The Duchess of Wrexe Part 4

Why, imagine her for a second in an ordinary room, in an old arm-chair with a worn-out carpet and everlastings on the mantelpiece; what _would_ she do? The young man, whoever he is, has helped her all he can."

Rachel felt his grasp of her hand slacken a little.

"Yes, I know it's wrong of me to talk like that. But it's all so sham.

It's like someone in one of those absurd fantastic novels that people write nowadays when half the characters are out of d.i.c.kens only put into a real background. I'm frightened of grandmother--you know I always have been--but sometimes I wonder whether----"

She paused.

"Whether there's anything really to be frightened of. And yet the relief when I can get off this half-hour every evening--the relief even now when I'm even grown up--oh! it's absurd!"

"Well, my dear, you're coming out, you're going to break away from all of us--you'll have your own life now to make what you like of."

"Yes, that's all very well. But I've been brought up all wrong. Most girls begin to come out when they're about ten and go on, more and more, until, when the time actually comes, well, there's simply nothing in it.

I've never known anyone intimately except May, and now at the thought of crowds and crowds of people, at one moment I'd like to fly into a convent somewhere, and at the next I want to go and be rude to the lot of them--to get in quickly you know, lest they should be rude to me first."

Now that she had begun, it came out in a flood. "Oh! I shall make such a mess of it all. What on earth am I to talk about to these people? What do they want with me or I with them? What have I ever to say to anybody except you and Dr. Chris, and even with you I'm as cross as possible most of the time. Grandmother always thought me a complete fool, and so I suppose I am. If people aren't kind I can't say a word, and if they are I say far too much and blush afterwards for all the nonsense I've poured out. It doesn't matter with you and Dr. Chris because you know me, but the others! And always behind me there'd be grandmother! She knows I'm going to be a failure, and she wants me to be--but just to prove to her, just to prove!"

She jumped up, and standing in front of the window, met, furiously, a hostile world. Her hands were clenched, her face white, her eyes desperate.

"--Just to prove I'll be a success--I'll marry the most magnificent husband, I'll be the most magnificent person--I'll bring it off----"

Suddenly her agitation was gone--she was laughing, looking down on her uncle half humorously, half tenderly.

"Just because I love you and Dr. Chris, I'll do my best not to shame you. I'll be the most decorous and amiable of Beaminsters.--No one shall have a word to say----"

She bent down, put her arms round his neck, and kissed him. Then she sat down on the edge of the arm-chair with her hands clasped over his knee.

Uncle John would not have loved her so dearly had he not been, on so many occasions, frightened of her. She was often hostile in the most curious way--so militant that he could only console himself by thinking that her mother had been Russian, and from Russia one might expect anything. And then, in a moment, the hostility would break into a tenderness, an affection that touched him to the heart and made the tears come into his eyes. But for one who loved comfort above everything Rachel was an agitating person.

Now as he felt the pressure of her hands on his knees, he knew that he would do anything, anything for her.

"That's all right, Rachel dear," was all that he could say. "You hold on to me and Christopher. We'll see you through."

The little silver clock struck six. She got up from the chair and smiled down at him. "If I hadn't got you and Dr. Chris--well--I just don't know what would happen to me."

Meanwhile Uncle John had remembered what it was that he had come to say.

His expression was now one of puzzled distress as though he wondered how people could be so provoking and inconsiderate.

He looked up at her. "By the way," he said, "it's doubtful whether mother will see you this evening. You'd better go and ask, but I expect----"

"What's happened?"

"I may as well tell you. You're bound to hear sooner or later. Your cousin Francis is back in London. He's written a most insulting letter to your grandmother. It's upset her very much."

"Cousin Frank?"

"Yes. He's living apparently quite near here--in some cheap rooms."

May Eversley had, long before, supplied Rachel with all details as to that family scandal.

Rachel now only said: "Well, I'll go and see whether she would like me to come."

For a moment she hesitated, then turned back and flung her arms again about her uncle's neck.

"Whatever happens, Uncle John, whatever happens, we'll stick together."

"Whatever happens," he repeated, "we'll stick together."

His eyes, as they followed her, were full of tenderness--but behind the tenderness there lurked a shadow of alarm.

CHAPTER III

LADY ADELA

"At first it seemed a little speck, And then it seemed a mist; It moved and moved, and took at last A certain shape, I wist."

_The Ancient Mariner._

I

Lady Adela had returned from that visit to her mother's portrait with a confused mind. She was not used to confused minds and resented them; whenever so great an infliction came upon her she solved the confusion by dismissing it, by leaving her mind a blank until it should take upon itself to be clear again. To obtain that blank an interval of reflection was necessary, and now, to-day, that had been impossible. On returning, she had been instantly confronted by a number of people who required to be given tea and conversation, and no time had been allowed her in which she might resolve that her mind should be cleared.

Her confusion was that the portrait of her mother was precisely like, a most brilliant affair, and yet wasn't like in the least. Further than that, in some completely muddled way, it was in the back of her mind that her mother, suddenly, this afternoon, presented herself to her as not entirely living up to the portrait, as being less sharp, less terrible, less magnificent. Horror lest she should in any way be doubting her mother's terror and magnificence--both proved every day of the week--lay, like a dark cloud, at the back of her confusion.

She could not, however, extract anything definite from the little cl.u.s.ter of discomforts; old Lady Carloes and Lord Crewner, a young thing that Lord Crewner had brought with him, and her brother Richard were all waiting for tea, and floods of conversation instantly covered Lady Adela's poor mind and drowned it.

The Long Drawing-room, where they now were, was long and narrow, with two large open fireplaces, a great deal of old furniture rather faded and very handsome, silver that gleamed against the dark wall-paper, one big portrait of the d.u.c.h.ess, painted by Sargent twenty years ago, and high windows shut off now by heavy dark green curtains.

The d.u.c.h.ess, it was understood, did not approve of electric light and the house therefore disdained it. Parts of the room were lighted by candles placed in heavy old silver candlesticks. Round the fireplace at the farther end of the light shone and glittered; there the tea-tables stood, and round about them the company was gathered.

The rest of the room, hung in dark shadow, stretched into black depths, lit only now and again by the gleam of silver or gla.s.s as the light of the more distant fire flashed and fell.

The voices, the clatter of the tea-things, these sounds seemed to be echoed by the darker depths of the farther stretches of the room.

Lady Carlos was eighty, extremely vigorous, and believed in bright colours. She was dressed now in purple, and wore a hat with a large white feather. Her figure was bunched into a kind of bundle, so that her waist was too near her bosom and her bosom too near her chin and her chin too near her forehead.

It was as though some spiteful person had pressed all of her too closely together. But this very shapelessness added to her undoubted amiability; her face was fat and smiling, her hair white and untidy, and she maintained her dignity in spite of her figure. n.o.body knew anything with certainty as to her income, but she was charitable, and ran a little house in Charles Street with a great deal of ceremony and hospitality.

Her husband had long been dead and her two daughters had long been married, so that she was happy and independent. Many people considered her tiresome because her curiosity was insatiable and her discretion open to question, yet she was a staunch Beaminster adherent, an old friend of the d.u.c.h.ess, and saw both this world and the next in the proper Beaminster light.

Lady Adela depended on her a good deal, at certain times: she had forseen that the old lady would come to-day; she had heard of course of Frank Breton's arrival in town, she would demand every detail; Lady Adela knew that the account that she gave to Lady Carloes would be the account that the town would receive.

By the fire Lord Richard, Lord Crewner and the nondescript young man were talking together. Lady Adela caught fragments. "But of course Dilchester is incautious--when was he anything else? What these fellows need----"

That was her brother.

And then Lord Crewner, who believed that the windows of White's and Brook's were the only courts of Ultimate Judgment. "That's all very well, Beaminster, but I a.s.sure you, they were saying last night at the club----"