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-past
three o'clock. The evening papers of that day and the morning papers of
the next had long columns concerning her, and these were picturesque and
almost romantic. She appealed as a figure veiled but significant, hidden
but the landmark of a period--"Nothing was more remarkable than the
influence that she exercised over English Society during the thirty
years that she was completely hidden from it"--or again, "Although
disease compelled her, for thirty years, to retire from the world, her
influence during that period increased rather than diminished."
It must be confessed, however, that London Society was not moved to its
foundations 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 a
power in her day ..." Or, "Oh, the Duchess of Wrexe is dead, I see. I
must write to Addie Beaminster. Don't expect the family will miss her
much--awful old tyrant, I believe ..." or "I say, see Johnnie
Beaminster's old lady's gone? She kept the whip-hand of _him_ in his
time.... Damned glad he'll be, I bet."
Two years earlier and it would not have been thus, but now there was the
War (daily the relief of Mafeking was frantically anticipated) and fine
regal majesty, sitting dignified in a solemn room, irritated the world
by its quiescence.
"What we're needing now is for everyone to get a move on. No use sitting
around." A few carefully selected American phrases can very swiftly
kill 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, sitting
there where, rather fortunately, they were not compelled to visit her,
but where, nevertheless, she had a grand effect. They had known, for a
long time now, that she was not so well, but they had expected, in a
vague way, that she would go on living for ever. They had been making,
during the last two years, a succession of enforced compromises and now
the crisis of her death showed them how far they had gone without
knowing it.
"Things will never be the same as they were...." And in their hearts
they said, "We're getting old--we aren't wanted as we once were."
Meanwhile there was a fine funeral down at Beaminster. The Queen was
represented, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, all the
heads of all the old families in England, artists and one or two very
distinguished actor-managers (who looked far more sumptuous than anyone
else present).... Everyone was there.
Christopher detected Mrs. Bronson and wondered what the Duchess would
think of it if she knew: Brun, also, although Christopher did not see
him, flashed upon them from the Continent, was present, neat and solemn
and immensely observant. It was all admirable and worthy of the best
English traditions.
"She was a fine figure," said the Prime Minister, who had known her and
disliked her intensely. "We shall never see her like again," but his
sigh was nearer relief than regret.
II
Christopher, three days after the funeral, went to have tea with Roddy
and 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 had
not realized, in the least, during all these years, the part that that
old woman played in his life, and he found that his whole scheme of
things was now disorganized and without vitality. It was vitality that
she 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, to
prophesy, but it would never any more be quite the same energy--everyone
with whom she had had anything to do would find life now a little
different....
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 his
rooms and had begged to know the truth. "I hear she's much worse--she's
had 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-up
and everythin' that made her so much worse?"
Christopher had reassured him--"Quite honestly, if she'd asked my leave
to let her go out that afternoon I'd not have granted it. But as it
turned out she wasn't a bit the worse. I saw her directly
afterwards--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 she
saw that afternoon that the whole scheme of things had gone out of her
hands and that the new generation didn't want her--But I think she was
glad to have it settled for her, she was tired of it all, her struggle
to keep it had been much earlier.
"She just wasn't going to bother any more and she might have gone on in
that sort of way for years."
But although he had thus reassured Roddy he was not, in his heart, so
certain. He seemed to see a long chain of events (he dated his own
observation of them from the time of Rachel's coming out), that had led
both Rachel and the Duchess to the climax of their actual challenge one
to another. It was not that that meeting in Roddy's house had been of
itself so important, it was rather that the fates had selected it as a
definite culmination of the struggle. That meeting stood for a sharp
visualization of much more than the personal conflict.
She had been glad to go, he did not in any way see her death as a
tragedy, but her departure had marked the opening of a new period, a new
personal history for the remaining characters, ultimately perhaps a new
social epoch for everybody--
Meanwhile he was happy about Roddy and Rachel for the first time since
their marriage and, as he was a man who lived in the lives of his
friends, their happiness meant his own.
He found Lord John with Roddy, Rachel was with Aunt Adela, but "would be
back for tea." Lord John, rather solemn and awkward in black clothes,
was demanding comfort and assistance from his friends. His trouble was
that he did not miss his mother as fundamentally as he desired, and
that, at the same time, life was now most terribly different. His
brothers, Vincent and Richard, had instantly after the funeral adapted
themselves, with gravity and assurance, to the new conditions.
Lord John had never adapted himself to anything, but had fitted his
stout body into the soft places that life had offered to him and had
been placidly grateful for their softness. Only once had he shown energy
of his own initiative and that had been in the matter of his nephew
Francis, and of that now he did not dare to think.
He could never, so long as he lived, forget the slightest detail of that
horrible quarter of an hour with his mother when she discovered his
iniquity--and yet, even now, he felt, obscurely but obstinately, that he
had done right. Nevertheless he would never again take life into his own
hands: upon that he was absolutely resolved. What he needed now was
reassurance from his friends. He had always before found that life
arranged itself about him in a comfortable way and he confidently
expected that it would do so now, but meanwhile he must have kind looks
and words from somebody. He was a man who hailed with joy the
opportunity of bestowing affection upon a friend who was not likely, at
a later time, to rebuff him. He had never been quite sure of Rachel--she
was so strange and uncertain--but upon Roddy, helpless, good-natured,
and a man of his own world, he felt that he could rely. He spent
therefore many hours at Roddy's side, rather silent, smiling a great
deal, 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 Portland
Place house shortly to be sold, of a world altered and alarming, and
then he would wonder how long the time would be before he might again
take up his old habits, his old houses, his old comforts, and then his
fat cheerful face would gather wrinkles upon its surface. "It's after a
thing like this that a feller gets old--Richard and Adela and I--We'll
have to make up our minds to it."
Christopher found them busied with the map, discussing the probable hour
of Mafeking's relief. Lord John looked at Christopher a little
anxiously, perhaps _he_ was going to be down upon _him_! But Christopher
was a very quiet and genial Christopher. He sank down into a chair with
a sigh of comfort, waved his hand to them.
"Don't you mind me. I'm tired to death. Was up all last night with a
case----"
"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 much
to hope for there--now Roberts----"
But Lord John's attention was distracted. He wished to be quite sure
that 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 somewhere
for 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 had
been occasions when he had been the stern family physician and had
treated Lord John with some severity. Now there was implied a new
comradeship as though they had passed through perils together and would
have always between them in the future a strong bond of friendship.
John felt that the atmosphere at this moment was so friendly and
comforting 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. Rachel
will 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 if
you'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 comfortable
under the sun. He thought of Rachel. He had regained the old Rachel the
other 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 and
easy....
"So long, Roddy."
He beamed happily upon them and went.
Jacob, the dog, came in from his afternoon walk, very grave, paying no
attention to Christopher, but going at once and lying, full length, near
Roddy's sofa, his head between his paws, his eyes fixed upon his master.
"What's happened to all your other dogs?" asked Christopher. "They must
be missing you very badly."
"Oh, they're down at Seddon, got a jolly good man there whom I can
trust--don't think they miss me. _This_ beggar would though. Funny
thing, Christopher--when I was goin' about and all the rest of it I
thought nothin' of this dog, couldn't see why Rachel made such a fuss of
it--now--why I don't know how I'd ever get on without it, so
understandin' and quiet with it all too. Nothin' like a trouble of some
sort 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, but
in a way too I believe she'd like to have all the old time over again
and see whether she couldn't manage it better ... she said to me she'd
never understood the old woman until that last talk with her, not that
there 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 up
Rachel so easily for? I couldn't tell you why, but that day he came here
I was as sure as I was lyin' here that whatever there was between them
was finished. I wouldn't have said what I did, seemed to take it so
quietly, if I hadn't seen in a minute it was all over."
"Ah, you don't know Francis," said Christopher. "It's all romantic
impulses that set him going--Rachel romantic impulse on one side,
getting back to the family romantic impulse on the other. He knew if he
went off with her that getting back to the family would be over for ever
as far as he was concerned. He knew that he'd never cease to regret
it.... John Beaminster coming to him gave him what he'd been waiting
for, longing for. He seized it----"
"Yes, but it was more than that," said Roddy slowly. "It all lies with
Rachel. He never got close to her any more than I've done. I know now
that she's fond of me, but it's by the child I'll hold her and by my
helplessness, nothin' else. And she'll have her wild moments when myself
and everythin' about me will seem simply impossible, just as if she'd
gone off with Breton she'd have had her comfortable domestic sort of
longin's and hated _him_ and everythin' about _him_. I believe Breton
knew--just as I knew--that never tryin' to hold her was the way to keep
her, 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 her
that no one man could master. But I've been given all the tricks in the
game by bein' laid up like this--just when I thought I'd lost all worth
havin' 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 his
idea of her; there _is_ a bit of her that he stirred that I never could
touch, but it don't matter--she's the most wonderful creature on this
earth 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 be
the best rider, the best sportsman in this bloomin' old world--not that
I'd mind a girl, either. I'd like to have a girl--just the time for a
woman 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 with
domestic bliss and never wantin' to get off this old sofa and the
rest--not a _bit_ of it--it's damned tryin' and I curse hours together
often enough. Peters has the benefit of it. I wasn't born an angel and I
shan'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 for
the new generation, cheers for young Roddy Secundus.... Long life to
him!"
"There's one thing," said Christopher, looking at him. "Whatever
inspired you, that day you had the scene here, to behave to Frank Breton
as you did? To give them both carte blanche--it wouldn't be the way of
most husbands confronted with such a question--it was the _only_ way for
Rachel ... but how did you know her well enough? You'll forgive my
saying so, your method as a rule is to drive straight in, let fly all
round, and then count the bits."
"If you love anybody," said Roddy, with confusion and hesitation, "as
much as I love Rachel you become wonderfully understandin'.... Look
here," he broke off, "don't let's talk any more rot. Just drop all jaw
about 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 the
next quarter of an hour, moved flags up and down its surface.
Then came Rachel and, after her, tea. They were a quiet but very happy
company during the next half-hour.
"How's Aunt Adela?" asked Roddy.
"Very well, considering," said Rachel. "Of course she's confused and
lost her bearings rather. She misses the Portland Place house more than
anything, 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's
quiet and depending a lot upon Lizzie----"
When tea was ended Rachel said, "Dr. Chris, I've got something to say to
you. I'm going to tear you away from Roddy for five minutes if you'll
come 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 as
they sat there by the window together he thought of that day when he had
told her the Duchess was downstairs with Roddy. They had all travelled a
long 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 hesitation
and with an air of restraint as though about the very whisper penalties
could linger.
"You're the best friend that he's got--the best friend any man could
have--and I want you to care for him, to look after him, to watch over
him. 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 as
well as your own. I want you to be the one link that I've still got with
him."
"But Roddy asked him----" began Christopher.
"Oh yes! I know--Roddy was splendid. But of course that can't be. We
can't meet, at any rate for years. Besides, that time is so utterly done
with. 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 he
depends upon what the people whom he cares for say to him--and so I want
you----"
"But of course," Christopher said. "He knows that he can count on me
whatever happens--he's always known that."
He stopped and waited for her to continue; he saw that she had more to
say.
"It's so strange," she said, staring, her eyes deep and black seeing
into sacred places that were known only to her, "how grandmother's
death has cleared, amazingly, the air. The motive for almost everything
has gone. I didn't see--I hadn't the least idea--how all my thoughts and
actions 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 was
so difficult with Roddy, because I thought that grandmother had arranged
the marriage and had him under her thumb--I had no idea of the kind of
person 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 wild
rebellion 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, we
both knew, at heart, that something was missing--something one had to
have if one was going to break away altogether. He was always a rebel by
force 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 to
absolute, complete disaster. If it hadn't been for Roddy's accident and
for 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 often
thought of it since and it seems to me now that to all of us--for Roddy
and Francis and Lizzie and me--the moment of our consciousness came.
Ever since that day when they carried Roddy back to Seddon each one of
us 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, or
even Lizzie or Roddy that defeated grandmother--it was simply Real Life.
First the War, then Roddy's accident--Roddy's accident most of all. We
had, all five of us, been leading sham lives, then suddenly God, Fate,
Providence, what you will, steps in, jerks us all back, takes away from
all of us what we thought we wanted most, puts us in line with the real
thing--our Tiger, if you like. Grandmother simply couldn't stand it.
Lizzie and Roddy are real--half of Breton and me, and most of
grandmother unreal--Well, Lizzie and Roddy have just put things straight
quietly.... Grandmother's generation saw things 'through a glass
darkly'--They're gone. It's all going to be 'face to face' now."
Christopher looked at her, smiling. She was so young, so adorably young
with her seriousness.
She broke in--"What rot I'm talking! It only comes to this, that I wish
now, like anything, that I'd been nicer to grandmamma. One sees things
always too late.... I'd like to have another try, to begin with
grandmamma again, to be more tolerant, to hate her less. But I expect in
the end it would be the same. She'd have had me tied up, without a will
of my own, without a word to say!... that was her idea of controlling us
all. It's over, it's done with--no one, I expect, will have her kind of
power 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, cataloguing
that same power--
"She wasn't terrible, she wasn't fine, she wasn't really anything except
a kind of peg for all sorts of traditions to hang on to. In herself she
was just a plucky, theatrical, obstinate old woman. It was simply the
idea of her that frightened us all. I remember the first time that I saw
Yale 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, in
herself, live up to the picture in the least.
"I suppose," she went on, coming up closer to him, "that that's why no
one will ever be like her again--because no one will ever be taken in so
completely by shams again, never by the empty shell of anything. But
that'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 she
wasn't anything--wasn't simply there. Do you know, Dr. Chris, seeing her
now, just an old sick woman, conscious that everyone was escaping her, I
almost 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's
happened at last! Meanwhile I shall be the most perfect wife, the most
perfect mother, and when the Tiger is restive there'll be the youngest
Seddon to put it all into. Oh! What a child that child will be! Roddy
and 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 window
into space and freedom it was gone. She herself proclaimed its
dismissal.
"It's gone--it's all gone--Dr. Chris. I'm the happiest woman in
England!"
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 present
world, 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 a
passion whose face she had scarcely seen but whose voice she had
heard and still now, in her new life, remembered. She had had her
moment ... the last strains of its dying music were still in her ears.
She caught her breath, then, turning, dismissed it; and, standing back
from Christopher, gave him her last word--
"But look after Francis. Be with him as much as you can.... He needs all
that you can spare--He's got to be--he's simply _got_ to be--the success
of the family!"