And Rendel waited--through the autumn, through the winter--but not
without seeing Rachel again. On the contrary, every week that passed
during that time was bringing him nearer to his goal. After the first
visit was over, that first meeting under the now maimed and altered
conditions of life, the insensible relief afforded to both father and
daughter by his companionship, his unselfish devotion and helpfulness,
his unfailing readiness to be a companion to Sir William, to come and
play chess with him, or to sit up and do intricate patiences through the
small hours of the morning, all this gradually made him insensibly slide
into the position of a son of the house. And Rachel, convinced that she
was doing the best thing for her father and admitting in her secret
heart that for herself she was doing the thing that of all others would
make her happy, yielded at last. They were married in April, and went
away for a fortnight to a shooting-box lent them by Lord Stamfordham in
the West of Scotland, leaving Sir William for the first time alone in
the big, empty house. It was with many, many misgivings that Rachel had
agreed to go; but her father had insisted on her doing so. He had
vaguely thought that perhaps it would be a relief to him to be alone,
but he found the solitude unbearable. Those acquaintances of Gore's who
saw him at the club expressed in suitably tempered tones their pleasure
at seeing him again, and, thinking he would rather be left alone,
discreetly refrained from thrusting their society upon him when in
reality he most needed it, remarking to one another that poor old Gore
had gone to pieces dreadfully since his wife died. A great many people
knew him, and liked him well enough, but he had no intimate friends.
Pateley occasionally dropped in; but Pateley was too full of business to
have leisure to help to fill up anybody else's time, and Sir William
found the blank in his own house, the unchanging loneliness, almost
unbearable.
In the meantime Rendel and his wife were beginning that page of the book
of life which Sir William had closed for ever. At last, that vision of
the future to which Rendel had clung with such steadfast hope, with such
unswerving purpose, had been fulfilled: Rachel was his wife. It was an
unending joy to him to remember that she was there; to watch for her
coming and going; to see the dainty grace of movement and demeanour, the
sweet, soft smile--her mother's smile--with which she listened as he
talked. And during those days he poured himself out in speech as he had
never been able to do before. It was a relief that was almost ecstasy to
the man who had been made reserved by loneliness to have such a
listener, and the sense of exquisite joy and repose which he felt in her
society deepened as the days went on. To Rachel, too, when once she had
made up her mind to leave her father, these days were filled with an
undreamt-of happiness. She was beginning to recover from the actual
shock of her mother's death, although, even as her life opened to all
the new impressions that surrounded her, she felt daily afresh the want
of the tender sympathy and guidance that had been her stay; but another
great love had happily come into her life at the moment she needed it
most, and a love that was far from wishing to supplant the other. The
memory of Lady Gore was almost as hallowed to Rendel as it was to his
wife: it was another bond between them. They talked of her constantly,
their reverent recollection kept alive the sense of her abiding,
gracious influence.
It was a new and wonderful experience to Rachel to have the burden of
daily life lifted from her. She had been loved in her home, it is true,
as much as the most exacting heart might demand, but since she was
seventeen it was she who had had to take thought for others, to surround
them with loving care and protection; she had always been conscious,
even though not feeling its weight, of bearing the burden of some one
else's responsibilities. And now it was all different. In the first
rebound of her youth she seemed to be discovering for the first time
during those days how young she was, in the companionship of one whose
tender care and loving protection smoothed every difficulty, every
obstacle out of her path. And all too fast the perfumed days of spring
glided away, a spring which, on that side of Scotland, was balmy and
caressing. Day after day the sun shone, the mist remained in the
distance, making that distance more beautiful still; and everything
within and without was irradiated, and like motes in the sunshine Rendel
saw the golden possibilities of his life dancing in the light of his
hopes and illuminating the path that lay before him.
Rachel wrote to her father constantly, tenderly, solicitously; and Sir
William, reading of her happiness, did not write back to tell her what
those same days meant to him. For in London the sky was grey and heavy,
and it was through a haze the colour of lead that he saw the years to
come. The dark and cheerless winter had given place to a cold and
cheerless spring.
It was a rainy afternoon that the young couple returned to London; but
the gloomy look of the streets outside did but enhance the brightness of
the little house in Cosmo Place, Knightsbridge, with its open, square
hall, in which a bright fire was blazing. Light and warmth shone
everywhere. Rachel drew a long breath of satisfaction, then her eyes
filled with tears. The very sight of London brought back the past. Could
it be possible that her mother was not there to welcome her? She had
thought her father might be awaiting her at Cosmo Place; but as he was
not, she went off instantly to Prince's Gate. How big and lonely the
house looked with its gaunt, ugly portico, its tall, narrow hall and
endless stairs! The drawing-rooms were closed: Sir William was sitting
in his study, a chess-board in front of him, on which he was working out
a problem.
Rachel was terribly perturbed at the change in his appearance--a
something, she did not quite know in what it lay, that betokened some
absolute change of outlook, of attitude. He had the listless,
indifferent air of one who lets himself be drifted here and there rather
than of one who moves securely along, strong enough to hold his own way
in spite of any opposing elements. This fortnight of solitude, in which
he had been face to face with his own life and his prospects, had
suddenly, roughly, pitilessly graven on his face the lines that with
other men successive experiences accumulate there gently and almost
insensibly. He had taken a sudden leap into old age, as sometimes
happens to men of his standing, who, as long as their life is smooth,
uneventful, and prosperous, succeed in keeping an aspect of youth.
Rachel's heart smote her at having left him; it reproached her with
having known something like happiness in these days, and her old sense
of troubled, anxious responsibility came back. She begged him to come
and dine with them that evening. He demurred at first at making a third
on their first night in their own house. Rachel protested, and overruled
all his objections. She arrived at home just in time to dress for
dinner, finding her husband surprised and somewhat discomfited at her
prolonged absence. He had wanted to go proudly all over the house with
her, and see their new domain. But as he saw her come up the stairs, he
realised that black care had sprung up behind her again, that this was
not the confiding, naively happy Rachel who had walked with him on the
moors.
"There you are!" he said. "I was just wondering what had become of you."
"I was with my father," Rachel said, in a tone in which there was a
tinge of unconscious surprise at what his tone had conveyed. "And,
Francis, he looks so dreadfully ill!"
"Does he?" said Rendel, concerned. "I am sorry."
"He looks really broken down," she said, "and oh, so much older. I am
sure it has been bad for him being alone all this time. I ought not to
have stayed away so long."
"Well, it has not been very long," said Rendel with a natural feeling
that two weeks had not been an unreasonable extension of their wedding
tour.
"He looks as if he had felt it so," she answered. "But at any rate, I
have persuaded him to come to dinner with us to-night; I am sure it will
be good for him."
"To-night?" said Rendel, again with a lurking surprise that for this
first night their privacy should not have been respected.
"Yes," said Rachel. "You don't mind, do you?"
"Oh, of course not," he replied, again stifling a misgiving.
"You see," said Rachel, "I thought it might amuse him, and be a change
for him, and then you might play a game of chess with him after dinner,
perhaps."
"Of course, of course," Rendel answered. But the misgiving remained.
When, however, Sir William appeared, Rendel's heart almost smote him as
Rachel's had done, he seemed so curiously broken down and dispirited.
They talked of their Scotch experiences, they spoke a little of the
affairs of the day, but, as Rendel knew of old, this was a dangerous
topic, which, hitherto, he had succeeded either in avoiding altogether
or in treating with a studied moderation which might so far as possible
prevent Sir William's susceptibilities from being offended. Rachel sat
with them after dinner while they smoked, then they all went upstairs.
"Now then, father dear, where would you like to be?" she said, looking
round the room for the most comfortable chair. "Here, this looks a very
special corner," and she drew forward an armchair that certainly was in
a most delightful place, looking as if it were destined for the master
of the house, or, at any rate, the most privileged person in it, a
comfortable armchair, with the slanting back that a man loves, and by
it a table with a lamp at exactly the right height. "There," she said,
pushing her father gently into it, "isn't that a comfortable corner?"
"Very," Sir William said, looking up at her with a smile. It truly was a
delight to be tended and fussed over again.
"And now you must have a table in front of you," she said, looking
round. "Let me see--Frank, which shall the chess-table be? Is there a
folding table? Yes, of course there is--that little one that we bought
at Guildford. That one!"--and she clapped her hands with childish
delight as she pointed to it.
Rendel brought forward the little table and opened it.
"Oh, that is exactly the thing," she cried. "See, father, it will just
hold the chess-board. Now then, this is where it shall always
stand--your own table, and your own chair by it."