The Duchess of Wrexe, Her Decline and Death. Hugh Walpole
considered her. She was like some jewelled bird of paradise. She was—one must admit it—better suited to this glorious day than was Aunt Adela.
Why need Aunt Adela refuse to be glad because the sun was shining? Why could not Aunt Adela have said something pleasant about last night's dance? Why must this absurd outward dignity be so carefully maintained? Why when one was looking attractive in a primrose dress could one's aunt not say so?
That reminded her of Roddy Seddon.
She liked him. He might be a real friend like Dr. Christopher. The thought of him made her, as she sat there in the sun, feel doubly certain that the world was a comfortable, reassuring place and that that vision of cold spaces and dark forests that had been so often with her was now to be banished like an evil dream never to return.
At the end of Grosvenor Street the trees were so green that they might have been painted, and here they were at Uncle Richard's house.
II
But, with the closing of Uncle Richard's doors the sun was taken from the world. Uncle Richard's house was always soft and dim, like one of those little jewel cases, all wadding and dark wood. Uncle Richard's carpets were so thick and soft that everyone seemed to walk on tip-toe, and the wonderful old prints in the hall and the beautiful dark carving on the staircase and the sudden swiftness of the doors as they closed behind you only helped to increase the impression that everything here, yourself included, was in for a beautiful exhibition, and that light might hurt the exhibits.
Uncle Richard's study, where they always had tea, was lined from roof to ceiling with book-cases, and behind the shining glass there gleamed the backs of the haughtiest and proudest books in the world. For, were they old and dingy, then they were first editions of transcendent value, and were they new and shining, then were they "Editions de luxe," or some of Uncle Richard's favourites bound in the most intricate and precious of bindings.
Some china on the mantelpiece was so valuable that housemaids must surely have a sleepless time because of it, and all the furniture was so conscious of its rich and ancient glories that to sit down on the chairs or to lean on the tables was to offer them terrible insults.
Two Conders and a Corot shone from the grey walls.
In the midst of this was Uncle Richard, elaborately, ironically indifferent to all emotions. "I have governed the country, yes—but really, my friends, scarcely a job for a fine spirit nowadays. I have collected these few things—yes, but after all what does it come to? Don't many pawn-brokers do the same?"
Rachel, as she stood in the room, felt that her newly found independence was slipping away from her. With the departure of the sun had fled also that consciousness of last night's splendours. About her again was creeping that atmosphere that was always with her in this room, something that made her feel that she was a wretched, ignorant Beaminster, and that even if she did learn the value of all these precious things, why then that knowledge was of little enough use to her.
Uncle Richard with his high white forehead, his long dark trousers, his grey spats and his great collar that bent back, in humble deference, before the nobility of his neck and chin, Uncle Richard required a great deal of courage.
"Well, dear, I hope you enjoyed your dance."
"Yes, Uncle Richard, thank you."
"I left early, but everything seemed to be going very well."
"Yes, I think it was all right."
How different this from the fashion in which she had intended to fling her enthusiasm upon him. What, she wondered, would have been the effect had she done so? How would he have taken it? Could she have pierced that melancholy ironical armour that always kept the real man from her?
Meanwhile she was now back again in the old, old world; tea was brought, the footman and butler moved softly about the room. Aunt Adela said a little, Uncle Richard said a little … the lid was down upon the world.
Meanwhile, impossible to imagine that only a quarter of an hour ago there had been that gay confusion in Bond Street, impossible to believe Mrs. Bronson in her carriage anything but common and vulgar, impossible to prefer that dazzling sun to this cloistered quiet.
A wonderful lacquered clock ticked the minutes away. "I'm in a cage—I'm in a cage—and I want to get out," someone in Rachel Beaminster was crying, and someone else replied, "Thank God that you are allowed to be in such a cage at all. There's no other cage so splendid."
Her primrose gown was forgotten; when Uncle Richard asked her questions she answered "Yes," or "No." Her old terrors had returned.
Upon the three of them, sitting thus, Roddy Seddon was announced. Roddy had assaulted and conquered Lord Richard in as masterly a fashion as he had subdued the Duchess and Lady Adela. He had done it simply by presenting so boisterous and honest an allegiance to the Beaminster standard. Lord Richard's irony had been useless against Roddy's ingenuous appeal. Moreover, there was the Duchess's advocacy—young Seddon was the hope of the party.
Roddy brought to view no evidence of last night's energies; he was as fresh, as highly coloured, as browned and bronzed and clear as any pastoral shepherd, his skin was so finely coloured that clothes always seemed, with him, a pity. Lord Richard's melancholy cynicism had poor chance against such vigour.
His eyes, as they fastened upon Rachel, brightened. She gave that dim room such fresh pleasure, sitting there in her primrose frock with her serious eyes and long hands. No, she was not beautiful; he knew that his last night's impression had been the true one; but she was unusual, she would make, he was sure, a most unusual companion. "You wouldn't think it," May Eversley had said, "but there's any amount of fun in Rachel—you'll find it when you know her."
He was not sure but that he saw it now, lurking in her eyes, her mouth, as she sat there, so gravely, opposite to her uncle and aunt.
"How d'ye do, Lady Adela? How d'ye do, Miss Beaminster? How are you, sir? Thanks—I will have some tea. Pretty gorgeous day, ain't it? Rippin' dance of yours last night, Lady Adela."
Meanwhile, Rachel knew that she had nothing to say to him. Out there in the sunlight she might, perhaps, have maintained that relationship that had been begun between them the night before, but in here, with Aunt Adela and Uncle Richard so consciously an audience, with the air so dim and the walls so grey, Roddy Seddon seemed the most strident of strangers.
She sat, silently, whilst he talked to Aunt Adela. "I've never had so toppin' a dance as last night—'pon my soul, no. Young Milhaven, whom I tumbled on at Brook's at luncheon, said the same. Band first-rate, and floor spiffin'."
"I'm glad you liked it, Roddy," said Lady Adela, with a dry little smile. "I must confess to being glad that it's over."
Roddy glanced a little shyly at Rachel. "I suppose you're goin' hard at it now, Miss Beaminster?"
She looked across the tea-table at him. "There's Lady Grode's and Lady Massiter's, and Lady Carloes is giving one for her niece–"
"The Massiter thing ought to be a good one. Always do it well," said Roddy. "'Pon my word, on a day like this makes one hot to think of dancing."
He was perplexed. He had instantly perceived that he had here a Rachel Beaminster very different from last night's heroine. She was now beyond all contemplated intimacy. He had heard others speak of that aloofness that came like a cloud about her. He now saw it for himself.
After a time he came across to her whilst Lady Adela and her brother talked as though the world consisted of one Beaminster railed round by high palings over which a host of foolish people were trying to climb.
He stood beside her smiling in that slightly embarrassed manner of his, a manner that caused those who did not know him to say that they liked Roddy Seddon because he was so modest.
"Such a day it seems a shame to be in town."
"Yes—isn't it lovely?"
"The opera's pretty hot in the evenin' just now. Have you been yet?"
"I've been in Munich often. I've never been here."
"My word! Haven't you really? Wish I could say the same.