The Duchess of Wrexe, Her Decline and Death. Hugh Walpole
Life desert a man and kill him with loneliness.
And then his mood changed; if Christopher and the rest intended to cast him off, let them. There were his old friends—men and women who had been ostracized by the world as he had been—they would know how to treat him.
He turned into the silence and peace of Saxton Square and there met Miss Rand, who was also walking home. The statue was wrapped in blue mist, the trees were fading into grey and the evening star seemed to have taken Saxton Square under its special protection.
"Good evening, Miss Rand."
"Good evening, Mr. Breton."
"Isn't it a lovely evening?"
"Yes. But hasn't it been hot?"
Miss Rand did not look as though she could ever, under any possible circumstances, be hot, so neat and cool was she, but she said yes it had been.
"Isn't it odd the way that as soon as it's fine people begin to complain just as they do when it's wet?"
"It gives them something to talk about—just as it's giving us something now," said Miss Rand, laughing.
Breton looked at her and liked her. She seemed so strong and wise and safe. She would surely always give one the kind of sensible encouragement that one needed. She would be a good person in whom to confide.
They were on the top doorstep now.
"No. I've got a key." He let her pass him.
They stood for a moment in the hall together.
He spoke, as he always did, on the instant's inspiration:
"Miss Rand?"
"Yes."
"I'm alone such a lot—in my evenings I mean. I wonder—might I come down sometimes and just talk a little? You don't know how bad thinking too much is for me, and if I might–"
"Why, of course, Mr. Breton—whenever you like."
Seeing her now, he thought, just now, with her sudden colour she looked quite pretty.
"I expect you could advise me—help me in lots of ways–"
"If there's anything mother or I can do, Mr. Breton, you've only got to ask—Good night–"
The door closed behind her.
He went up to his room, a less miserable man.
CHAPTER IX
THE GOLDEN CAGE
"She gives away because she overflows. She has her own feelings, her own standards; she doesn't keep remembering that she must be proud."
I
Those weeks were, to Rachel, a golden time. She did not pretend to deny or examine their golden quality—they were far, far better than she had imagined anything could ever be, and that was enough. She had never, very definitely, imagined to herself this "coming out," but it had been, at any rate, behind its possible glories, a period of terror. "All those people" was the way that, with frightened eyes, she had contemplated it.
And now the kindness that there had been! All the London world had surely nothing to do but to pay her compliments, to surround her with courtesies, to flatter her every wish. Even Aunt Adela had under the general enthusiasm, blossomed a little into good-will, even Uncle Richard had remembered to wish her well, even the Duke had cracked applause, and as for Uncle John! … he was like an amiable conjurer whose best (and also most difficult) trick had achieved an absolute triumph.
And behind all this there was more. May, June and the early part of July showered such weather upon London as had surely never been showered before, and these brilliant days dressed, for Rachel, her brilliant success in cloth of gold and emblazoned robes. She felt the presence of London for the first time, as the hot weather came beating up the streets and the brilliant whites and blues and greens and reds flung back to the burning blue their contrast and splendour.
She felt, for the first time, her own especial London, and now the grey cool cluster of buildings at one end of blazing Portland Place and the dark green of the hovering park at the other end had a new meaning for her, as though she had only just come to live here and was seeing it all for the first time. In the streets that hung about Portland Place she noticed little shops—little bakers and little shoemakers and little tailors and little sweetshops—and they were all furtive and dark and shabby.
And these little shops led to the growth in her mind of an especial picture of her square of London life, Portland Place white and shining in the middle, with the Circus like a fair at one end of it, the park like a mystery at the other end of it, and, on either side, little secret shops and little dim squares hanging about it, and Harley Street sinister and ominous by its side.
Every element of Life and Death was there, the whole History of Man's Journey Through This World to the Next.
Behind all the joy and overflowing happiness of these weeks this sudden setting of London about her was consciously present.
II
Since that meeting with Miss Rand on the day before the ball Rachel had often spoken to her. They met at first by accident and then Rachel had gone to Lizzie's neat little sitting-room to ask for something and, after that, had looked in for five minutes or so, and they had talked very pleasantly about the hot weather and the theatres and the ways of the world.
Behind all the splendour there was, for Rachel, the dark shadow of suspense. Was it going to last? What was to follow it? When would those awkward uncertainties that had once kept her company return to her? Now whatever else might be doubtful about Miss Rand, one thing was certain, that she would last, would remain to the end the same clean, reliable, honest person that she was now.
Imagine Lizzie Rand unreliable and she vanishes altogether! Rachel welcomed this and she also admired the wonderful manner in which Miss Rand accomplished her gigantic task. To run a house like this one and at the end of it all to remain as composed and safe as though nothing had been done!
Rachel herself might carry off a difficult situation by riding desperately at it, stringing her resources to their highest pitch, but afterwards reaction would claim its penalty.
The penalties were never claimed from Miss Rand.
So, gradually, without any definite words or events, almost without active consciousness, they became friends.
Rachel, suddenly, on one afternoon early in July, determined to go and pay Lizzie Rand a visit in her house.
That house in Saxton Square had acquired a new romantic interest since Rachel had learnt that the abandoned, abominable cousin, who defied Grandmamma and whose name one was never to mention, lived there. Rachel had considered this cousin more than once during these last months. She had resented, from the first, the fact that he was to be given, by the family, no chance of redemption. However bad he had been (and he had apparently been very bad indeed) his opportunity should have been offered to him. His life, she knew, had been hard, he was, like herself, an orphan, and he hated, as she did, her grandmother. Of course, then, he interested her.
She did not now say to herself that if this romantic cousin had not been staying in that house she would not have contemplated a visit to Lizzie. The Beaminster in her had just now the upper hand, and the Beaminster simply said that Saxton Square would be a nice place in which Uncle John, who was, this afternoon, taking her out for a drive, might leave her whilst he went to the club; later he could pick her up and take her home.
The Beaminster part of her did not acknowledge the cousin.
Quite casually she said to Uncle John, "I want you to leave me at Miss Rand's for half an hour this afternoon—she is helping me about some clothes."
Now Uncle John had during these last weeks continually congratulated himself on the disappearance of Rachel's irritable, unsettled self. Always lately one had been presented with her delightful young eager self and always she had been anxious to agree with Uncle John's proposals. The world had been going smoothly for him in other ways of late, and