Red Pottage Part 23

Rachel arrived after tea at Wilderleigh, and went straight to her room on a plea of fatigue. It was a momentary cowardice that tempted her to yield to her fatigue. She felt convinced that she should meet Hugh Scarlett at Wilderleigh. She had no reason for the conviction beyond the very inadequate one that she had met him at Sybell's London house.

Nevertheless, she felt sure that he would be among the guests, and she longed for a little breathing-s.p.a.ce after parting with Lady Newhaven before she met him. Presently Sybell flew in and embraced her with effusion.

"Oh! what you have missed!" she said, breathlessly. "But you do look tired. You were quite right to lie down before dinner, only you aren't lying down. We have had such a conversation down-stairs. The others are all out boating with Doll but Mr. Harvey, the great Mr. Harvey, you know."

"I am afraid I don't know."

"Oh yes, you do. The author of _Unashamed_."

"I remember now."

"Well, he is here, resting after his new book, _Rahab_. And he has been reading us the opening chapters, just to Miss Barker and me. It is quite wonderful. So painful, you know. He does not spare the reader anything; he thinks it wrong to leave out anything--but so powerful!"

"Is it the same Miss Barker whom I met at your house in the season, who denounced _The Idyll?_"

"Yes. How she did cut it up! You see, she knows all about East London, and that sort of thing. I knew you would like to meet her again because you are philanthropic, too. She hardly thought she could spare the time to come, but she thought she would go back fresher if the wail were out of her ears for a week. The wail! Isn't it dreadful? I feel we ought to do more than we do, don't you?"

"We ought, indeed."

"But then, you see, as a married woman, I can't leave my husband and child and bury myself in the East End, can I?"

"Of course not. But surely it is an understood thing that marriage exempts women from all impersonal duties."

"Yes, that is just it. How well you put it! But others could. I often wonder why, after writing _The Idyll_, Hester never goes near East London. I should have gone straight off, and have cast in my lot with them if I had been in her place."

"Do you ever find people do what you would have done if you had been in their place?"

"No, never. They don't seem to see it. It's a thing I can't understand the way people don't act up to their convictions. And I do know, though I would not tell Hester so for worlds, that the fact that she goes on living comfortably in the country after bringing out that book makes thoughtful people, not me, of course, but other earnest-minded people, think she is a humbug."

"It would--naturally," said Rachel.

"Well, now I am glad you agree with me, for I said something of the same kind to Mr. Scarlett last night, and he could not see it. He's rather obtuse. I dare say you remember him?"

"Perfectly."

"I don't care about him, he is so superficial, and Miss Barker says he is very lethargic in conversation. I asked him because--don't breathe a word of it--but because, as a married woman, one ought to help others, and--do you remember how he stood up for Hester that night in London?"

"For her book, you mean."

"Well, it's all one. Men are men, my dear. Let me tell you he would never have done that if he had not been in love with her."

"Do you mean that men never defend obvious truths unless they are in love?"

"Now you are pretending to misunderstand me," said Sybell, joyously, making her little squirrel face into a becoming pout. "But it's no use trying to take me in. And it's coming right. He's there at this moment!"

"At the Vicarage?"

"Where else? I asked him to go. I urged him. I said I felt sure she expected him. One must help on these things."

"But if he is obtuse and lethargic and superficial, is he likely to suit Hester?"

"My dear, the happiest lot for a woman is marriage. And you and I are Hester's friends. So we ought to do all we can for her happiness. That is why I just mentioned this."

The dressing-gong began to boom.

"I must fly," said Sybell, depositing a b.u.t.terfly kiss on Rachel's forehead. And she flew.

"I wish I knew what I felt about him," said Rachel to herself. "I don't much like hearing him called obtuse and superficial, but I suppose I should like still less to hear Sybell praise him. I have never heard her praise anything but mediocrity yet."

If Rachel had been at all introspective she might have found a clew as to her feeling for Hugh in the unusual care with which she arranged her hair, and her decision at the last moment to discard the pale-green gown lying in state on the bed for a white satin one embroidered at long intervals with rose-colored carnations. The gown was a masterpiece, designed especially for her by a great French milliner. Rachel often wondered whose eyesight had been strained over those marvellous carnations, but to-night she did not give them a thought. She looked with grave dissatisfaction at her pale, nondescript face and nondescript hair and eyes. She did not know that only women with marriageable daughters saw her as she saw herself in the gla.s.s.

As she left her room a door opened at the farther end of the same wing, and a tall man came out. The middle-cla.s.s element in her said, "Superfine." His fastidious taste said, "A plain woman."

In another instant they recognized each other.

"Superfine! What nonsense," she thought, as she met his eager, tremulous glance.

"A plain woman. Rachel plain!" He had met the welcome in her eyes, and there was beauty in every movement, grace in every fold of her white gown.

As they met the gong suddenly boomed out close beneath them, and they could only smile at each other as they shook hands. The butler, who was evidently an artist in his way, proved the gong to the uttermost; and they had descended the staircase together, and had crossed the hall before its dying tremors allowed them to speak.

As he was about to do so he saw her wince suddenly. She was looking straight in front of her at the little crowd in the drawing-room. For an instant her face turned from white to gray, and she involuntarily put out her hand as if to ward off something. Then a lovely color mounted to her cheek; she drew herself up and entered the room, while Hugh, behind her, looked fiercely at each man in succession.

It is always the unexpected that happens. As Rachel's half-absent eyes pa.s.sed over the group in the brilliantly lighted drawing-room her heart reared, without warning, and fell back upon her. She had only just sufficient presence of mind to prevent her hand pressing itself against her heart. He was there; he was before her--the man whom she had loved with pa.s.sion for four years, and who had tortured her.

Mr. Harvey (the great Mr. Harvey) strode forward, and Rachel found her hand engulfed in a large soft hand, which seemed to have a poached egg in the palm.

"This is a pleasure to which I have long looked forward," murmured the great man, all cuff and solitaire, bending in what he would have termed a "chivalrous manner" over Rachel's hand; while Doll, standing near, wondered drearily "why these writing chaps were always such bounders."

Rachel pa.s.sed on to greet Miss Barker, standing on the hearthrug, this time in magenta velveteen, but presumably still tired of the Bible, conversing with Rachel's former lover, whose eyes were on the floor and whose hand gripped the mantel-piece. He had seen her--recognized her.

"May I introduce Mr. Tristram?" said Sybell to Rachel.

"We have met before," said Rachel, gently, as he bowed without looking at her, and she put out her hand.

He was obliged to touch it, obliged to meet for one moment the clear, calm eyes that had once held boundless love for him, boundless trust in him; that had, as he well knew, wept themselves half blind for him.

Mr. Tristram was one of the many who judge their actions in the light of after-circ.u.mstances, and who towards middle-age discover that the world is a treacherous world. He had not been "in a position to marry" when he had fallen in love with Rachel. But he had been as much in love with her as was consistent with a permanent prudential pa.s.sion for himself and his future--that future which the true artist must ever preserve untrammelled. "High hopes faint on a warm hearthstone," etc. He had felt keenly breaking with Rachel. Later on, when a tide of wealth flowed up to the fifth floor of Museum Buildings, he had recognized, for the first time, that he had made a great mistake in life. To the smart of baffled love had been added acute remorse, not so much for wealth missed as for having inflicted upon himself and upon her a frightful and unnecessary pain. But how could he have foreseen such a thing? How could he tell?

he had asked himself, in mute stupefaction, when the news reached him.

What a cheat life was! What a fickle jade was Fortune!

Since the memorable day when Rachel had found means to lay the ghost that haunted her he had made no sign.

"I hardly expected you would remember me," he said, catching at his self-possession.

"I have a good memory," she said, aware that Miss Barker was listening and that Hugh was bristling at her elbow. "And the little Spanish boy whom you were so kind to, and who lodged just below me in Museum Buildings, has not forgotten either. He still asks after the 'Cavalier.'"

"Mr. Tristram is positively blushing at being confronted with his good deeds," said Sybell, intervening on discovering that the attention of some of her guests had been distracted from herself. "Yes, darling"--to her husband--"you take in Lady Jane. Mr. Scarlett, will you take in Miss West?"