The Duchess of Wrexe, Her Decline and Death. Hugh Walpole
that had thus given it its distinction. Its grim facade, without her, would not so strangely have hinted at beauties and wonders and glories within, nor would the windows have gleamed so finely, nor the great hall-door have symbolized such rich dark depths.
Here the temple of the Beaminsters, here, therefore, the shrine of all that is best and finest in English aristocracy. It was indeed the largest house in Portland Place, and most of the houses there were large, but, across that blank austere front more was written than mere size. It was Age at its most scornful, but observant Age, an Age that could compare one period with another, an Age that had not forgotten the things that belonged to its Youth.
There was very little, up and down Portland Place, at morning, at midday, at night, that the house did not perceive. Those high, broad, shining windows were not as other windows—there was assertion in their very bland stupidity.
Within the house was dark and cold, with high square rooms, wide stone staircase, and a curious capacity for clutching any boisterous or seedy humanity on the very threshold and strangling it.
From the hall the great stone staircase was the feature. It struck a chill, at once, into the heart of the visitor so vast was it, so cold and white, so uncompromising, so scornful of other less solid staircases. Very ancient, too—went back a long, long way and would last, just like that, for ever!
What people it must have known, what scenes, what catastrophes encountered! About it, on either side, the hall vanished into blackness; here a gleaming portrait, there some antlers, here again an eighteenth-century gentleman with a full wig and the Beaminster nose and comfortable contempt in his eyes … and, around and about it all, silence; no sound from any part of the house penetrated here.
Up the stone staircase, passages, doors, more family portraits, more staircase, more passages, more doors and, somewhere, in some hidden solemnity, the ticking of a clock, so lonely in all that silence that every now and again it would catch its breath with a little whir, as though it wondered whether it really could go on in the teeth of so contemptuous an indifference.
Rachel Beaminster's sitting-room overlooked Portland Place, and caught the sun on lucky days for quite a time. It was small, square of shape, like a box with a high window, a tiny fireplace, an arm-chair, and a squat table with a bright blue cloth.
Always during the two years that had been devoted to "finishing" in Munich she had had that little room, cosy, compact, before her. Now did it seem a little shabby, the carpet and tablecloth and curtains a little faded; it yet had its cosiness, there in the heart of the great waste and desert that the house presented to her.
The little silver clock on the mantelpiece had struck five: she had come back with Aunt Adela from the picture gallery, and, hearing voices in the Long Drawing-room (the voices said, "My dear Adela, we just came...." "Adela dear, how well...."), she slipped up the stairs and secured her own refuge, and rang for tea to be brought to her there.
She wanted to think: she wanted to lie in the arm-chair there with the window a little open and the evening air coming from the park across Portland Place curiously scented like the sea.
As she lay back in her chair her body seemed fragile, and, almost, in its abandonment, exhausted. Under the black eyes her cheeks and neck were very white, and her black hair gave it all the intensest setting.
She was tired, horribly tired, and she wondered, vaguely, as she lay there how she was ever to manage this life that, in three days' time, she must take up and carry, a life that offered, perhaps, a little freedom, a little release, but so many, so many terrors.
As her gaze took in the little room—its grey paper, a photograph of Uncle John, a book-case with poets, some miscellaneous and untidy-looking novels, and a number of little red Carlyles, a china cockatoo with an impertinent stare, a copy of Furze's "Ride," and a water-colour of red Munich roofs signed "Mary," a tiny writing-table with one old yellow photograph of a sad dark woman in a silver frame—these things were, it seemed the only friendly things she knew. Outside this room there was her grandmother, the house, London, the world—more and more horrible as the circles grew wider and wider.
At the mere thought of the things that she must, in three days' time, face, her heart began to beat so that she could scarcely breathe, and, with that beating, came the iron determination that no one should ever know.
She could not remember a time when these two emotions had not come together. She saw, as though it had happened only an hour ago, a tiny child in a black frock stumbling across endless deserts of carpet towards someone who looked older and more curious than anything one could have conceived possible. Someone sitting in a high carved chair, someone leaning on a stick, with two terrifying great dragons behind her.
The child was seized with such a panic that her breath came in little pumping gasps, her legs quivered and trembled, her mouth was open, her eyes like saucers. And then, suddenly, after what had seemed a century of time, there came the thin trembling voice: "Why, the child's an idiot!"
Since that awful day Rachel had determined that "no one should ever know." There had come to her, at that moment, the knowledge that round every corner there might lurk dragons and a witch. Sometimes they were there, sometimes they were not, but always there was the terror before the corner was turned.
Life for Rachel during those early years was one long determination to meet bravely that half-hour, from six to half-past. Every evening at five minutes before six down the long passages she would be led, then would come the short pause before the dark door, a pause when the beating of the child's heart seemed the only sound in the vast house; then the knock, someone's voice "Come in," then the slow opening of the door, the revelation of the strange dim room with the old mirrors, the purple carpet, the china dragons, and grandmother in the high carved chair. There was always, in the hottest weather, a fire burning, always Dorchester, a large ugly woman, behind the chair, always the cockatoo see-sawing on a golden perch and crying out every now and again with shrill, hostile cries. And then, in the centre of this, grandmother, with her terrible hands, her terrible nose, her terrible eyes, and, most terrible of all, her voice.
Rachel would sit upright on her chair, and very often nothing would be said throughout the half-hour. Sometimes Dorchester would ask questions, such as: "And what has Miss Rachel been doing to-day?" "Did Miss Rachel enjoy her walk in the park this afternoon?" "Has Miss Rachel enjoyed her lessons to-day?" Sometimes, and these were the terrible occasions, her grandmother would speak: "Well, have you been a good little girl?" or "Tell me what you have been doing, child."
At the sound of that voice the room would flood with terror: the child would still, by an effort of will, her body. She could feel now, from all that distance of years, the discipline that it had needed to steady her little black legs that dangled from her chair. She learnt, in time, to control herself so that she could give long answers in a grave, reserved tone.
The old lady never moved as she spoke, only bent forward and stared at her, as though she would see whether it were the truth that she were speaking.
As the days passed and Rachel grew older it was around this half-hour that the house ranged itself. The things in it—the rooms, the passages, the stairs, the high, cold schoolroom with its shining maps and large frigid table, the tapestry room, long and dark and mysterious with strange beasts and horsemen waving in the dusk, the white drawing-room so delicate and fragile that the furniture seemed to be all holding its breath as though a little motion in the air would dissipate it, the vast dining-room with the great hanging candelabra, and the family portraits and the stone fireplace—all these things existed only that that terrible half-hour might fling its shadow about the day.
The child was much alone; she had governesses, a music master, a drawing master, but from these persons, however friendly they might be, she held aloof. She told them nothing of her thoughts. She had behind her her very early years that were now to her like a dream; she did not know that it had ever really existed, that picture of snow and some dark kind figure that was always beside her protecting her, and in the air always a noise of bells. As she grew older that picture was not dimmed in the vision of it, but only she doubted its authenticity. Nevertheless, the memory provided a standard and before that standard these governesses were compelled to yield.
There were, of course, her uncles