The Duchess of Wrexe Part 46

Christopher's life had not been useless and he knew it. The reality of it had never been in doubt and death--the haphazard surprise of it and the pathos and melodrama and sometimes drab monotony of it--had been his companion for many years.

Christopher, although he had been a hard worker from his childhood, had always taken life lightly. He loved the gifts of this world--food and amus.e.m.e.nt and exercise and pleasant company. He loved, also, certain people whose lives were of immense concern to him. He also believed in a quite traditional G.o.d about Whom he had never argued, but Whose definite particular existence was as certain to him as his own.

He had faults that he tried to cure--his temper--his pleasure in food and wine.

He had three great motives in his life--His love of G.o.d, his love of his friends and his love of his work. He hated hypocrites, mean persons, cruel persons, anyone who showed cowardice or deceit or arrogance. He was dogmatic and therefore disliked anyone else to be so. He was humble about his work, but not humble about his position in the world, which he thought, quite frankly, a very good one.

His interest in his especial friends was compounded of his love for them and also of his curiosity about them, and he always loved someone the more if he or she gave him the opportunity to practise his inquisitiveness upon them.

After Rachel Seddon he cared more, perhaps, for Francis Breton than anyone in the world. He had also of late been interested in Roddy, who was a far better fellow than he had expected.

One puzzle, meanwhile, obstinately and continually beset him. What had happened to Breton during this last year? Something, or in surer probability someone, had been behind him. Christopher might have flattered himself that he had been the influence, but he knew that, if that had been so, Breton's att.i.tude to him would have implied it. Breton was fond of him, but did not owe that to him. Who then was it?

On one of these November days he invited a friend and Breton to luncheon together.

Christopher's geniality and the supreme importance of the war over everything else helped amiability. Christopher's little house in Harley Street showed, beyond its consulting-room, a cheerful Philistine appreciation of comfort and love. There was old silver, there were old prints, sofas, soft carpets, book-cases, whose gla.s.s coverings were more important than their contents. Also a luncheon that was the most artistic thing that the house contained, save only the wine.

At the side of the round gleaming table Christopher sat smiling, and soon Breton told the friend about India and the friend told Breton about Africa.

Meanwhile Christopher watched Breton. He knew Breton very well and, in the old days, he would have said that that nervous excitement that the man sometimes betrayed meant that he was on the edge of some most foolish action.

He knew that light in the eyes, that excited voice, that restlessness--these things had meant that Breton's self-control was about to break.

To-day there were all these signs, and Christopher knew that after luncheon Breton would escape him.

Breton did escape him, went off somewhere in a hurry; no, Christopher could not drive him--he was going in the opposite direction.

Whilst Christopher drove, first down to Eaton Square, then back to 104 Portland Place, he was wondering about Breton....

II

It seemed that, on this afternoon, he was unduly sensitive to impression. The house struck him with a chill, deserted air. There seemed to be no one about as Norris led him up to the d.u.c.h.ess's rooms, the old portraits grinned at him, as though they would have him to know that, very soon, the house would be once more in their possession and Beaminsters dead and gone be of more importance than Beaminsters alive.

At any rate it was a cold November day, and always now the streets seemed to echo with newsboys crying out editions.

Even through these stone walls, those cries could penetrate; he could hear one as he climbed the stairs.

The d.u.c.h.ess, looking peaked and shrivelled, received him with an eagerness that showed that she was longing for company. The room was close, but, in spite of that, now and again she shivered a little.

As he sat opposite her the glance that she flung him was almost pathetic--struggling to maintain her pride, but showing, too, that she might now, in his company, a little relax that great effort.

"I'm not so well," she said; "I've slept badly."

"I'm sorry for that," he said; "what's the trouble?"

"It's this war," she said, taking her eyes away from his face. "This war--I don't think I've ever felt anything before, but this--Oh! I'm old, old at last," she said almost savagely.

"Everybody's feeling it just now," Christopher answered her quietly. "I suppose I'm as level-headed as most people, but even I have been imagining things to-day--Nerves, simply nerves----"

"Nonsense," she answered him--"Don't tell _me_, Christopher. What have I ever had to do with nerves?"

"Wait a little. All we want is to get used to War: it's a new experience for all of us----"

She laughed sharply--

"It's ludicrous, but really you'd think if you studied my family that I was responsible for the whole thing. It's positively as though I'd made some huge blunder which they would do their best to excuse. Adela, John--I'm now to them an old sick woman who's got to be kept quiet and away from worry. They wouldn't have _dared_ let me see that six months ago--"

Her voice was trembling.

She went on again, more quietly. "Every hour now one hears some horrible thing. This morning that young d.i.c.k Staveling dead, shot in some skirmish or another--Fine boy he was. They're all going out, one after the other--Not useless idiots who aren't wanted here like John or Vincent--but boys, boys like--like Roddy."

Again her voice trembled.

For the first time in his knowledge of her some pity for her stirred in him, for the first time in her knowledge of him she definitely looked to him with some appeal.

"Roddy came to see me yesterday," she said.

"Yes?" said Christopher.

"He had not been so often as he used--I told him so; he made some feeble apology, but I can see that he will not come again so often----"

He would have interrupted her, but she went on--"He's not happy, but he loves her madly--madly. He did not tell me so, but I could see that.

That was something I had never reckoned on."

"You prefer," Christopher said sharply, "to imagine that he is not happy. I know, unfortunately, what your feeling is about Rachel. Fond of him though you are you'd prefer that he was unhappy with her."

"I know that he is unhappy. He would not care for her so much if she returned it. I know Roddy. But she's clever enough----" She broke off.

"If Roddy were to go out to South Africa," she said, "I think I would kill Rachel--then die happy----"

"Forgive me," Christopher said, "but this is sheer melodrama. Rachel is devoted to Roddy and Roddy to Rachel. I've the best means for knowing----"

Even as he spoke he saw her mouth curve with that smile that was always the wickedest thing about her. He had seen it on many occasions and it always meant that, then, in her heart there was something cruel or remorseless.

It gave her now an elfin look so that, amongst the absurd furniture of the room, she took her place as some old witch might take hers amongst the paraphernalia of her incantations--her cauldron, her bones, her noxious herbs.

"That shows, Christopher my friend, that you know very little. I've a piece of news that will surprise you."

He said nothing, but, in his heart, made ready for some blow.

"What would you say if our Rachel--your Rachel and my Rachel--had found a new friend in my worthy, most admirable nephew, Francis?"

"Rachel--Rachel and Breton?"

The d.u.c.h.ess watched him with amus.e.m.e.nt. "Exactly. I have the surest information----"

"What does your--information--say?"