RACHEL AND RODDY
"Tell me, Praise, and tell me, Love,
What you both are thinking of?
O, we think, said Love, said Praise,
Now of children and their ways."
WILLIAM BRIGHTY RAND.
I
Breton had gone; the room was empty.
Rachel came and, kneeling on the floor, hid her face in Roddy's coat. He
put his hands about hers.
His only desire now was that there should be peaceful silence. His
hatred for scenes had always been with him an instinct, natural, alert,
untiring, so that he would undertake many labours, forgo many pleasant
prizes, if only emotional crises might be avoided.
This afternoon had showered upon him a relentless succession of
reverberating displays, he had perceived one human being after another
reveal quite nakedly their tumultuous feelings. It was, for him,
precisely as though the Duchess, Rachel, Breton had stripped there
before him and expected him to display no astonishment at their so
doing--that he should have been the author of the business made it no
better; he reflected that he had even looked forward with excitement to
the affair. "If I had only known how beastly...."
He was ashamed--ashamed of his own action in provoking these things,
ashamed of his own lack of understanding, ashamed to have watched the
sharpened tempers of his friends.
He would never, Heaven help him, take part in any such scene again!
But out of it all one good thing had come--he had got Rachel! As she
had looked across the room, meeting his eyes, he had known that at last
his long pursuit of her was at an end....
It never occurred to him that most husbands, after such a declaration as
Rachel had just made, would have stormed, reproached, ridden, for a long
time to come, the high horse of conscious superior virtue.
It did not seem odd to him that at the very moment of Rachel's
confession he should feel more sure of her than he had ever been before.
At last the Nita Raseley debt was paid off. At last he knew, beyond
question, that Rachel loved him. Best of all, perhaps, he had seen
Breton and felt his own superiority.
That being so, he wanted no words about the matter. He would like to lie
there on his sofa, with her hands enclosed in his and nothing said
between either of them--very pleasant and quiet there in the dusk. He
hoped that he would never again have to explain anything or speak to
anyone about his feelings--no, not even to Rachel.
Then he discovered that she was sobbing as she knelt there, and his face
crimsoned with confusion and alarm. Rachel, the proudest woman he had
ever known, kneeling to him, crying!
He tried to lift her, pressing her hands.
"Rachel dear ... Rachel."--Her words came between her sobs.
"I should have told you ... long ago ... I tried to--I did
indeed ... but it was because I was frightened ... because I ... Oh!
Roddy! you'll never trust me again!"
He was burning hot with the confusion of it: he was almost angry both
with himself and her.
"Please, Rachel ... please ... don't ... it's all over, dear. There's
nothing the matter."
"It's fine of you ... to take it like that ... But you'll never forgive
me, really, you can't--It isn't possible. This very afternoon ... I was
going to tell you--if all this ... hadn't happened. You'll be different
now--you must be ... just when I want you so much."
He glanced in despair about the room. He looked at the sporting prints
and the case of birds' eggs and at last at Rachel's photograph. How
proud and splendid she was there! This dreadful abasement!
He stroked her hair.
"See here, old girl--we've had a rotten afternoon, haven't we? Awfully
rotten--never remember to have spent a worse. All my fault, too--poor
old Duchess!... but look here, it's all right now. I understand
everythin' and--and--dash it all--do stop cryin', Rachel, old girl."
"It's been bad enough," she said, her voice steadier now, "the
way I've been to you all this time, but I thought--at least--I was
honest--I've tried--I've made a miserable failure--But, Roddy, you
need--never--never--be afraid of anything again--I'm yours altogether,
Roddy, to do anything with....
"All about Francis--I was mad somehow--It was grandmamma--feeling she
had driven me into marrying you. And then Nita ... and then I didn't
know you a bit--all there was in you--but now," and she raised her eyes
and looked at him, "I love you with all my heart and soul and strength."
He bent down his head and rather clumsily kissed her.
"You know, Rachel, I was a bit frightened myself this afternoon--thought
you might be angry because I took you by surprise. You bet, if I'd known
what it was going to be like ... Well, thank the Lord, it's done, and
we'll never have another like it--I'll see to that. Scenes are rotten
things, aren't they?--I always loathed 'em even when I was tiny--so did
the governor.... If he had me up for lickin' all he ever said was, 'Down
with your bags!' That was all there was about it."
She leant her cheek against his.
"You've forgiven me all, everything--absolutely?" she asked.
"There isn't any forgiveness in it," he answered. "It's all the other
way, if it's anythin'.... You see, I've been thinkin' a lot while I was
lyin' here. When there was that business over Nita I said you should
always be free just as I told you I ought to be. Well, since--since I
got that old tumble--I haven't any right to hold you at all. I'm just an
old log here, no good, anyway, and only a nuisance. And if I thought I
was keepin' you tied I'd be miserable. You see, I know you're fond of me
now. I've got that.... Don't let's talk any more about it. You've got me
and I've got you--and we aren't afraid of any old woman in the world."
He held her closely to him, his arms strong about her.
"There's something else to tell you."
"Something else?"
"Yes. We're going to have a child, you and I, Roddy. And now that you've
forgiven me it's all right--but that's partly what's made me afraid all
these last weeks. As it is, you've got me, got me, got me, safe for ever
and ever!"
"Well, I'm damned!" said Roddy.
She could feel his hand trembling upon hers.
"Oh," she whispered, "I was frightened this afternoon--terrified. I
thought you'd never see me again."
Roddy was turning things over in his mind.
"A kid ... my word. Just the thing. A boy ... it'll be jolly for the
Place and I can teach him a lot. It'll be somethin' to go back to the
house for. Gosh! There's news!"
His eyes wandered round the room.
"Good thing I kept all those eggs--nearly broke 'em up too. They're a
jolly fine collection. I'd have prized 'em like anything if they'd come
to me when I was small." He caught her hand so fiercely that she gave a
little cry.
"What a day! We'll have to see about the shootin' down at Seddon again,
old girl ... Lord, what an afternoon!"