouthim as though she would speak to him, looked, oh! too adorably, tooadorably beautiful!
Whilst she was with him he saw behind her the dark shadow of Breton,that fellow kicked out of the country for cheating at cards orsomething as bad, disowned by his family, and she, she, Rachel soproudly apart, could have gone to him--He was glad when, at last, shehad left him.
Then, lying there, he endured three of the most awful hours of agonythat he was ever, in, all his life, to know. Nothing that had come tohim through his accident was
so bad as this. At one moment it wasfury--wild, raging, unreasoning fury--that wished that Rachel and Bretonand the Duchess, all of them together might suffer the torments ofhell--And then swiftly following it came his love of Rachel, nearer nowto burning heights, so that he swore that, whatever she had done, he didnot care, he would forgive her everything, but all that mattered wasthat she should be spared, that her honour should be vindicated. Then,more quietly, he reflected that he was uncertain of everything as yet,he had only that malicious old woman's word, and until he had somethingmore solid than that he must trust Rachel.
Oh! if only she would, of her own accord, speak! If she would only sitthere by his sofa and, with her hand in his, tell him, quite simply, inwhat exactly her friendship with Breton consisted--Ah! then how he wouldforgive her! How together they would be revenged upon the Duchess!
If she did not speak he did not know what he would do. That old woman'smouth must be stopped; he must find out exactly how far the danger hadspread--he must deal with Breton--Now indeed he cursed so that he shouldbe tied to this sofa; there had swept down upon him the hardest trial ofhis life.
Rachel returned from her party--she sat by his sofa and he lay therelooking at her.
Had it been a nice party? Not very--One of those war parties thateveryone had now. That silly Lady Meikleham recited "The Absent-mindedBeggar," and they had that French tenor from Covent Garden to singpatriotic songs, and of course they got money out of everybody.
There'd been nothing for supper--She'd seen nobody amusing--
She broke out: "Roddy dear, what have you been doing with yourself? Youlook as white and tired as anything--Has that pain in your back----?"
"No, dear,--thank you."
"I _wish_ I hadn't gone, and the dinner at Lady Massiter's was sostupid--Monty Carfax whom I loathe and Lord Massiter so dull andstupid--says he's coming to see you to-morrow afternoon."
"Well, he can, I'm at anybody's mercy!"
She got up, stood over him for a moment looking so tall and slender, sodark with diamonds in her black hair, so lovely to-night!
She looked down upon him, then suddenly bent and kissed him.
"Roddy----"
"What is it, dear?" He caught her hand so fiercely that she cried:
"Roddy dear, I----"
"Yes."
"Oh, nothing, only you look so tired, I wish _I_ could take some of thepain----"
"There isn't any, dear, I'm wonderfully lucky."
Peters came in to take him to bed.
She kissed him again and left him.
"Looking done up to-night, sir," said Peters.
"I am," said Roddy.