The Duchess of Wrexe Part 14

"Well?"

"I know that it is impertinent of me, but, as I have said, I think I know Rachel differently from anyone else in the world. She is strange--curiously ignorant of life in many ways, curiously wise in others. Her simplicity--the things that she takes on trust--there is no end to it. The things, too, that she cannot forgive--she doesn't know how often, later on, she will have to forgive them--

"But the first man who breaks her trust----"

"Thank you for this interesting light on Rachel's character. What does it mean?"

"It means," he said abruptly, "that she mustn't be hurt. Your Grace may turn me out of the house here and now if you will, but Seddon is the wrong man for her to marry----"

"What are his crimes?" Her voice was rising, and her hand tapped impatiently on her dress.

"I know him only slightly, but common repute--anyone who is in the London world at all will tell you--his reputation is bad. I've nothing against him myself, but his affairs with women have been many. He is no worse, I dare say, than a thousand others. At least he's young--and I myself, G.o.d knows, am no moralist. But to marry him to Rachel will be a crime."

He knew as he heard his own voice drop that the scene that he dreaded was upon him. The air was charged with it. In the strangest way everything in the room seemed to be changed because of it. The furniture, the dragons, the tables, the very trifles of gold and silver, seemed to withdraw, leaving the air weighted with pa.s.sion.

She was trembling from head to foot. Her voice was very low.

"You've gone too far. What business is this of yours? How dare you come to me with these tales? How dare you? You've taken too much on your shoulders. See to your own house, Doctor----"

He stepped back from the fireplace.

"Please--to-morrow----"

"No. Here and now." Her words flashed at him. "You've begun to think yourself indispensable. Because I've shown you that I rely upon you--Because, at times, I've seemed to need your aid--therefore you've interfered in matters that are no concern of yours."

"They are concerns of mine," he answered firmly, "in so far as this affair is connected with my friend."

"Your friend and my granddaughter," she retorted. "But it is not only that. I will return you your own words. You say that your friend is in danger--what of mine? You have dared to attack someone who is more to me than you and all the rest of the world put together. Someone whom I care for as I have never cared for my own sons. It was bold of you, Dr.

Christopher, and I shall not forget it."

He took it without flinching. "Very well," he said. "But my word to the end is the same. If you marry Seddon to your granddaughter you do your own sense of justice wrong."

At that the last vestige of restraint left her. Leaning forward in her chair she poured her words upon him in a torrent of anger. Her voice was not raised, but her words cut the air, and now and again she raised her hands in a movement of furious protest.

She spared him nothing, dragged forward old incidents, old pa.s.sages between them that he had thought long ago forgotten, reminded him of occasions when he had been mistaken or over-certain, accused him of crimes that would have caused him to leave the country had there been a vestige of truth in her words; at last, beaten for breath, gasped out: "Sir Roderick Seddon shall know of what you accuse him. He shall deal with you----"

"I have nothing," Christopher answered gravely, "against Seddon--nothing except that he should not marry Rachel!"

"You have attacked him!" she gasped out. "He--shall--answer."

But her rage had exhausted her. She lay back against her chair, heaving, clutching at the arms for support.

He summoned Dorchester, but when he approached the d.u.c.h.ess feebly motioned him away.

"I've--done--with you--never again," she murmured.

She seemed then most desperately old. Her dress was in disorder, her face wizened with deep lines beneath her eyes and hollows in her cheeks.

Christopher waited while Dorchester helped her mistress into the farther room. For some time there was silence. The room was stifling, and, impatiently, he pulled back the heavy red curtains.

He sat, waiting, eyeing the stupid dragons, every now and again glancing at his watch.

Even now the room seemed to vibrate with her voice, and he could imagine that the French novel, fallen from her lap on to the carpet, winked at him as much as to say:

"Oh, we're up to her tempers, aren't we? We know what they're worth.

_We_ don't care!"

At last Dorchester appeared.

"Her Grace is in bed and will see you, sir," she said.

Her face was grave and without expression.

After another glance at his watch he pa.s.sed into the bedroom.

CHAPTER VIII

THE TIGER

"For every Manne there lurketh hys Wilde Beast."

SARDUS AQUINAS (1512).

I

Brun, meeting Christopher one day, had asked him to tea in his flat, and then, remembering his interest in the Beaminster history, invited him to bring Breton with him.

"I haven't seen him for years. I'd like to see him again."

Christopher had accepted this invitation, and now on a sultry afternoon in June found himself sitting in Brun's rooms. Brun's sitting-room had a glazed and mathematical appearance as though, from cushions to ceiling, it had been purchased at a handsome price from a handsome warehouse. It was not comfortable, it was very hot.... The narrow street squeezed between Portland Square and Great Portland Street lay on its back, the little windows of its mean houses gasping like mouths for air, the hard sun pouring pitilessly down.

No weather nor atmosphere ever affected Brun. His clothes as well as his body had that definite appearance of something outside change or disorder. He might have been, one would allow, something else at earlier stages before this final result had been achieved (as a painting is presented to the observer before its completion), but surely now nothing would ever be done to him again. Surveying him, he appeared less a man with a history, origins, destinies about him than an opinion or a criticism. He was designed exactly by Nature for cynical observation, and was intended to play no other part in life.

"Well, Christopher?" said Brun. "Hot, isn't it?"

"My word--yes. Breton's coming along presently."

"Good. I've asked Arkwright the explorer. Nice fellow." They sat in silence for a little. Then Brun said:

"Interested in writers, Christopher?"

"Not very much. Why?"

"Just been lunching with a young novelist, Westcott. What he said interested me. Of course, he's very young, got no humour, takes himself dreadfully seriously, but he asked my advice--and it is as a sign of the times over here that I mention it."