The Duchess of Wrexe Part 12

Uncle Richard's eyes were flaming and his hands trembling against the case.

Then she looked at Roddy Seddon. His head was flung back; with eyes and mouth, with every vein, and fibre of his body he was drinking in their glory.

His eyes were suddenly caught away. He was staring at her before she looked away--Her eyes said to him, "Why! Do you care like _that_? Do those things mean _that_ to you?"

She smiled across at him. They were in communion again as they had been last night.

He was surprised that he should be so glad.

CHAPTER VII

IN THE HEART OF THE HOUSE

"Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things The honest thief, the tender murderer, The superst.i.tious atheist, demirep, That loves and saves her soul in new French books-- We watch while these in equilibrium keep The giddy line midway: one step aside, They're cla.s.sed and done with. I, then, keep the line--"

BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S Apology.

I

The d.u.c.h.ess could but dimly guess at the splendour of that fine May afternoon.

It had been her complaint lately that she was always cold and now the blinds and curtains were closely drawn and a huge fire was blazing. Her chair was close to the flame: she sat there looking, in the fierce light, small and shrivelled; she was reading intently and made no movement except now and again when she turned a page. Dorchester was the only other person there and she sat a little in the shadow, busily sewing.

From where she sat she could see her mistress's face, and behind her carved chair there were the blue china dragons and the deep heavy red curtains and a black oak table covered with little golden trays and gla.s.s jars and silver boxes.

Neither heat nor cold nor youth nor age had any effect upon Dorchester.

No one knew how old she was, nor how long she had been with her mistress, nor her opinions or sentiments concerning anything in the world.

She was tall and gaunt and snapped her words as she might snap a piece of thread.

From Mrs. Newton and Norris downwards the servants were afraid of her.

She made a confidant of no one, was supposed to have no emotions of any kind, absurd and fantastic stories were told of her; she was certainly not popular in the servants' hall and yet at a word from her anything that she requested was done.

With Miss Rand only was it understood that she had a certain friendly relationship; it was said that she liked Miss Rand.

Dorchester had witnessed the whole of the d.u.c.h.ess's career.

As she sat now in the shadow every now and again she looked up and glanced at that sharp white face and those thin hands. What a little body it was to have done so much, to have battled its way through such a career, to have fought and to have won so many conflicts! It seemed to Dorchester only yesterday that splendid time, when the d.u.c.h.ess had been queen of London. Dorchester also had been young then and had had an energy as enduring, a will as finely tempered as had her mistress.

What a character it had been then with its furies and its disciplines, its indulgences and its amazing restrictions, its sympathies and cold clodded cruelties, its tremendous sense of the dramatic moment so that again and again a position that had been nearly surrendered was held and saved. She had never been beautiful, always little and sharp and sometimes even wizened. But she gained her effects one way or another and beat beautiful and wise and wonderful women off the field.

And then sweeping down upon her had come disease. At first it had been fought and magnificently fought. But it was the horror of its unexpected ravages that had been so difficult to combat. She had never known when the pain would be upon her--it might seize her at any public moment and her retreat be compelled before the whole world. There had been doctors and doctors and doctors, and then operation after operation, but no one had done any good until Dr. Christopher had come to her, and now, for years, he had been keeping her alive.

Out of that very necessity of disease, however, had she dragged her drama. She had retired from the world, not as an old woman beaten by pain, but as a priestess might withdraw within her sanctuary or some great queen demand her privacy.

And it had its effect. Very, very carefully were chosen to see her only those who might convey to the world the right impression. The world was given to understand that the d.u.c.h.ess was now more wonderful than she had ever been, and it was so long since the world at large had seen her that every sort of story was abroad.

Certain old ladies like Lady Carloes who played bridge with her gained most of their public importance from their intimacy with her. It was rumoured that at any moment she might return and take her place again in the world, old though she was.

All this was known to Dorchester and she smiled grimly as she thought of it. The real d.u.c.h.ess! Perhaps she and Dr. Christopher alone in all the world knew the intricacies, the inconsistencies of that amazing figure.

From the moment that illness had come every peculiarity had grown. Her self-indulgences, her temper, her pride, her egotism--now knew, in private, no restraint. And yet when her friends were there or anyone at all from the outside world she displayed the old dignity, the old grand air, the old imperious quiet that belonged to no one else alive.

But what, during these last years, Lady Adela had suffered! Dorchester herself had had many moments when it had seemed that she had more to control than her strength could maintain, but long custom, an entire absence of the nervous system, and a comforting sense that she was, after all, paid well for her trouble, sustained her endurance.

But Lady Adela had nothing.

The d.u.c.h.ess had always hated her children, but had used them, magnificently, for her purposes. They had all been fools, but they were just the kind of fools that the Beaminster tradition demanded.

Lady Adela had from the first been more of a fool than the others. She had never had the gift of words and before her mother was, as a rule, speechless, and it had been only by her changing colour that an onlooker could have told that her mother's furies moved her.

Often Dorchester had attempted interference, but had found at last that it was better to allow the fury to spend its force. Then also Dorchester had noticed a curious thing. The Duke, Lord Richard, Lord John, Lady Adela were proud of these prides and tempers. They were proud of everything that their mother did; they might suffer, their backs might wince under the blows, but it was part of the tradition that their mother should thus behave.

Dorchester fancied that sometimes there was flashed upon them a sudden suspicion that their mother was in these days only an old, ailing, broken woman--no great figure now, no magnificent tyrant, no mysterious queen of society. And then Dorchester fancied that she had noticed that when such a suspicion had come upon them they had put it hastily aside and locked it up and abused themselves for such baseness.

Curious people, these Beaminsters!

Well, it was no business of hers. And, perhaps, after all she had herself some touch of that feeling, some fierce impatient pride in those very tempests and rebellion. After all, was there anyone in the world like this mistress of hers? Was there another woman who would bear so bravely the pain that she bore? And was not that fierce clutch on life, that energy with which she tried still to play her part in the great game, grand in its own fashion?

Would not Dorchester also fight when her time came?

She looked across the firelight at her mistress. When would arrive the inevitable moment of surrender? How imminent that moment when in the eyes of all those about her the old woman would see that all that was now hers was a quiet abandonment to death!

Well, there would be some fine, savage struggling when that crisis struck into their midst. Dorchester smiled grimly, and then, in spite of herself, sighed a little.

They were all growing old together.

II

At five o'clock came Dr. Christopher, and Dorchester moved into the other room and left the two together. With his large limbs and cheerful smile he made the d.u.c.h.ess seem slighter and more fragile than ever, and she herself felt always with his coming some addition of warmth and strength; each visit, so she might have expressed it, gave her life for at least another tiny span.

That he, knowing so much of the follies and catastrophes of life, should yet be an optimist, would have proved him in her opinion a fool had she not known, by constant proof, that he was anything but that. "Well, one day he will discover his mistake," she would say, and yet, perversely, would cling to him for the sake of this very illusion. He helped her courage, he helped her battle with her pain, he gave her, sometimes, some shadowy sense of shame for her pa.s.sions and rebellions, but, more than all this, he yielded her a rea.s.surance that life, precious, adorable, wonderful life, was yet for a little time to be hers.

He knew well enough the influence that he possessed, and when, as on this afternoon, he felt it his duty to avail himself of it, he could not pretend that he faced his task with any exultation.

That he should rouse her fury, as he had one or twice already roused it, meant humiliation for him as well as for herself, and afterwards embarra.s.sment for them both as they saw those scenes in retrospect.

She glanced up at him carefully as he came in and knew him well enough to realize that there was something that he must say to her. There had been other such occasions, she remembered them all. Sometimes she herself had been the subject of them, something that was injuring her health, some indulgence that he could not allow her. Sometimes the battle had been about others; she had fought him and on occasions it had seemed that their relationship was broken once and for all, that nothing could cover the words that had been spoken--but always through everything she had admired his courage.

The way had always been to stand up to her.

For a little time they talked about her health, and then there fell a pause. She, leaning back in her chair with her thin, sharp hands on her lap, watched him grimly as he sat on the other side of the fireplace, leaning forward a little, looking into the fire.

"Well," she said at last. "What is it?" Her voice was deep, but every word was clear-cut, resonant.