The Duchess of Wrexe Part 36

For Rachel, she saw in him now a possibility of perpetual infidelity, and at every suspicion of it her disgust both at herself and him grew because that possibility did not move her more.

They came up to London at the beginning of May and hid, very successfully from the world, the widening breach.

To Rachel, it was sheer terror to discover the thrill that the adjacence of Elliston Square to Saxton Square gave her. In this one self-revelation there was enough to present her with night after night of sleepless misery. She visited the d.u.c.h.ess and found that her presence was continually demanded. Every visit was a battle.

"Show me how you are treating him, whether he cares for you. Have you found him out? Tell me everything----"

"I will tell you nothing. I will come here day after day and you shall gather nothing from me. I have escaped you."

"Indeed you have not escaped me. My power over you is only now beginning----"

No word between them but the most civil. There was no trace in the old woman now of her earlier irony--no sign in Rachel of irritation or rebellion.

But the girl knew that war was declared, that her only ally was one in whose alliance lay, for her, the very heart of danger.

All these things she might hide from the world--from Christopher she knew that she could hide nothing.

II

It was on an early afternoon in May that Christopher had tea with Rachel. He had waited for his visit with very real anxiety; the letters that he had had from her had been unsatisfactory, not because they were actively expressive of unhappiness, but because there was an effort in every word of them--Rachel had never found it difficult to write to him before.

He was also uneasy because he had been against this marriage from the beginning. He did, as he said to the d.u.c.h.ess, know Rachel better than anyone else knew her; he knew her from his love for her, and also from that scientific study that he applied in his profession. And he had found, too, in her, as he had found in Breton, some strain of fierce helplessness, as of an animal caught in a trap, that especially moved his interest and affection--

Was Rachel's marriage a disaster? If so she had certainly managed to conceal it, for even the d.u.c.h.ess did not know--of that he was sure.

If Rachel were indeed unhappy would she come to him as she used to come to him?

What change had marriage wrought in her?

It was one of those May days when the weather is hot before London is ready. It was a day of tension; buildings, streets quivered beneath a sun in whose gaze there was no kindliness nor comfort. Christopher drove from Eaton Square, where, for some hours he had been engaged in preventing an old man from dying, when both the old man himself and all his friends and relations were convinced that death was the best thing for him--

Sloane Street ran like white steel before his eyes, not dimly veiled as he had so often seen it; Park Lane offered houses that stared with haughty faces upon a world that would, they knew, do anything for money--

Elliston Square itself was white and sterile; the town was, on this afternoon, irritated, sinister ... feet ached upon its pavements and hearts were suddenly clutched with foreboding.

As he ascended in the lift to her flat he knew that, did he find that this marriage was, truly, a misadventure for Rachel, then, until his death, he would reproach himself for some weak inaction, some hesitation when first he had heard that it was to be.

He _had_ protested, but now he felt that he should have done more.

Soon he had his answer to all his questions.

He saw at once that Rachel was no longer the impulsive, nervous girl whom he had always known. She was a girl no longer.

Her eyes greeted him now steadily, she seemed taller and her body was in perfect control--very tall and slim and dark, her cheeks pale but shadowed a little with the shadow deepening beneath her eyes. Her mouth, that had always been too large, had had before a delightful quality of uncertainty, so that smiles and frowns and alarms, distress and happiness all hovered near. It was now grave and composed.

Her limbs had always moved unsteadily and with the awkward lack of control of a child, now there was no kind of impulse, every movement was considered, and that was the first thing that Christopher saw, that nothing that Rachel now did or said was spontaneous.

There was less in her now to remind him of her foreign blood.

The flat was comfortable, but more commonplace than it would have been had it been Rachel's only.

He kissed her, as he had always done, and he fancied that she clung for a moment to him, as her hands went up to his coat.

He settled his big loose body and looked across at her.

Christopher was no subtle a.n.a.lyser of other people's emotions. His own feelings were never complicated and he expected life to run on plain and simple lines of likes and dislikes, sorrow, anger, love and hatred. If someone of whom he was fond made a direct appeal to him his simple remedies were often wonderfully useful--he was no fool and he had been brought, during a great number of years, into the most direct relations with men and women, but, if that direct appeal was not made, then he was frightened and baffled.

He was frightened of Rachel now; he knew instantly that instead of appealing she would defend herself from him.... Some mysterious conviction seemed to forebode that he would not be able to help her. He was, essentially, of those who, believing in goodness and virtue and the glorious Millennium, are contented, quite simply, with that belief and might, if they stated those simplicities, irritate the scoffers. But he was saved because he made statements on the rarest occasions and lived his life instead.

Here, however, was a crisis in his relations with Rachel that no plat.i.tudes could satisfy. Did he not touch her now he might never touch her again.

In a situation that was beyond him he was always hopelessly self-conscious. His love for Rachel was so tremendous a thing in him that a statement of it should surely have been the simplest thing in the world. But he saw in her eyes that to challenge her with--"My dear, you know how I love you. Tell me what's the matter," would frighten her to absolute silence. "I'm going to tell you nothing," she seemed to say to him, "unless you move me in spite of myself. But, if I don't tell you now I shall never tell you."

"Well, my dear," he said, smiling at her, "how are you after all this time?"

"I'm all right," she answered, smiling back at him. "It is good to see you again. Tell me all about your holiday."

"Tell me about yours first."

"Oh! There isn't very much to tell. I enjoyed it all enormously, of course."

"What did you enjoy most?"

"Oh! some of the smaller towns--Rapallo, for instance.--Oh! yes, and Bologna was fascinating."

"Not Rome and Florence?"

"In a way. But there were too many tourists. Rome one's got to stay in, I'm sure. That first view was disappointing."

"And how did Roddy--if I may call him Roddy--enjoy it?"

"Immensely, I think. He liked the country better than the towns though."

"You saw lots of pictures?"

"Heaps. Roddy enjoyed them enormously. I'd no idea he knew so much about them. Oh! it was all lovely, and such colours, such light--London seems like a cellar, even in June."

There followed then a pause that swelled and swelled between them until it resembled some dreadful monster, horribly stationed there to separate them.

Christopher looked at Rachel, but she refused to meet his eyes.

"I've lost her. I shall never see her again!" he thought with despair.

Two years ago he would have gone to her, put his arms around her, kissed her and drawn from her at once her trouble.

He could not do that now.

"Your turn, Dr. Chris dear. Tell me about your holidays."