The Duchess of Wrexe Part 33

"I think I will," said Rachel.

As she went slowly upstairs to her room she knew that she would answer Francis Breton's letter.

CHAPTER III

FIRST SEQUEL TO DEFIANCE

"He began to love her so soon, as he perceived that she was pa.s.sing out of his control."

JANE AUSTEN.

I

Next morning Rachel wrote the following letter to Francis Breton:

"DEAR MR. BRETON,

It was good of you to write to me and I must apologize for allowing your letter to remain so long unanswered, but, on my return from abroad, there were naturally a great many things to do and a great many people to see.

My husband and I enjoyed our time abroad immensely: it was my first visit to Greece and Italy and I loved every bit of it--Athens is to me more wonderful than now, here so snugly in England, seems possible; Florence and Rome very beautiful of course but spoilt, don't you think, by tourists and the modern Italian who has learnt American habits--

How is London? I've not yet had a good look at it since I came back, but we shall be coming up soon, I expect, and have taken a flat in Elliston Square, between Portland Place and Byranston Square.

Your letter sounds a little dismal; it is kind of you to say that I can help you, but, indeed, if writing to me helps do so.

It is only fair to say that at present my husband shares the family point of view and, so long as that is so, I cannot ask you to come and see me, but I hope that soon he will see the whole affair more sensibly.

Yours very sincerely,

RACHEL SEDDON."

She was not proud of this letter when she read it. She whose impulse was for truth seemed to be flung, at every turn, into direct dishonesty. No, she would not seize on the excuse of some vague tyrannical fate.

She was herself her own agent in this affair and she bitterly, from her heart, condemned herself ... and yet, strangely, this letter to Breton seemed, in obedience to some inward impulse, her most honest action since her marriage.

Yet why did she not go to Roddy now and say to him that she had written to Breton and was determined to act as his friend?

Roddy would forbid any further relationship; she knew that. And then?...

No, she could not see beyond--

She banished the letter from her mind, saw the two of them off to Hawes, and entertained Miss Crale to luncheon. Miss Crale was a broad and shapeless old maid with huge boots, a ba.s.s voice and a moustache. She was behind most of the charitable affairs in the county, was popular everywhere, and the most energetic character Rachel had ever met--

Rachel liked her and she liked Rachel, and after she had departed, breathless and red-faced, on some further visit concerned with some further charity, Rachel felt braced and invigorated and happier than she had been for many weeks.

It was a day of frosted blue and the sun flashed fire on to the great field of snow that stretched from sky to sky. The Downs lay humped against the blue and the whole world was frozen into silence.

The only sounds were the soft stir the snow, falling from branches or walls, made and the sharp cries of some children playing in a field near at hand.

When Miss Crale had gone Rachel went off for a walk. Jacob was with her.

She struck up the winding path on to the Downs. The snow was hard and yielded a pleasant friendly crunch beneath her feet. Shadows that were dark and yet were filled with colour lay across the snow; beneath her a white valley against which trees and buildings seemed little wooden toys and, in the far distance, hills rising, cut, with their iridescent glow, the blue sky.

No clouds; no movement; no sound: and soon the sun would be golden and then hard and red, and then across all the snow pink shadows would creep and the evening stars would burn--

In the heart of the snow, a valley between the shoulders of the Downs, a black clump of trees cl.u.s.tered; she could see, now, Seddon Court like a grey box at her feet, very tiny and breathing rest and peace.

Some of her trouble slipped from her under this clear sky and in this sharp air; from these quiet hills she saw all her introspection as an evil thing, morbid, cowardly; from here it seemed to her that her trouble with Roddy had been because he did not know what introspection meant and could not understand the appeals that she made to him.

But was it not unfair that men should have so many things that could take the place of love? For Roddy there were a thousand emotions to give meaning to life: for Rachel all experience seemed to come to her only through people and her relations with people.

Soon the valley and the little toy houses were behind her and she had only the white rise and fall of the hill on every side. Dropped into a hollow was a little dark deserted house with bare trees about it; otherwise there was no dwelling-place to be seen.

This absence of human life suddenly drew up before her, as sharply and with as living an actuality as though some mirage had cast it there--London--

Three months in the country had flung the London that she knew into a vivid perspective that was quite novel to her. By the London that she knew she did not mean the London of parties and theatre, the London of Nita and her kind, but rather the actual London of the streets and squares and fountain and parks and dusty plane trees and tinkling organ-grinders.

She felt now quite a thrill of excitement to think that, in another week or two, she would be back in it all and would see all the lamps coming out and the jingling cabs and the heavy lumbering omnibuses, and that she would hear again the sharp crying of the newspaper boys and the ringing of church bells and the thud of the horses down the Row and the hum of voices above the orchestra during the intervals of some play.

She thought of Portland Place and the park and the Round Church and the little shops and Oxford Circus and the buses tumbling down Regent Street into Piccadilly and then tumbling down again into Pall Mall. From Portland Place she seemed to look down over the whole of London and to see it like a jewel, with its glow dazzling the night sky--

She knew now that although she hated her grandmother she did not hate the Portland Place house and she was glad that Roddy had taken a flat near there. No other part of London would ever be quite the same to her as that was: it would always be home to her more than any other place in the world, with its s.p.a.ce and air and sense of life crowding around it.

And, as she walked, she was fired with the desire to have some real active share in the London life; not in the sham life of pleasure and entertainment, but to be working, as all kinds of men must be working, with London behind them, influencing them, sometimes depressing them, sometimes exalting them, always moving within them.

That was a fine ambition to work towards a greater London, a greater, finer, truer world, and whether you were politician or artist or journalist or merchant or novelist or clerk or philanthropist, still by your working honestly you would deserve your place in that company.

If she could have some share in such things, then her miserable doubts and forebodings would vanish in a vision too bright and glorious to contain them--

As she walked her face glowed and her body moved as though it could continue thus, swinging through the clear air, for all time.

She determined that on this very evening she would tell Roddy about Breton. Whatever might be the result life in the future should be clear of Beaminster confusions. She would even ask Roddy to help her about Breton, to influence, perhaps, her grandmother with regard to him--

Then, in a few days, Nita Raseley would be gone, and, afterwards, she would discipline all her wit and energy towards establishing a fine relationship with Roddy.

Something had, throughout all these months, been wrong; she would discover where that wrong lay--She would curb her own impatience, would fling herself into his interests, would learn the things that Roddy wanted from her and give them to him--

Then, as the sun sank lower and the yellow shadows crept up the sky, she felt desolate and lonely. Vigour left her--She had descended now into the valley and had come to the deserted house with the stark frowning trees. This place, she had heard, had in the eighteenth century been a private mad-house, and now behind its darkened windows she could have fancied shapes and down the wind the echo of voices.

She fought with all her might against a great tide of loneliness that was now sweeping up about her. There had always been so many people around her and yet she had always been lonely. Even May and Dr.

Christopher had not helped her there. She had a sense now of all the people in all the world who were waiting for the other people who could understand them; they were always missing one another, so near sometimes, sometimes touching, and then, after all, going through life alone.

Those were the people with feelings and emotions--and as for the people without them, of what use was life to _them_?

Either way, except for the fortunate way, Life was a futile business.