CHAPTER VI
MARCH 13th: RODDY TALKS TO THE DEVIL AND THE DUCHESS DENIES GOD
"Que desirez-vous savoir plus precisement?' Mais le porte-drapeau repondit: 'Non, pas maintenant ... apres ...'"
_A l'Extreme Limite._ ARTZYBACHEV.
I
That afternoon had been a difficult one for Roddy. He felt, lying soeternally on his back, the vagaries of the English weather. There weredays when the wind was in the park, when sunshine flashed and flungshadows, when the water of the pond glittered and every duck and babythrilled with life. Then it was very hard to lie still, and memories ofdays--riding days and swimming days and hunting days--would persecutehim. But there were dark wet hours when his room seemed warm andcosy--then he was happy.
On a day of thunder, like this afternoon, his one desire was to get out;never had he felt the bars of his cage so sharply, with so intense anirritation as on to-day.
Massiter broke the chain of his thoughts and he was glad. Four days nowand Rachel had said nothing; many times he had thought that she wasgoing to speak, but the moments had passed. He had not slept for twonights--over and over he turned the question as to what he was to do.
Had he been up and about, some solution would have naturally come, hethought, but, lying here, thinking so interminably with one's body tiedto one like a stone, nothing seemed clear or easy.
This was the worst day in the world to make thinking simple. The leadensky pressed one down and held one's brain.
"I'm goin' to have a jolly bad evenin'," said Roddy, "I know I am."
Massiter was a relief; there was no need to talk whilst Massiter wasthere and his fat cheerful body restored one's balance. The same,sensible world that had once been Roddy's own and had, of late, slippedaway from him, was restored when Massiter was there. Nevertheless onehour of Massiter was enough. Roddy could detect in Massiter's attitudethat pity moved him to additional cheerfulness, and this was irritating;then Massiter's clumsy efforts to avoid topics that might be especiallytactless--that also was tiresome.
Roddy was glad when Rachel and John Beaminster came down and relievedhim, and then the moment arrived when he thought again that Rachel wasgoing to speak, and perhaps if he had made a movement of affection hewould have caught her, but always when some expression of feeling wasespecially demanded of him did he feel the least able to produce it.
The whole relationship between them depended on such slender incidents;one word from anybody and there would be no more confusion or doubt; thesituation had the maddening tip-toe indecision of a dream.
"I'm going to have a bad time to-night," he thought. "It's no use givingin to the thing." He faced it deliberately; if only he could thinkclearly, but the damned weather.... Well, he and Jacob must face thenight as best they could.
The dog lay flat near the window, moving restlessly under the close air,but pricking his ears at every movement that Roddy made, ready to cometo him at any instant.
"That old dog cares for me more than anyone else does--and I onlyappreciated him after I was laid up--Rummy thing!" Roddy was consciousthat high above him, somewhere near the ceiling, hovered a Creature,born of this damnable evening, and that did he allow himself to relaxfor a moment, down that hovering Creature would come. Very faintly, asit were from a great distance, he could catch its whisper in his ear."What's the good of this?... What's the good of this? What did youalways say? What would you have said about anyone placed as you are now?Better for him to get out."
"Damn you, shut up...."
He was in great physical pain, the pain that always came to him when hewas tired out, but that was nothing to the mental torture. Twistedfigures--Rachel, Breton, himself, the Duchess--passed before him,mingling, separating, sometimes coming to him as though they were therewith him in the room. He had not, even on the day that had told him thathe would never get up again, felt so near to utter defeat as he was now.He had been proud of himself, proud of his resistance to what, withanother man, might have appeared utter catastrophe, proud of his doggeddetermination. "To have the devil beat...." To-night this same devil wasgoing to be too much for him, did he not fight his very hardest, and thecruelty of it was that this weather took all one's vitality out of one,drained one dry, left one a rag.
"Curse you, get out," he muttered, clenching his teeth, then whistledand brought Jacob instantly to his side. The dog jumped on to the longsofa, taking care not to touch his master's legs. Then he moved up intothe hollow of Roddy's arm and lay there warm against Roddy's side.
"What's the use?" The Creature was close to him, his breath warm anddamp like the night air. "She doesn't care for you. You can see that shedoesn't. She's been in love with her cousin for ever so long, only youdidn't know. Wouldn't she have told you that she was a friend of his ifthere had been nothing more than that in it? What a fool you are--lyinghere all broken up, simply in the way of her happiness, no good toyourself or anyone else."
"I wish the thunder would come and smash you up...." Then, moredesperately, "What if that's right? if I were to clear out...."
"After all," said the Creature, "you've never before seen yourself asyou really are. You thought that you were all right because you coulduse your legs and arms. Now you know what you are--You're nothing--onlysomething that many people must trouble to keep alive--useless--useless!Why not?"
Yes, Roddy did see himself to-night, sternly; as in the old days hemight have looked upon someone and judged him unfit, so now he wouldconfront himself. "It's quite true. You've got nothing--nothing to show,you've no intellect, you're selfish, you despise all kinds of people forall kinds of reasons. You've stood a little pain--so can any man. You'dbetter get out--no one will know."
"Yes," said the Creature, very close to him now. "You can do it soeasily. That morphia that you've had once or twice--an overdose. No onewould suppose.... She would never know, and you'd be rid for ever of allthis wrong and you'd free so many people from so much trouble."
"Jacob, my son," he whispered, "do you hear what they're saying?"
He went right down, down to the depths of a pit that closed about hishead, filled his eyes with darkness, was suffocating.
"Yes, he's beaten," he heard them say. "We've succeeded at last. We'vesucceeded...."
But they had not.
With an effort of will that was beyond any power that he had believedhimself to possess, he pulled himself up.
"There's one thing you've forgotten." He gasped as he came strugglingup.
He took the Creature in his hands, wrung its neck and flung it out ofthe window.
"There's one thing you've forgotten. There's my love for her. That'sstrong enough for anything. That's reason enough for living even thoughshe doesn't want it. I'll beat you all with that ... go back to hell,the lot of you."
II
"I must never let it happen like that again. What a state this weathercan get one into...."
But he had come back to his senses. His brain was clear; he could thinknow. The great point was that it was of no use to think of himself inthis affair. "Rachel, Rachel's the only thing that matters."
Then upon that came the decision. "That old woman's got to pay for it.She's been wantin' to give Rachel a bad time. She's tried to. Hermouth's got to be stopped _however_ old and ill she is!"
He was fiercely, furiously indignant with her--vanished, it appeared,all his affection, the sentiment of years. "I've got to defend Rachelfrom her, no knowin' _whom_ she's been tellin'." Roddy still found itimpossible to admit more than one idea at a time, and the idea now wasthat "he must stop the old lady dead."
His brain came round now to Breton, and halted there. What kind offellow, after all, was he? What, after all, did Roddy know about himthat he could so easily condemn him?
To-night, fresh from the battle with the Creature, Roddy's view of theworld was painted with new colours. The man had been condemned forthings that his father had done, and one recognized, here in London, howdifficult it was for a fellow to climb up once h
e had been pushed down.
Was the man in love with Rachel? Well, Roddy did not know that he couldblame him for that? ... difficult enough, surely, for anyone not to be.But _was_ he? What, after all, was he like?
Then swiftly the answer came to him. See the man.... Talk to him ...know him. He stared at the idea, felt already new energy in his bonesand a surging victory over the lethargy of this awful evening at thesuggestion of some definite action.
But see him, yes, and see him here and see him soon. His impatienceleapt now hotly upon him; he pulled Jacob's ears. "That's the ticket,old boy, ain't it? See what kind of a ruffian this is! My word, butwouldn't the old lady hate it if she knew?"
But, and at this the room flared with the thrill of it, why not have herhere to meet him? Confront her with him.
He was cool now. Here was matter that needed careful handling. Still asvigorous now as in his most active days was his impatience. Wassomething in the way, cobwebs, barriers, obstacles of any sort? Brushthem aside, beat them down!
Here was a plan. Here, too, most happily at hand, was the Duchess'spunishment.
All these years had the old lady been refusing to set eyes upon hergrandson, therefore, how dramatic would it be were she confronted withhim unexpectedly. Out of the heart of that meeting would come mostassuredly the truth about Rachel.
There, in a flash, solid, substantial, beautifully compact,magnificently splendid his plan lay before him. He would have themthere. Rachel, the Duchess, this Breton, all of them there before him.They should come ignorant, unprepared, Breton first, then Rachel, thenthe Duchess.
Having them there he would quite simply say that someone had beenpouring into his ears a story of friendship to which he might takeobjection.
He would then, very quietly.... But here he paused. Oh! he knew what hewould do. He smiled at the thought of the success of his plan.
When he had made his little speech to them all there would never againbe any danger of scandal. The old lady would never again have any singleword to say.
The thought that Rachel might be angry at his deceptive plot did notdisturb him. When she had heard his little speech she would not saythat--and here, suddenly, he knew how deeply, in his heart, he trustedher.
But what if, after all, it should be a lie on the old lady's part? Washe not doing wrong to take things so far without a question to anyoneelse, Christopher or Lizzie Rand?
But this was Roddy. Here both his pride and his impatience wereconcerned. He did not wish that the business should pass beyond itspresent bounds. He could not go from person to person asking themwhether they trusted his wife. And then he could not wait. Here was aplan that killed the danger at one blow, something direct, open, withsharply defined issues. Oh! Rachel should see how he loved her!
"All these days," he said to Jacob, "I've been worryin' about her, but Iknew--yes, I knew--that she was comin' to me all right." He thought of aday long before and of Miss Nita Raseley and of a meeting in the garden."I'll show her that I can forgive, too, if it's necessary. Not because Icare so little, but, by God, because I care so much. No," he thought,shaking his head over it, "she doesn't love me, not yet. But she'sbeginnin' to belong to me. She's coming."
There was also the thought that the Duchess was an old, sick woman andthat the scene might be too much for her strength. "Not she," he grimlydecided, "that's the kind of thing she lives on. Anyway, I owe her one.Didn't do her any harm comin' to me the other day, won't do her any harmnow. _I_ know her."
His scheme must be carried out at once. He felt that he could not wait amoment. He would have liked to have had them all there, before him,to-night.
"Why, by this time to-morrow, old boy, it will all be straight. ThankGod, my brain cleared, in spite of this damn weather."
He rang the bell and Peters, large, solemn, but bending a loving eyeupon his master, appeared.
"Writing things, Peters."
He wrote swiftly two notes.
"Very close to-night, sir."
"Yes, Peters, very."
"You're looking better, sir ... less tired. Your dinner will be up in aquarter of an hour. Nice omelette, nice little bird, nice fruit salad,sardines on toast."
"Thank you, Peters, I'm hungry as--as anything."
"Very glad to hear it, sir."
"I want these two notes sent by hand instantly, do you see?"
"Yes, Sir Rod'rick."
"At once."
"Yes, Sir Rod'rick."
Roddy lay back and surveyed the black sky.
"Nasty storm comin' up--look here, Peters, give me that bird book overthere. That big one. Thanks."
Peters retired.
III
Meanwhile Her Grace had found this close evening very trying. That visitto Roddy had not harmed her physically, but had made her restless. Thevery fact that it had not hurt her, urged her to have more of suchevenings. Having shown them once what she could do she would like toshow them all again, and yet with this new energy was also lethargy sothat she sat, thinking about her adventures, but felt that it would bedifficult to move.
Then this thundery afternoon really did drag the strength from her. Sheallowed her fire to fall into a few golden coals, she allowed Dorchesterto move her from her high-back chair on to a sofa that was near the widewindow, now flung open. She could see roofs, chimneys, towers ofchurches, all dingy grey beneath the leaden sky.
She lay there, a book on her lap, but not reading; she was thinking ofRoddy. For perhaps the very first time in all her life she regrettedsomething that she had done. Nobody but Roddy could have called thisregret out of her and now, she would confess it to no living soul, butshe lay there, thinking about it, remembering every movement and gestureof his, seeing always that, at the end, he had wanted her to go, had, asher sharp old eyes had seen, hurried her away.
There had been so splendid a chance, she had shown her love for him somagnificently that he could not but have been touched and moved had sheonly left Rachel alone. Ah! that girl! again, again.... The Duchesslooked at the plain roofs that lay dry and sterile beneath the torridsky and wished, not by any means for the first time, that she had leftthat marriage with Roddy alone.
Roddy would have married some other girl, Nita Raseley or such, and hewould have been mine ... mine!
Hard and utterly selfish in all her ordinary dealings with a world thatshe professed to despise but really adored, her love for Roddy was alittle golden link to a thousand softnesses and, as she termed them,weak indulgences. Why had she loved him so? She was like the grim pirateof some conventional fiction. See him on his dark vessel surveying withcold and cruel eye the beautiful captives provided by the stricken ship,on every side of him! See him select, for the very flavour that thecontrast gave him, some ordinary slave from the crowd to whom he showsweak indulgence! So much blacker, he feels, does this kindness make hisinfamies.
But the Duchess's career as the dark pirate of her period was swiftlyvanishing; the black hulk of her vessel remained, but upon its boardsonly the little slave was to be seen, and even he, with furtive eye,sought his way of escape.
Yes, on this torrid evening every soul in that vast city, surely, feltthat he was alone, abandoned, in a desert of a world. But the fear thatshe was losing even Roddy brought the Duchess very close to panic. Shehad not grasped before how resolutely she had been using him to bolsterup life for her, how important his friendly existence was for her.
Since his marriage that friendliness had grown, with every hour,weaker. Something she must do now to repair her error of the other day;she was even ready to pretend affection for her granddaughter if thatwould bring Roddy back to her.
She watched the sky and longed for the threatened storm to break; herbones were indeed old and feeble to-day, to move at all was an effortand, with it all, there was a sense of apprehension as though she weresome terrified bird conscious of the hawk's approach, she who had, untilnow, been herself the hawk. She remembered the day when she had realizedmore poignantly than ever before, that the
hour must come--and indeedwas not far away--when she would inevitably meet death. She had loathedthat realization, attempted to defy it, been defeated by it. Now on thisevening, she suspected again the invasion of that same power. Butto-night there was no resistance in her, she lay there, whitelysubmitting to the tyranny of any enemy. She could scarcely breathe;London, like a scaly dragon, flung its hot breath upon her and witheredher defiance. She would have moved away from the window had not thosegrey roofs held her, by their ugly indifference, with a terriblefascination. "I'm going--I'm going--and they don't care. Just likethat--just like that--long after I'm gone."
The evening slipped away and Dorchester, coming to her, thought that shewas sleeping; she did not disturb her, but ordered her evening meal tobe kept until she should wake.
The Duchess did sleep. She awoke to find, in the sky above the nowvanishing roofs, a golden glow and in the room behind her the shadedlamps, the fire burning, and her table spread.
But she had had a horrible dream; she struggled to recall it and, evenas she struggled, trembling seized her body as the vague horror that ithad left behind it still thrilled and troubled her.
She could recollect nothing of her dream except this, that she had died,and that being dead, she was immediately aware that God awaited her.She could remember her frantic effort to reassert all those earthlyconvictions that had been based on the definite creed that the Duchessexisted but _not_ God. She had still with her the sensation of hurry anddismay, the dismal knowledge that she had only a moment with which tobreak down the discoveries of a lifetime and place new ones in herstead.
She had, above all, the horrible knowledge that her punishment wassettled, that at last she was in the hands of a power stronger thanherself and that nothing, nothing, nothing could help her.
She was frightened, but she knew not by what or by whom. She tried totell herself that she had been dreaming, that this breathless eveningwas responsible, that she would be all right very soon. But she wasseized by that terrible vague uncertainty that had been with her so muchlately, uncertainty as to what was real and what was not. She looked atthe French novel lying upon her lap; that was real, she supposed, andyet as she touched its pages her fingers seemed to seize upon nothing,only air between them.
The fits of trembling shook her from head to foot and yet she couldscarcely breathe, so close and heavy was the night.
"That was only a dream--only a dream. Suppose it should be true though.What if I _were_ to die--to-night?"
Dorchester came to her and was alarmed.
"Dinner is ready, Your Grace."
Her mistress did not answer, but lay there, looking through the openwindow and shivering.
"Your Grace will catch cold by that open window. I had better close it."
"It's stifling--stifling."
"Will you have dinner now?"
"No--no. Why do you worry me? I can eat nothing."
Dorchester was seriously alarmed; an evening like this might veryeasily.... She determined to send word round to Dr. Christopher.
She went away, gave directions about the dinner, saw that her mistress'sbedroom was warm and comfortable.
She came back. The Duchess was sitting up, colour in her cheeks and hereyes sparkling. On her lap lay a note.
"I've had a dream, Dorchester--a horrid dream. I was disturbed for amoment. I think I will eat something after all."
"The way she goes up and down!" thought Dorchester. "Must say I don'tlike the look of her--not knowing her own mind, so unlike her--Who's theletter from, I wonder?"
It was the letter, plainly, that had done it. Sitting up and enjoyingher soup, forgetting that black sky and the Dragon's scaly menace, theDuchess knew that that dream--that dream about God--had been as silly,as futile as dreams always are.
The note, brought to her by Norris and lying now beside her plate, hadtold her so. The note of course had been from Roddy. It said:
"DEAR DUCHESS,
I don't want to ask anything impossible of you, but, encouraged by your coming to me the other day and hearing that you took no harm from your expedition, I am wondering whether to-morrow afternoon about five you could come again and have tea with me. There is something about which you can help me--only you in all the world. If I don't hear from you I will conclude that you can come--five o'clock.
Your affectionate friend,
RODDY."
That letter showed the perfection of his tactful understanding....
No absurd talk about her age, her feebleness, the weather, but simply itwas taken for granted that of course she would be there. Well, ofcourse, she _would_ be there--nothing should stop her. She was awarethat Christopher, hearing that to-night she had not been so well, wouldcertainly forbid her to move. He should, therefore, know nothing aboutit, nothing at all. His visit would be paid in the morning--she wouldhave the afternoon to herself--Norris and Dorchester should help her tothe carriage.
Christopher expected, on his arrival, to find her in a very bad way,exhausted by the closeness of the evening: it was possible that he mighthave to remain all night. He found her in bed, a lace cap on her head, acrimson dressing-gown about her shoulders, and all her rings glitteringupon her fingers. An old-fashioned massive silver candlestick with sixbranches illuminated the lacquer bed, the black Indian chairs, thefantastic wall-paper. The windows were closed and the dry heat of theroom was appalling.
She was in her mildest, most amiable mood, had enjoyed an excellentdinner, laughed her cracked, discordant laugh, was delighted to see him.
"Sit down, there, close to me. Have some coffee."
"No, thank you."
"Dorchester can bring it in a minute."
"No, really, thank you."
"Who sent for you?"
"Lord John."
"Yes, I thought so. Pretty state of things with them all hanging roundlike this waiting for me to die--never felt better in my life."
"So I see--delighted. I'll go."
"Not a bit of it. Stay and talk. I feel like telling someone what Ithink of things, although you've heard it all often enough before. Butthe truth is, Christopher, I _did_ have a nasty dream--a very nastydream--and the nastiest part of it was that I couldn't remember it whenI woke up.
"But it's the weather--I was frightened for a minute although I wouldn'thave anyone else know."
"But you had a good dinner."
"Splendid dinner, thank you."
She lay back in bed and looked at him; delightful to think that shewould play a little game with him to-morrow; he would in all probabilitybe angry when he knew--that would be very amusing; delightful, too, tothink that, just when she was afraid that she had seriously alienatedRoddy away from her, he should write and say that he needed her. Shewould go to-morrow and would be exceedingly pleasant to him and wouldreassure him about Rachel....
Yes, she had seldom felt so genial. She told Christopher stories of menand women whom she had known, wicked stories, gay stories, cruelstories, and her eyes twinkled and her fingers sparkled and her oldwithered face poked out above the dressing-gown, with the white hair,fine and proud beneath the lace cap.
Once she said to him: "You think all this queer, don't you?" waving herhand at the bed, the chairs, the paper. "This colour and the odds andends and the rest."
"It's part of you," he said; "I shouldn't know you without them."
"I love them," she breathed. "I _love_ them. Oh! if I'd had my way I'dhave been born when one could have _piled_ up and splashed it about andhad it everywhere--jewels, clothes, processions--Ah! that's why I hatethis generation that's coming; the generation that you believe in sodevoutly, it's so ugly. It wears ugly things, it likes ugly people, itbelieves in talking about ugly morals and making ugly laws...." Then shelaughed--"It's funny, isn't it? I had to use the age I was born into, Icut my cloth to it, but what a figure I'd have made in any centurybefore the nineteenth. All the old times were best. You could commandand see that you were obeyed.... None
of your Individualism then,Christopher."
She was silent for a time and he said nothing. He was thinking aboutBreton, wondering where he was, feeling that he should not have let himgo. She said suddenly:
"Christopher, do you think there's a God?"
"I know there is."
"Well, I know there isn't--so there we are. One of us will find thatwe've made a mistake in a few years' time."
He said nothing. At last she began again:
"You're sure of it?"
"Quite sure."
"So like you--and you get a deal of comfort from it, no doubt. But whatkind of a God, Christopher?"
"A just God--a loving God."
"How any doctor can say that truthfully! The pain, the crime you musthave seen----"
"Exactly. I've known, I suppose, of as much misery, as much agony, muchwickedness as most men in a lifetime. I've never had a case under mynotice that hasn't shown the necessity for pain, the necessity forstruggle, for defeat, for disaster. If this life were all, still Ishould have had proof enough that a loving God was moving in the world."
She lay back, smiling at him.
"You're a sentimentalist of course. I've heard you talk before. You'rewrong, Christopher, badly wrong. I shall prove it before you will."
"Well," he said, smiling back at her, "we'll see."
"Oh, yes, you're a sentimentalist of the very worst--I don't know that Ilike you the less for it. I'm an old pagan and it's served me all mylife. Ah! there's the thunder!"
She sat up in bed, her cap pushed back, her skinny arms stretched out ina kind of ecstasy. "There! That's it! That's the kind of thing I like!There's your God for you, Christopher."
A flash of lightning flung the room into unreality.
"I'd hoped for one more good storm before I went. I've been waiting allday for this."
He never forgot the strange figure that she made; she displayed theexcitement of a child presented with a sudden unexpected gift.
He himself had known many storms, but, perhaps because she now made sostrange a central figure of this one, this always remained with him asthe worst of his life. He had never heard such thunder and, as eachcrash fell upon them, he felt that she rose to it and exulted in it asthough she were a swimmer meeting great ocean rollers.
There was at last a peal that broke upon them as though it had tumbledthe whole house about their ears. Deafened by it he looked about him asthough he had expected to find everything in the room shattered.
"_That_ was the best," she cried to him.
At last she lay back tired, and he bade her good night.
She held his hand for a moment. "I regret nothing," she said, "nothingat all. I've had a good time."
But, after he had left her, the sound of the rain had some personal furyabout it that made her uneasy.
She called to Dorchester. "I think I'd like you to sleep here to-night,Dorchester. I may need you."
"Very well, Your Grace."
"After all," she thought as, the candles blown out, she lay and listenedto the rain, "that dream may come back...."