CHAPTER XII
RACHEL, RODDY, LORD JOHN, CHRISTOPHER
"'Everybody came in to dinner in the best of spirits.... Everything was discussed.'"--_Inheritance._
I
The Duchess of Wrexe died on the morning of May 2nd at a quarter-pastthree o'clock. The evening papers of that day and the morning papers ofthe next had long columns concerning her, and these were picturesque andalmost romantic. She appealed as a figure veiled but significant, hiddenbut the landmark of a period--"Nothing was more remarkable than theinfluence that she exercised over English Society during the thirtyyears that she was completely hidden from it"--or again, "Althoughdisease compelled her, for thirty years, to retire from the world, herinfluence during that period increased rather than diminished."
It must be confessed, however, that London Society was not moved to itsfoundations by the news of her death. People said, "Oh! that old woman;gone at last, I see. She's been dying for years, hasn't she? Quite apower in her day ..." Or, "Oh, the Duchess of Wrexe is dead, I see. Imust write to Addie Beaminster. Don't expect the family will miss hermuch--awful old tyrant, I believe ..." or "I say, see JohnnieBeaminster's old lady's gone? She kept the whip-hand of _him_ in histime.... Damned glad he'll be, I bet."
Two years earlier and it would not have been thus, but now there was theWar (daily the relief of Mafeking was frantically anticipated) and fineregal majesty, sitting dignified in a solemn room, irritated the worldby its quiescence.
"What we're needing now is for everyone to get a move on. No use sittingaround." A few carefully selected American phrases can very swiftlykill a great deal of dignity and tradition.
In the Beaminster camp itself there was an unexpressed disappointment.They had grown accustomed to thinking of her as a fine figure, sittingthere where, rather fortunately, they were not compelled to visit her,but where, nevertheless, she had a grand effect. They had known, for along time now, that she was not so well, but they had expected, in avague way, that she would go on living for ever. They had been making,during the last two years, a succession of enforced compromises and nowthe crisis of her death showed them how far they had gone withoutknowing it.
"Things will never be the same as they were...." And in their heartsthey said, "We're getting old--we aren't wanted as we once were."
Meanwhile there was a fine funeral down at Beaminster. The Queen wasrepresented, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, all theheads of all the old families in England, artists and one or two verydistinguished actor-managers (who looked far more sumptuous than anyoneelse present).... Everyone was there.
Christopher detected Mrs. Bronson and wondered what the Duchess wouldthink of it if she knew: Brun, also, although Christopher did not seehim, flashed upon them from the Continent, was present, neat and solemnand immensely observant. It was all admirable and worthy of the bestEnglish traditions.
"She was a fine figure," said the Prime Minister, who had known her anddisliked her intensely. "We shall never see her like again," but hissigh was nearer relief than regret.
II
Christopher, three days after the funeral, went to have tea with Roddyand Rachel. He was a man of great physical strength and had never had"nerves" in his life, but he was feeling, just now, tired out. He hadnot realized, in the least, during all these years, the part that thatold woman played in his life, and he found that his whole scheme ofthings was now disorganized and without vitality. It was vitality thatshe had given him, a tiresome, troublesome, irritating vitality perhaps,but, nevertheless a fire, an energy, a driving curiosity.
He would capture it again, his eagerness to investigate, to assist, toprophesy, but it would never any more be quite the same energy--everyonewith whom she had had anything to do would find life now a littledifferent....
Some weeks before her death Roddy had sent for him. "I'm awfully upset,Christopher," he said and then he had told him about the scene in hisrooms and had begged to know the truth. "I hear she's much worse--she'shad a stroke--I wrote to her and she hasn't answered me. Christopher,tell me truthfully, was it her comin' to me that day and all the kick-upand everythin' that made her so much worse?"
Christopher had reassured him--"Quite honestly, if she'd asked my leaveto let her go out that afternoon I'd not have granted it. But as itturned out she wasn't a bit the worse. I saw her directlyafterwards--she told me all about it. She was rather grimly pleased.Mind you, it marked, I think, a kind of crisis. As she put it to me shesaw that afternoon that the whole scheme of things had gone out of herhands and that the new generation didn't want her--But I think she wasglad to have it settled for her, she was tired of it all, her struggleto keep it had been much earlier.
"She just wasn't going to bother any more and she might have gone on inthat sort of way for years."
But although he had thus reassured Roddy he was not, in his heart, socertain. He seemed to see a long chain of events (he dated his ownobservation of them from the time of Rachel's coming out), that had ledboth Rachel and the Duchess to the climax of their actual challenge oneto another. It was not that that meeting in Roddy's house had been ofitself so important, it was rather that the fates had selected it as adefinite culmination of the struggle. That meeting stood for a sharpvisualization of much more than the personal conflict.
She had been glad to go, he did not in any way see her death as atragedy, but her departure had marked the opening of a new period, a newpersonal history for the remaining characters, ultimately perhaps a newsocial epoch for everybody--
Meanwhile he was happy about Roddy and Rachel for the first time sincetheir marriage and, as he was a man who lived in the lives of hisfriends, their happiness meant his own.
He found Lord John with Roddy, Rachel was with Aunt Adela, but "would beback for tea." Lord John, rather solemn and awkward in black clothes,was demanding comfort and assistance from his friends. His trouble wasthat he did not miss his mother as fundamentally as he desired, andthat, at the same time, life was now most terribly different. Hisbrothers, Vincent and Richard, had instantly after the funeral adaptedthemselves, with gravity and assurance, to the new conditions.
Lord John had never adapted himself to anything, but had fitted hisstout body into the soft places that life had offered to him and hadbeen placidly grateful for their softness. Only once had he shown energyof his own initiative and that had been in the matter of his nephewFrancis, and of that now he did not dare to think.
He could never, so long as he lived, forget the slightest detail of thathorrible quarter of an hour with his mother when she discovered hisiniquity--and yet, even now, he felt, obscurely but obstinately, that hehad done right. Nevertheless he would never again take life into his ownhands: upon that he was absolutely resolved. What he needed now wasreassurance from his friends. He had always before found that lifearranged itself about him in a comfortable way and he confidentlyexpected that it would do so now, but meanwhile he must have kind looksand words from somebody. He was a man who hailed with joy theopportunity of bestowing affection upon a friend who was not likely, ata later time, to rebuff him. He had never been quite sure of Rachel--shewas so strange and uncertain--but upon Roddy, helpless, good-natured,and a man of his own world, he felt that he could rely. He spenttherefore many hours at Roddy's side, rather silent, smiling a greatdeal, 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 PortlandPlace house shortly to be sold, of a world altered and alarming, andthen he would wonder how long the time would be before he might againtake up his old habits, his old houses, his old comforts, and then hisfat cheerful face would gather wrinkles upon its surface. "It's after athing like this that a feller gets old--Richard and Adela and I--We'llhave to make up our minds to it."
Christopher found them busied with the map, discussing the probable hourof Mafeking's relief. Lord John looked at Christopher a littleanxiously, perhaps _he_ was going to be down upon _him_! But Christopherwas a
very quiet and genial Christopher. He sank down into a chair witha sigh of comfort, waved his hand to them.
"Don't you mind me. I'm tired to death. Was up all last night with acase----"
"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 muchto hope for there--now Roberts----"
But Lord John's attention was distracted. He wished to be quite surethat 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 somewherefor 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 hadbeen occasions when he had been the stern family physician and hadtreated Lord John with some severity. Now there was implied a newcomradeship as though they had passed through perils together and wouldhave always between them in the future a strong bond of friendship.
John felt that the atmosphere at this moment was so friendly andcomforting 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. Rachelwill 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 ifyou'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 comfortableunder the sun. He thought of Rachel. He had regained the old Rachel theother 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 andeasy....
"So long, Roddy."
He beamed happily upon them and went.
Jacob, the dog, came in from his afternoon walk, very grave, paying noattention to Christopher, but going at once and lying, full length, nearRoddy's sofa, his head between his paws, his eyes fixed upon his master.
"What's happened to all your other dogs?" asked Christopher. "They mustbe missing you very badly."
"Oh, they're down at Seddon, got a jolly good man there whom I cantrust--don't think they miss me. _This_ beggar would though. Funnything, Christopher--when I was goin' about and all the rest of it Ithought nothin' of this dog, couldn't see why Rachel made such a fuss ofit--now--why I don't know how I'd ever get on without it, sounderstandin' and quiet with it all too. Nothin' like a trouble of somesort 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, butin a way too I believe she'd like to have all the old time over againand see whether she couldn't manage it better ... she said to me she'dnever understood the old woman until that last talk with her, not thatthere 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 upRachel so easily for? I couldn't tell you why, but that day he came hereI was as sure as I was lyin' here that whatever there was between themwas finished. I wouldn't have said what I did, seemed to take it soquietly, if I hadn't seen in a minute it was all over."
"Ah, you don't know Francis," said Christopher. "It's all romanticimpulses that set him going--Rachel romantic impulse on one side,getting back to the family romantic impulse on the other. He knew if hewent off with her that getting back to the family would be over for everas far as he was concerned. He knew that he'd never cease to regretit.... John Beaminster coming to him gave him what he'd been waitingfor, longing for. He seized it----"
"Yes, but it was more than that," said Roddy slowly. "It all lies withRachel. He never got close to her any more than I've done. I know nowthat she's fond of me, but it's by the child I'll hold her and by myhelplessness, nothin' else. And she'll have her wild moments when myselfand everythin' about me will seem simply impossible, just as if she'dgone off with Breton she'd have had her comfortable domestic sort oflongin's and hated _him_ and everythin' about _him_. I believe Bretonknew--just as I knew--that never tryin' to hold her was the way to keepher, 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 herthat no one man could master. But I've been given all the tricks in thegame by bein' laid up like this--just when I thought I'd lost all worthhavin' 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 hisidea of her; there _is_ a bit of her that he stirred that I never couldtouch, but it don't matter--she's the most wonderful creature on thisearth 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 bethe best rider, the best sportsman in this bloomin' old world--not thatI'd mind a girl, either. I'd like to have a girl--just the time for awoman 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 withdomestic bliss and never wantin' to get off this old sofa and therest--not a _bit_ of it--it's damned tryin' and I curse hours togetheroften enough. Peters has the benefit of it. I wasn't born an angel and Ishan'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 forthe new generation, cheers for young Roddy Secundus.... Long life tohim!"
"There's one thing," said Christopher, looking at him. "Whateverinspired you, that day you had the scene here, to behave to Frank Bretonas you did? To give them both carte blanche--it wouldn't be the way ofmost husbands confronted with such a question--it was the _only_ way forRachel ... but how did you know her well enough? You'll forgive mysaying so, your method as a rule is to drive straight in, let fly allround, and then count the bits."
"If you love anybody," said Roddy, with confusion and hesitation, "asmuch as I love Rachel you become wonderfully understandin'.... Lookhere," he broke off, "don't let's talk any more rot. Just drop all jawabout 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 thenext quarter of an hour, moved flags up and down its surface.
Then came Rachel and, after her, tea. They were a quiet but very happycompany during the next half-hour.
"How's Aunt Adela?" asked Roddy.
"Very well, considering," said Rachel. "Of course she's confused andlost her bearings rather. She misses the Portland Place house more thananything, 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'squiet and depending a lot upon Lizzie----"
When tea was ended Rachel said, "Dr. Chris, I've got something to say toyou. I'm going to tear you away from Roddy for five minutes if you'llcome 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 asthey sat there by the window together he thought of that day when he hadtold her the Duchess was downstairs with Roddy. They had all travelled along 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 hesitationand with an air of restraint as though about the very whisper penaltiescould linger.
"You're the best friend that he's got--the best friend any man couldhave--and I want you to care for him, to look after him, to watch overhim. 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 aswell as your own. I want you to be the one link that I've still got withhim."
"But Roddy asked him----" began Christopher.
"Oh yes! I know--Roddy was splendid. But of course that can't be. Wecan't meet, at any rate for years. Besides, that time is so utterly donewith. 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 hedepends upon what the people whom he cares for say to him--and so I wantyou----"
"But of course," Christopher said. "He knows that he can count on mewhatever happens--he's always known that."
He stopped and waited for her to continue; he saw that she had more tosay.
"It's so strange," she said, staring, her eyes deep and black seeinginto sacred places that were known only to her, "how grandmother'sdeath has cleared, amazingly, the air. The motive for almost everythinghas gone. I didn't see--I hadn't the least idea--how all my thoughts andactions 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 wasso difficult with Roddy, because I thought that grandmother had arrangedthe marriage and had him under her thumb--I had no idea of the kind ofperson 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 wildrebellion 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, weboth knew, at heart, that something was missing--something one had tohave if one was going to break away altogether. He was always a rebel byforce 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 toabsolute, complete disaster. If it hadn't been for Roddy's accident andfor 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 oftenthought of it since and it seems to me now that to all of us--for Roddyand Francis and Lizzie and me--the moment of our consciousness came.Ever since that day when they carried Roddy back to Seddon each one ofus 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, oreven Lizzie or Roddy that defeated grandmother--it was simply Real Life.First the War, then Roddy's accident--Roddy's accident most of all. Wehad, all five of us, been leading sham lives, then suddenly God, Fate,Providence, what you will, steps in, jerks us all back, takes away fromall of us what we thought we wanted most, puts us in line with the realthing--our Tiger, if you like. Grandmother simply couldn't stand it.Lizzie and Roddy are real--half of Breton and me, and most ofgrandmother unreal--Well, Lizzie and Roddy have just put things straightquietly.... Grandmother's generation saw things 'through a glassdarkly'--They're gone. It's all going to be 'face to face' now."
Christopher looked at her, smiling. She was so young, so adorably youngwith her seriousness.
She broke in--"What rot I'm talking! It only comes to this, that I wishnow, like anything, that I'd been nicer to grandmamma. One sees thingsalways too late.... I'd like to have another try, to begin withgrandmamma again, to be more tolerant, to hate her less. But I expect inthe end it would be the same. She'd have had me tied up, without a willof my own, without a word to say!... that was her idea of controlling usall. It's over, it's done with--no one, I expect, will have her kind ofpower 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, cataloguingthat same power--
"She wasn't terrible, she wasn't fine, she wasn't really anything excepta kind of peg for all sorts of traditions to hang on to. In herself shewas just a plucky, theatrical, obstinate old woman. It was simply theidea of her that frightened us all. I remember the first time that I sawYale 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, inherself, live up to the picture in the least.
"I suppose," she went on, coming up closer to him, "that that's why noone will ever be like her again--because no one will ever be taken in socompletely by shams again, never by the empty shell of anything. Butthat'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 shewasn't anything--wasn't simply there. Do you know, Dr. Chris, seeing hernow, just an old sick woman, conscious that everyone was escaping her, Ialmost 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'shappened at last! Meanwhile I shall be the most perfect wife, the mostperfect mother, and when the Tiger is restive there'll be the youngestSeddon to put it all into. Oh! What a child that child will be! Roddyand 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 windowinto space and freedom it was gone. She herself proclaimed itsdismissal.
"It's gone--it's all gone--Dr. Chris. I'm the happiest woman inEngland!"
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 presentworld, 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 apassion whose face she had scarcely seen but whose voice she hadheard and still now, in her new life, remembered. She had had hermoment ... the last strains of its dying music were still in her ears.She caught her breath, then, turning, dismissed it; and, standing backfrom Christopher, gave him her last word--
"But look after Francis. Be with him as much as you can.... He needs allthat you can spare--He's got to be--he's simply _got_ to be--the successof 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 ofMafeking. It was too advanced an hour, he understood, for the town todisplay 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 hisdinner, 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 yousuppose? Meanwhile come out now and see your fine people makemanifestations."
"Is there a noise?"
"A noise! _Mon Dieu!_ But come and look!"
They went out together. Harley Street was silent and deserted and aboveit a night sky, scattered with stars, was serenely still. But, beyondthe further roofs and chimneys, golden light hovered and a confusedmurmur, like the buzzing of bees, hummed upon space.
Through Oxford Street a great crowd of people was passing, but it was acrowd hurrying to find some other crowd. Oxford Street was plainly notthe meeting-place. There was a good deal of shouting and singing; youngmen, five abreast, passed, girls with "ticklers" and whistles screamedand laughed a
nd sang; merry bells were ringing, lights flared in thewindows and now and again a rocket with a whiz and a shriek flashedinto 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 becarried to them and then would be hidden again as though some huge doorin front of them were swinging to and fro.
At the end of Bond Street, suddenly, as they might turn the corner ofsome sea road and, instantly, be confronted with the crash of a plungingsurf, they met the crowd.
"Look out!" cried Brun, clutching hold of Christopher's arm. "We don'twant to get drawn into this!"
Although they had apparently been walking quietly down Bond Street withno crowd about them, they now were pursued, upon all sides, by people.They raised themselves on to a doorstep, hanging there, bending theirfeet forward, and feeling that if the crowd in front of them were for amoment to give way down they would go!
Meanwhile, along Piccadilly, towards the clubs and Hyde Park Corner, athick mass of human beings was pressing. This gathering seemed, ofitself, to lack all human quality.
A face, a voice, a hand, a cry----these things might now and again, asfish flash in a stream, detach themselves; sometimes a light from aflaring window or an illumination would fling into pale, unreal relief abundle of faces that represented, at that instant, a piece of humanhistory, 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 somehidden river, stamping to destruction as it went.
Then as though one were watching a show, with a click, the human elementwas back again. There two girls, their hats pushed aside, their hairhalf uncoiled, their cheeks flushed, their eyes partly bold and partlyfrightened, 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 announcedits intention of giving "a jolly 'ooray" for our splendid country andour Beloved Queen, but, once in a position from which there was noreturning, once in the hands of a force that was stronger than any feltbefore, it had forgotten the country and its defeats and successes. Onlytwo courses open. Either admit fear, feel that the breath of you isslowly but quite surely in process of being crushed out of you, feelthat your arms and legs are being torn from you, that your ribs arebeing smashed into powder and that your heart is being pressed as flatas a pancake, let then panic overwhelm you, fight and scream to get outand away from it, see yourself finally falling, trampled, kicked, yourface squashed to pulp, your eyes torn out, your breath strangled in yourbody ... so much for Fear. Or, on the other hand arouse Frenzy!
Be above and beyond your body, scream and shout, rattle rattles and blowwhistles, trample upon everything that is near you, smack faces withyour hand, pull off clothing and scatter hats and bonnets, scream aloud,no matter what it is that you are screaming, let your voice exclaim thatat length, at length, you, a miserable clerk on nothing a week, in theCity, are, for the first time in your existence, the Captain of yoursoul, 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 itat all. With every moment it seems that from the Circus more bodies,more arms and legs are being pressed and crushed and packed; with everymoment the clanging of the bells is louder, the fire in the sky higherand wilder, the singing, the screaming, the oaths and the curses arenearer, the defiance that loss of individuality gives.
"Let's get back," said Brun. He turned, but, at that moment, someonefrom behind him cried, "Oo are yer shoving there?" He was pushed, withChristopher, half falling, half clutching at arms and shoulders, forwardinto the street.
They righted themselves, Brun fastened upon Christopher's arm, shoutinginto his ear, "We'd better go along with the crowd for a bit. We'll geta chance of cutting up Half Moon Street. Can't do anything else."
They were pressed forward. Now, received into the bosom of the crowd,they were conscious both of the human element and of the strongercomposite spirit that was mightier than anything human, a creation ofthe City against whose walls they were now so riotously shouting.
Next to Christopher was a young man in evening dress; his hat haddisappeared, his collar was torn, sweat was pouring down his foreheadand at the top of his voice he screamed again and again:
"Good old England! Good old England! Good old Bobs! Good old Bobs!"Squeezed up against Christopher's arm was a stout body that looked asthough it had once belonged to some elderly gentleman who liked whitewaistcoats and brass buttons. From somewhere, in obvious connection withthese buttons, came a weak, breathless voice: "You'll excuse me hangingon so, sir. It's familiar--not my way--but this crowd ..."
A girl, with crimson face, leant against Christopher, put her arm roundhis neck, tickled his face with a feather; she screamed with laughter:"Oo-ray! Oo-ray--Oo-bloody-ray!"
"Look out, you swine!" somebody shouted.
"And 'e shouted out, did Bobs Come along, you stinking nobs, We will show you--"
Around them, above them, below them there tossed a whirlpool of noise,something outside and beyond the immediate sounds that they were making.Bells, voices, shouts that seemed to have no human origin, the verywalls and stones of the City crying aloud.
Then, opposite the entrance to Half Moon Street another crowd seemed tomeet them. There was pause. "Get out of it!" "Go the other way." "Damnyer eyes, step off it." "Go back, carn't yer?"
It was then that for the briefest moment and for the first time in hislife Christopher was afraid. Someone was pressing into his back untilsurely it would break, some other was leaning, and driving his chest in,driving it so that the breath flooded his face, his eyes, his nose.Colours rose and fell; someone's evil breath burnt upon his cheeks.Light flashed before him in broad, steady flares.
"Brun, Brun," he cried.
"All right," a voice from many miles away answered him.
He was seized with the determination to survive. They thought that theycould "down" him, but they should see that they were mistaken; his ragerising, he was no longer Dr. Christopher of Harley Street, but somethingsavage, lawless beyond even his own control. He drove with his arms;curses met him and someone drove back into him and a ridiculous facewith staring eyes that stupidly pleaded and a nose that was white andtrembling and a mouth that dribbled at the corners came up against his.
"Keep back, can't you?" someone shouted.
"Brun, Brun," he called again, and then was conscious that bodies weregiving way before him. His hand met a stomach covered with cloth andlittle hard buttons, and then coming against a woman's arm soft andwarm, Christopher had instantly gained possession of his soul once more.
"Hope I didn't hurt you," he heard himself saying, then, some barrier oflegs and bodies yielding, found that he was flung out, away, stumbling,in spite of himself, on to his knee.
He caught someone by the arm, and it was Brun.
"Good Lord!" said Christopher.
"It's all right," answered Brun. "We're in Half Moon Street. We're outof it."
II
Somewhere in the peaceful retirement behind the clubs they surveyed oneanother and then laughed. Brun--the dapper perfect Brun--had a bleedingcheek, a torn waistcoat, and a large and very unbecoming tear in histrousers. He was half angry and half amused--finally a survey ofChristopher, with mud on his nose and his collar hanging from one buttonand revealing a fat red neck, restored his good temper.
"You'd better come back with me," said Christopher, "and be cleaned up."
They went back to Harley Street and half an hour later were sittingquietly in easy chairs, with the house as though it were made ofcotton-wool, so silent and hidden was it, about them.
Both men were excited; Christopher had been changed by
the events of thelast few weeks, and Brun, if he had not been so personally involved, hadseen enough to excite his most eager curiosity and speculation.
Brun's sharp little eyes, flashing across the tip of his cigar, soughtChristopher's large comfortable face, fell from there over his largecomfortable body, down at last to his large comfortable boots.
"Well ... First time I've seen a Continental crowd in England."
"Continental?"
"Always your Englishman, however excited and of whatever rank, knowsthere are things a gentleman doesn't do. Those people to-night had notthat knowledge. Very interesting," he added.
Christopher peacefully smoked, his body well spread out in the chair,his broad rather clumsy-looking fingers clutching devotedly at hispipe.
"So you were at the funeral the other day?"
"I was. I expect I mourned her more sincerely than any of you. I'd neverseen her, but she meant a lot to me--as a symbol. And I like symbolsbetter than human beings."
He pulled his body together with a little jerk and leaned forward:"Christopher, do you remember, a long while ago, going into a gallery inBond Street and meeting Lady Adela Beaminster there and Lady Seddon? Itwas just after Ross's portrait was first shown."
"I remember," said Christopher, nodding his head. "You were there."
"I was. I was there with Arkwright the African explorer man. I onlymention the day because Arkwright was interested in Lady Seddon, wantedto know all about her, and I talked a bit, I remember. My point to himwas that there was a situation between that girl and her grandmotherthat would be worth anybody's watching. I followed it myself for a whileand then I lost it. But you're a friend of the family--tell me,Christopher, what happened between those two."
"Nothing," Christopher said, laughing.
"Oh, nonsense," Brun answered. "They were all in it. Something went on.Then Seddon had that accident ... Breton was in it."
But Christopher only smiled.
"Well, if you won't--_n'importe_--I have my own idea of it all. Thatgirl was a fine girl, and the old woman was fine too--
"But how they must have hated one another!"
He chuckled; then sitting back in his chair, his little eyes on theceiling, he said almost to himself--"Once, years ago, when I was very,very young and romantic--almost--just for a year or two I loved yourShelley. He was everything--I could quote him by the page.... He's gonefrom me now, or most of him has, but there was one line that seemed tome then the most romantic thing I had ever read and has remained withme always. It went--'And we'll have fires out of the Grand Duke'swood'--It's in the letter to Maria Gisborne, I think--I've quiteforgotten what the context is now--it's all pretty trivial andunimportant, but those were the days when I made pictures--I saw it!Lord, Christopher, how it comes back! The wood, very thick, very large,very black, no sun--very still, and the great house behind it, huge andwhite, with long gardens and green lawns and peacocks, and the GrandDuke, with his powdered wig, and diamond-buckled shoes, his gorgeoussuit, his jewelled sword, his snuff and his wine, his silly littledried-up yellow face.
"Then the rabble--dirty, smelling, ill-conditioned fellows--breakingthrough the silence, tearing up the Wood, knocking down the palace,hanging the Grand Duke from a tree, last of all, setting the whole thinginto the most splendid blaze!... Oh! of course that wasn't Shelley'scontext--_his_ was all about boiling a kettle or something--but that'sthe way I saw it--just like that." Nothing stirred Brun like the soundof his own voice and now he was getting very excited indeed and waswaving his hands.
"Yes," said Christopher placidly. "Very dramatic. What does it allmean?"
"Well, this. It seems to me that that's just what's been happening overhere. Your Duchess is dead and instead there is to-night's crowd. TheGrand Duke is gone and all that was his--now for the fires!"
Christopher, filling his pipe, paused, and then, his voice grave andserious: "Romantics aside, Brun, for a minute. Do you remember yourTiger idea you delivered to me once? I've often thought of it since. Yousaid then that the reason why the Duchess and her times--the Grand Dukeand his wood--had got to go was because their policy had been to givethe Tigers of the world no liberty--to pretend indeed that they weren'tthere, and that now the time had come when every man should declare hisTiger, should give it liberty and, whether he restrained it or no,acknowledge its existence.... Well, now--what I want to know is this.What to your thinking is going to come of it all? I'm old-fashioned. Ilike the old settled laws and customs and the rest of it, and yet I'mnot afraid of this new Individualism; but what I expect and what youexpect to come of it all are sure to be mightily different things."
"They are," said Brun, laughing. "You see, Christopher, as I've oftensaid to you before, you're a sentimentalist--people matter to you;you're concerned in their individual good or bad luck. Now none of thatis worth anything to me. I observe from the outside--always. What I wantto see is less muddle, more brain, less waste of time, more progress. Ibelieve the loosing of the Tiger is going to bring that about. That'swhy I welcome it--I don't care one little damn about yourindividual--let him be sacrificed every time for the general wisdom.Your Duchess, she was good for her age. Now she is against progress. Shevanishes. That crowd of to-night has swept her away.... There'll be achaos here for a time--people like the Ruddards will mix things up; awoman like Mrs. Strode will destroy as many good people as she can. Butthe time will come; out of that crowd that we got into to-night a world,ruled by brain, by common sense, by understanding, not by sentiment andconfusion, will arise.... May I not be with the good God!"
"'Sentiment and confusion,'" said Christopher, smiling. "That's me, Isuppose."
"Well, you _are_ sentimental," said Brun. "You're stuffed with it."
"Do you yourself ..." asked Christopher, "is there no one--no one in theworld--who matters to you?"
"Nobody," said Brun. "No one in the world. I think I like you betterthan anybody; you're the honestest man I know and yet one of the mostwrong-headed. Yes, I like you very much; but it would not be true to saythat it would leave any great blank in my life if you were to die.Women! Yes, there have been women! But--thank the good God! for themoment only. The Heart--no--The Brain--yes----"
"Well, then," said Christopher, "that's all clear enough. It isn't verywonderful that we differ. People are to me everything. Love the onlypower in the world to make change, to work miracles; I don't mean onlysensual love, or even sexual love, but simply the love of one humanbeing for another, the love that leads to thinking more of yourneighbour than yourself--self-denial.
"Self-denial; the only curb for your Tiger, Brun. I've been watching itin a piece of private history, all this last year and a half. Theremight have been the most horrible mess; self-denial saved it all thetime. You'll say that all this is so vague and loose that it's worthnothing."
"Not at all," said Brun politely. "Go ahead."
"Well, then, the reason why I, old-fashioned and Philistine as I am,hail the passing of the Grand Duke with joy--and I cared for the oldwoman, mind you--is just this. I see some chance at last for the plainman--not the clever man, or the especially spiritual man or the wealthyman--but simply the ordinary man. When I say Brotherhood I don't meananything to do with associations or meetings or rules--Simply that Ibelieve in an age when a man's neighbour will matter to a man more thanhimself, when it won't be priggish or weak to help someone in worseplight than yourself, when it will simply be the obvious thing ... when,above all, there'll be no jealousy, no getting in a man's way because hedoes better than you, no knocking a man down because he sees theworld--this world and the next--differently. That's my Individualism, myRising City, and if you had watched the lives of a few friends of mineduring the last year or two as I've watched them you'd know that 'Lovethy neighbour as thyself' is the fire that's going to burn all theGrand-Ducal woods in the world in time."
Brun laughed. "You'll be taken in horribly one of these days,Christopher."
"You speak as though I were a chicken," Christopher broke outi
ndignantly. "Man alive, haven't I lived all these years? Haven't I seenthe poorest and rottenest and feeblest side of human nature time andtime again? But this I know: That it's losing the thing you prize mostthat pays, it's the pursuit, the self-denial, the forgetting of selfthat scores in the material, practical world as well as the spiritual,heavenly one. That's where the Millennium's coming from. Brains as wellperhaps, but souls first."
"We'll see," said Brun. "A bit of both, I dare say. Anyhow, it's thenext generation that's going to be interesting. All kinds of people freewho've never been free before, all sorts of creeds and doctrines smashedthat seemed like Eternity. The old woods flaming already. _Apres laDuchesse!..._ But as for your Love, your Brotherhood, Christopher, I'vea shrewd suspicion that human nature will change very little.Unselfishness? Very fine to talk about--but who's going to practise it?Every man for his own hand, now as ever."
"We'll see," answered Christopher. "I'm not clever at putting thingsinto words. If I were to go along to the man in the street and say,'Look here, I've made a discovery--I've got something that's going tomake everything straight in the world,' and he were to say, 'What'sthat?' and then I were to answer, 'Self-denial. Unselfishness--Love ofyour neighbour,' he would, of course, instantly remind me that Someonegreater than myself had made the same remark a few thousand years ago.He'd be right.... There's nothing new in it. But it's coming new to theworld just because the laws and conventions that covered it arebreaking. The Tiger in Every Man and Self-denial to curb it ... That'smy prophecy, Brun."
Brun gave himself a whisky-and-soda. "No idea you were such a talker,Christopher.... But I'm right all the same."
He held up his glass.
"Here's to the Tiger in the next generation." He drank, then held it upagain. "And here," he cried, "to the memory of the last Great lady inEngland!"
III
When Brim had gone it seemed that he had left that last toast of his inthe air behind him.
Christopher was haunted by the thought of the Duchess, he felt her withhim in the room; she stirred him to restlessness so that at last,desperately, he took his hat and went out.
His steps took him, round the corner, to Portland Place; here all wasvery quiet, a few cabs in the middle of the street, a few lights in thewindows, the silver field of stars, in the distance the sky golden,fired now and again into life as a rocket rose shielding beneath itsglow all that stirring multitude. Sounds rose--a cry, a shout,singing--then died down again.
He was outside No. 104. He thought that he would ring and see whetherMrs. Newton were in; perhaps she had gone to bed, it was after eleven,but, if she were there, he would take one last look at the Portraitbefore it was packed up and sent down to Beaminster.
Mrs. Newton unbolted the door and smiled when she saw him--"I was justgoing to bed--There's only myself and Louisa here--and the watchman."
"I won't keep you, Mrs. Newton," he said. "The fancy just took me tolook at some of the pictures once more before they're packed up. LadySeddon told me that a good many of them were to be packed up to-morrow;they won't look quite the same at Beaminster."
"No, that they won't, sir," said Mrs. Newton. "I shall miss the oldhouse. Just to think of the years; and now, all of us scattered!"
She lit a lamp for him and he went up the stone staircase, found thelong drawing-room, and there, on the farther wall, the Portrait.
The furniture, shrouded in brown holland, waited like ghostly watcherson every side of him. The huge house, always a place of strange silencesand vast disturbances, multiplied now in its long mirrors and its air ofcold suspense as though it were waiting for something to happen, showedits recognition of death and death's consequences.
But the Portrait was alive! As he held the lamp up to it the face leaptinto agitation, the eyes were bent once again sharply upon him, themouth curved to speak, the black silk rustled against the chair.
A host of memories crowded the room, he was filled with a regret morepoignant than anything that he had felt since her death.
"She _was_ fine! I miss her more than I had any notion that I would! Shestirred one up, she made one alive!"
He put the lamp upon the floor and sat down for a minute amongst theshrouded furniture.
His mind passed from Brun's generalizations to the little bundle ofpeople whom he knew--Rachel, Francis, Roddy, Lizzie Rand. To all of themthe Tiger's moment had come; and out of it all, out of the stress andsuffering and struggle, Rachel's child was to be born--instead of theDuchess the new generation. Instead of this old house, the hoodedfurniture, the anger at all freedom of thought, the jealousy of allenterprise, the slander and the malice, an age of a universalBrotherhood, of unselfishness, restraint, charity, tolerance ...
Perhaps after all, he _was_ an old, sentimental fool. There had alwaysbeen those at every birth and every death who had had their dreams ofnew human nature, new worlds, new virtues and moralities....
He looked his last at the Portrait--
"I'm nearly as old as you. I shall go soon. But I miss you ... you'd beyourself surprised if you knew how much!"
He took up the lamp and left her.... He said good night to Mrs. Newtonand closed the door behind him.
Standing on the steps of the house he looked about him. Portland Placewas like a broad river running silently into the dark trees at the endof it. There was a great rest and quiet here.
Southwards the sky flamed, the noise of a great multitude of people camemuffled across space with the rhythm in it of a beating song. Rocketsslashed the sky, broke into golden stars; the bells from all thechurches in the town clashed and, from some great distance, gunssolemnly booming rolled through the air.
Christopher, standing there, smiled as he thought of Brun's littlepicture.
Brun springing up, of course, at the right moment, to point his moral.Brun, who appeared, like some Jack-in-the-box, in city after city, withhis conclusion, his prophecy, neat and prepared.
"And we'll have fires out of the Grand Duke's Wood..."
There was the Wood, there the mob, there the Grand Duke, dead andburied--
Christopher shrugged his shoulders; whatever Brun might say human beingswere more than summaries, prophecies, conclusions.
As he looked towards the trees and felt a little breeze caress his facewith, he could swear, some salt of the sea, he thought of the humanbeings who were his friends--Rachel, Roddy, Lizzie, Francis.
And then it seemed to him that, out of the trees, down the shiningsurface of Portland Place, a figure came towards him--the figure ofRachel's child.
* * * * *
NOVELS BY HUGH WALPOLE
_STUDIES IN PLACE_
THE WOODEN HORSE MARADICK AT FORTY THE GODS AND MR. PERRIN
_TWO PROLOGUES_
THE PRELUDE TO ADVENTURE FORTITUDE
_THE RISING CITY_
1. THE DUCHESS OF WREXE 2. THE GREEN MIRROR (_In preparation_)
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