When they returned, half an hour later, the little garden was no longer
empty. People were coming and going, the table was covered with food;
Lady Chaloner was seated at it, and at a little distance from her
Princess Hohenschreien, with M. de Moricourt inevitably in her wake.
Lady Chaloner's readiness in the German tongue was not equal at this
moment to her sense of injury. It was Princess Hohenschreien, therefore,
who was charged with the negotiations, and who was discussing in voluble
and amused German with the inn-keeper the heinousness of his crime in
having promised two unknown pedestrians a seat at that very select
table. The inn-keeper was full of apologies. Not having a nice
discrimination of the laws that govern the social relations of our
country, he had thought that if the strangers were English they were
entitled to sit down with the others.
"What does he say, Maddy?" said Lady Chaloner. "Ask him if he can't put
them somewhere else. Good Heavens! here they are!" she said _sotto voce_
as two people came through the trees at the bottom of the garden, and
then stopped in surprise at seeing how populous it had become. Then, as
Lady Chaloner looked at them, she suddenly realised with relief that she
knew them.
"What!" she cried, "is it you? Are you the two people who came in here
and ordered luncheon in the middle of our party?"
"I am afraid we are, do you know," said Wentworth, as he came forward.
"We didn't know how indiscreet we were being. We'll go somewhere else."
"Not at all, not at all," said Lady Chaloner. "How do you do, Mr.
Rendel? I have not seen you for a long time. Of course you must lunch
with us, so it all ends happily. Maddy, this is Mr. Francis
Rendel--Princess Hohenschreien."
Rendel bowed. He had had one moment, as they came up into the garden and
saw there were other people there, before Lady Chaloner had recognised
them, to make up his mind as to what he would do. Then he had said to
himself desperately that he would risk it. After all, he might be
exaggerating the whole thing; Wentworth did not know, and so the others
might not. Rendel had felt during the last hour one of those strange
sudden lightenings of the burden of existence that for some unexplained
reason come to our help without our knowing why. He was almost beginning
to think life would be possible again. At any rate, here, at the present
moment, he would not try to remember or realise what it was going to be,
what it must be. He would sit here on this peerless day with these
pleasant friendly people, and this one hour at any rate the sun should
shine within and without.
"That's right," said Lady Chaloner, pointing to two places some way down
the table at her left; "sit anywhere."
As Wentworth and Rendel stood opposite to the Princess and her attendant
cavalier, the door of the house, which faced them, opened, and Lady
Adela Prestige appeared in the doorway, with some more people behind
her.
"How delightful this is!" Lady Adela cried, as she stepped out into the
garden.
"Isn't it?" said Lady Chaloner. "Look how amusin'," she continued. "Mr.
Wentworth and Mr. Rendel have come to luncheon too, quite by chance."
Lady Adela nodded to Wentworth, whom she was seeing every day, and bowed
to Rendel, whom she knew slightly. Then, as Rendel looked beyond her, he
saw who was coming out of the house in her wake--Lord Stamfordham,
followed by Philip Marchmont. Stamfordham, coming out into the dazzling
sunlight, did not at first see who was there. In that hurried, almost
imperceptible interval, Rendel had time to grasp that here was the
horrible reality upon him in the worst form in which it could have come.
He had wild visions of saying something, doing something, he knew not
what, instantly repressed by the Englishman's repugnance to a scene.
Then he pulled himself together, and simply stood and waited. And as he
waited he saw Stamfordham come up to the table with a pleased smile,
prepared to sit down on Lady Chaloner's right hand, next the seat into
which Lady Adela had dropped. Then Stamfordham suddenly saw the two men
still standing on the other side of the table, and recognised in one of
them Francis Rendel. A swift extraordinary change came over his face.
The genial content of the man who, having deliberately put all his usual
cares and preoccupations behind him was now, under the most favourable
conditions, prepared to enjoy a holiday in genial society, suddenly
disappeared. He involuntarily drew himself up, his face became hard and
stern; he again looked as Rendel had seen him look the last time they
had met. The mental agony of the younger man during that moment was
almost unendurable. What was going to happen next? As in a dream he
heard the comfortable voice of Lady Chaloner, who had never in her life,
probably, spoken with any misgivings, whose calm confidence in the
bending of contingency to her desires nothing had ever occurred to
shake.
"Will you sit down there, Lord Stamfordham? We have two new recruits to
our party, you see. I don't think I need introduce either of them."
Stamfordham remained standing for a moment; then he said quietly, but
very distinctly--
"I am afraid, Lady Chaloner, that I can't sit down at this table."
A sort of electric shock ran through the careless happy people who were
surrounding him. Rendel turned livid. Then he tried to speak. But no
words could come; mentally and physically alike he could not frame them.
He pushed his chair away from the table, and moved out behind it; then
with his hands grasping the back of it, he bowed to Lady Chaloner
without speaking, turned and went away by the little opening in the wood
from which he and Wentworth had come. Wentworth, ready and light-hearted
as he generally was, was for one moment also absolutely paralysed with
amazement and concern, then saying hurriedly, "Forgive me, Lady
Chaloner, I must go and see what has happened," he quickly followed.
Lord Stamfordham drew up his chair to the table and sat down. His
urbane, genial manner had returned, and he spoke as though nothing had
happened; the rest instantly took their cue from him.
"What delightful quarters you have found for us, Lady Chaloner," he
said. "I don't think I made acquaintance with this place when I was at
Schleppenheim last year."
"Charmin', isn't it?" said Lady Chaloner. And quite imperturbably, at
first with an effort, which became easier as the meal went on, the whole
party went on talking and laughing as usual, with, perhaps, if the truth
were known, an added zest of excitement, certainly on the part of some
of its members, at "something" having happened. The two extra places
that had been put were taken away again, and the rank closed up
indifferently and gaily round the table, as ranks do close up when
comrades disappear by the way.
In the meantime Rendel was madly hurrying away through the wood, going
straight in front of him, not knowing what he was doing, what he
proposed to do--his one idea being to get away, away, away from those
smiling, distinguished indifferent people, hitherto his own associates,
who now all knew the horrible fate that had overtaken him, who would
from henceforth turn their backs upon him too. The thought of that
moment when he had been face to face with Stamfordham, of those
distinct, inexorable tones, of the words which judged and for ever
condemned him, burnt like a physical, horrible flame from which he could
not escape. He flung himself down at last, and buried his face in his
hands, trying to shut out everything, as a frightened child pulls the
clothes over its head in the darkness. Then, to his terror, he heard
footsteps in the wood. Who was it? Was this some one else who knew?
Would he have to go through it all over again? And he lifted his head in
anguish as the steps drew nearer. The sight of the newcomer brought him
no relief. It was Wentworth, who, anxious and bewildered, came stumbling
along, having by some strange chance come in the direction that brought
him to the person he was seeking. Rendel looked at him.
"Well?" he said, in a strained voice, as though demanding an explanation
of Wentworth's intrusion.
The sight of his face completely bewildered Wentworth.
"Good God, Rendel!" he said, "what is it? What has happened?"
There was a pause. Then Rendel said, trying with very indifferent
success to speak in a voice that sounded something like his own--
"Didn't you see what happened?"
"I saw that--that--Stamfordham----" Wentworth began, then he stopped.
"Yes," said Rendel curtly, "you saw it--you saw what Stamfordham did?
Well, there's an end of it," and he looked miserably around him as
though hemmed in by the powers of earth and heaven.
"But, Frank," Wentworth said, still feeling as if all this were some
frightful dream, one of those dreams so vivid that they live with the
dreamer for weeks afterwards, and sometimes actually go to make his
waking opinion of the persons who have appeared in them, "tell
me--what----"
"Jack," said Rendel, "it's no good talking about it. I'll tell you
another time, I daresay, if I can. Leave me alone now, there's a good
fellow--that's all I want."
"Look here, Frank," said Wentworth; "if it's anything--anything that
Stamfordham thinks you've done--that--that you oughtn't to have
done--well, I don't believe it, that's all!"
"You are a good friend, old Jack," said Rendel, looking at him. "I might
have known you wouldn't believe it."
"Of course I don't," said Wentworth stoutly. "I don't know what it is,
but I don't believe it all the same."
"Well," said Rendel slowly, "I'll tell you this for your comfort--you
needn't believe it."
"Of course not," said Wentworth heartily, "and I don't care what it is,
of course you didn't do it. And what's more, I know you can't have done
anything to be ashamed of, and of course other people will know it too,"
he said sanguinely, carried along by his zealous friendship.
Rendel's face turned dark red again. "No," he said, "other people won't.
Of course other people will think I have done it. Don't let's talk about
it now. The fact is," mastering his voice with an effort, "I can't,
Jack. Just go away, and leave me alone. I'll come back some time."
"But what are you going to do? You're not going to sit here all day, I
suppose."
"I'll come later," Rendel said. "You must find your way back without me,
there's a good fellow. By the way," he added, "I'm sorry to have spoilt
your day; I'm afraid you've had no luncheon. But you'll be back in
Schleppenheim in time to get some. Look here, would you mind saying to
my wife that--that I've walked a little further than you cared to go, or
something of that sort, and that I'll be back at dinner time?"
"Very well," said Wentworth, hesitatingly. "She is not likely to be
anxious, is she?" he said dubiously. "I mean, at your being away so
long. She won't be alarmed, will she?"
"Oh no," said Rendel. "That is to say, if you don't alarm her." And then
looking up and seeing Wentworth's anxious expression, so very unlike the
usual one, "And you needn't be alarmed yourself, Jack; I'm not going to
do anything desperate," he said, forcing a smile; "that's not in my
line."
"No, no, of course not," Wentworth said, with a sort of air of being
entirely at his ease. And then reading in Rendel's face how the one
thing he longed for was to be alone, he said abruptly, "All right, then,
we shall meet later," and strode off the way he had come.
What a solution it would have been, Rendel felt, if he had indeed been
able to make up his mind to the step that Wentworth evidently thought he
might be contemplating--what an answer to everything! and as again that
burning recollection came over him he felt that, in spite of the courage
required for suicide, it would have required less courage to put himself
out of the world, beyond the possibility of its ever happening again,
than to remain in it and face what other agony of humiliation Fate might
have in store for him. But he was not alone, unfortunately; his own
destiny was not the only one in question. And if his words, his
intention, his faith in the future had meant anything at all when he
told Rachel that there was no sacrifice he would not be ready to make
for her, he was bound to go on doggedly and meet the worst. He walked
aimlessly through the wood, higher and higher, until he reached a sort
of clearing from which he could see, far below him, the white road
winding back again to Schleppenheim, and presently as he looked he saw
driving rapidly back in the direction of the town the open carriages
containing the people he had just left. Stamfordham must be in one of
them. What were they saying about him, those people? Or, if not saying,
what were they thinking? Could he ever look one of them in the face
again? Not one. And again he had a wild moment of thinking that it would
be possible to put the thing right, to establish his innocence, to
insist upon knowing how it was that Sir William Gore had given the
information to the _Arbiter_, on knowing what the arrangement was with
Pateley on which that _coup de theatre_ had depended, and he sprang to
his feet with the determination that he would go straight back into
Schleppenheim, seek out Pateley and insist upon knowing what had
happened. Then, just as before, the revulsion came. The principal thing,
he had no need to ask Pateley. He knew, and that was the thing other
people might not know. In a little while, he was told, Rachel would be
herself again, and perhaps able to remember: she must not come back to
the knowledge of something that must be such a cruel blow to her faith
in her father, her adoring love for him. And yet as he turned downwards
and strode hurriedly back along the woodland paths, across the shafts of
sunlight which were growing longer as the day wore on, he felt how
absurdly, horribly unequal the two things were that were at stake. On
the one hand his own future, his success, his whole life, all the
possibilities he had dreamt of; on the other, reprobation falling on one
who was beyond the reach of it, one who had no longer any possibilities,
who had nothing to lose, whose hopes and fears of worldly success, whose
agitations had been for ever stilled by the hand of death. And Rachel?
Would the suffering of knowing that her father's memory was attacked, of
being rudely awakened from her illusions to find that in the eyes of the
world he was not, and did not deserve to be, what he had been in hers,
would that suffering be equal to that which he himself was encountering
now? But even as he argued with himself, as he tried to prove that his
own salvation was possible, he knew that when it came to the point he
could do nothing. If it had been a question of another man, whom he
himself could have saved by bringing the accusation home to the right
quarter, he would have done it, he would have felt bound to do it: but
as it was, he knew perfectly well that the thing was impossible. The
fact is that, whether guided by supernatural standards or by those of
instinct and tradition, there are very few of the contingencies in life
in which the man accustomed to act honestly up to his own code is really
in doubt as to what, by that code, he ought to do: and by the time that
Rendel reached the little garden again which he had left in the company
of Wentworth a few hours before, he knew quite well that he was going to
do nothing, that he might do nothing, that he must simply again wait.
Wait for what? There was nothing to come.