The Duchess of Wrexe Part 68

MARCH 13th: BRETON'S TIGER

"If I'd had the power not to be born, I would certainly not have accepted existence upon conditions that are such a mockery. But I still have the power to die, though the days I give back are numbered. It's no great power, it's no great mutiny."--DOSTOEVSKY.

I

Christopher's knowledge of Rachel, long and intimate though it had been, had never made him sure of her. In his relations with his fellow-men he proceeded on the broad lines that best suited, he felt, any investigation of his own character. Broad lines, however, did not catch that subtle spirit that was Rachel; he had been baffled again and again by some fierceness or sudden wildness in her, and had often been held from approaching her lest by something too impetuous or ill-considered he should drive her from him altogether. He had been aware that, since her marriage, she had been gradually slipping from him, and this had made him, during the last year, the more careful how he approached her.

He loved her the more in that something that was part of her was strange and mysterious to him; the idealist and the poet concealed in him behind his frank worldliness cherished her aloofness. She was precious to him because nothing else in this life had quite her unexpected beauty.

Since that afternoon when the d.u.c.h.ess had paid her visit to Roddy he wished many times that he were a cleverer man. He felt that something must instantly be done, but he felt, too, that one false step on his part would plunge them all into the most tragical catastrophe.

He was baffled by his own ignorance as to the real truth; neither Breton nor Rachel had taken him into their confidence. He could not say how any of them could be expected to act, and yet he knew that something must be done at once. He saw Rachel through it all, like a strange dark flower, mysterious, shining, with her colour, beyond his grasp, but so beautiful, so poignant! She had never appealed to him as now, in the heart of some danger that he could not define she eluded him and yet demanded his help.

After much puzzled thinking he decided that it must be Breton whom he had best approach, and so he wrote and asked him to come and dine quietly with him in Harley Street on the evening of March 13th. Breton accepted if he might be released at nine-thirty, as he had then another appointment.

"Can't stand a whole evening," thought Christopher, "thinks I want to bully him. Well, perhaps I do!"

He was detained to a late hour on that afternoon by a patient in Halkin Street and it was after seven when he started home, driving through Piccadilly and Bond Street.

It had been an afternoon of intense closeness, and now as evening came down upon the town the thick curtain of grey that had been hanging all day overhead seemed, with a clanking and jolting, one might imagine, so heavy and brazen was its aspect, to fall lower above the dim grey streets. The lights were out, swinging pale and distended down the length of Piccadilly, and already the carriages were pressing in a long row towards the restaurants; boys were crying the latest editions with the war news and upon all those ears their cries now fell drearily, monotonously, for so long had the town been filled with details of escape, folly, death, ignominy, that it was tired and weary of any voice or cry that concerned itself with War....

Christopher, waiting impatiently for his carriage to move on, thought of Brun; this oppressive, stifling evening seemed to call, in some manner too subtle for Christopher's powers of expression, the houses, the streets, the lamps, the very railings into some life of their own. Under the iron sky that surely with every minute dropped lower upon the oppressed town the clubs opposite the Green Park raised their hooded eyes and stirred ever so little above the people, and the twisted chimneys watched and whispered, as the trail of carriages wound, drearily, into the misty distance. Christopher was not an imaginative man, but he thought that he had never known London so evilly perceptive.

It grew hotter and hotter, but with a heat that made the body perspire and yet left it cold. A dim yellow colour, that seemed to herald a fog that had not made up its mind whether it would appear or no, hung at street corners. Figures seemed furtive in the half-light and, instinctively, voices were lowered as though some sudden sound would explode the air like a match in a gas-filled room. A bell began to ring and startled everyone....

"There'll be an awful thunderstorm soon," thought Christopher. "I've never known things so heavy. Everyone's nerves will be on the stretch to-night. Why, one might fancy anything." His own brain would not work.

He had just left a case that had needed all his sharpest attention, but he had found that it was only with the utmost difficulty that he could keep his mind alert, and now when he wanted to think about Breton he was continually arrested by some sense of apprehension, so that he had to stop himself from crying out to his driver, "Look out! Take care!

There's someone there."

When he got to his house he found that his forehead was covered with perspiration and that he could scarcely breathe. Meanwhile he had decided nothing as to the course he would pursue with Breton. When he had dressed and come down he found that Breton was waiting for him.

"How ill he looks!" was Christopher's first thought. Perhaps Breton also was oppressed by the weather and indeed in the house, although the windows were open, it was stifling enough.

"No, the man's in pieces." Christopher's look was sharp. He had never seen Breton, who was naturally neat and a little vain about his appearance, so dishevelled. His beard was untrimmed, his eyes bloodshot, his hair unbrushed, his face white and drawn and his mouth seemed, in that light, to be trembling.

"Good heavens, man," said Christopher, "what _have_ you been doing to yourself?"

Breton smiled feebly--"Oh, nothing. Don't badger me--I can't stand it."

"Badger you? Who's going to badger you? only----" Christopher broke off, looked at him a moment, then put his hand on the other's shoulder.

"Look here, old man, why have you left me alone all these weeks?"

"Haven't felt like seeing anybody."

"Well, you might have felt like seeing me. I've missed you. I haven't got so many friends that I can spare, so easily, my best one."

"Oh, rot, Chris," Breton said almost angrily. "You know it's only the kind of interest you've got in all lame dogs that ties you to me at all."

"You're an ungrateful sort of fellow, Frank. But no matter--I'm fond of you in spite of your ingrat.i.tude. Come in to dinner and see whether you can eat anything on this stifling night." It _was_ stifling, but oppressive with something more than the mere physical discomfort of it.

It was a night that worked havoc with the nerves, so that Christopher, who had naturally a vast deal of common sense, found himself glancing round his shoulder, irritated at the least noise that his servant made, expecting always to hear a knock on the door.

Breton contributed very little to the conversation during dinner. He ate almost nothing, drank only water, looked about him restlessly, muttered something about its being strangely close for March, crumbled up his bread into little heaps.

When they were back in Christopher's smoking-room Breton collapsed into a deep chair, lay there, staring desperately about him, then, with a jerk, pulled himself up and began to stride the room, swinging his arm, then pulling at his beard, crying out at last, "My G.o.d! it's stifling.

Christopher--I must go out. I can't stand this. It's beyond my bearing."

Christopher made him sit down again and then, feeling that he could not more surely hold the man than by plunging at once into what was, in all probability, the heart of his trouble, said:

"Look here, Frank, I said I wouldn't badger you and I won't, but there's something about which I must speak to you. You must tell me the truth.

There's more involved than just ourselves."

Breton seemed instantly aware of Christopher's meaning. He sat up. "I knew," he said, "that I was in for a lecture. Well, it can't make any difference."

"No," Christopher answered brusquely. "Whether it makes any difference to you or no you've _got_ to listen, Frank. It's simply this. I happened to hear, a good time ago, that you had met Rachel. I knew that she had been to your rooms. I knew that you had corresponded. I should dismiss that man-servant of yours, Frank."

Breton muttered something.

"You might have told me yourself, Frank. You might, both of you, have told me. But never mind--it's all too late for that now. The point is that it was your grandmother that told me."

"My G.o.d!" Breton cried. "She knows? She knew.... But there was nothing _to_ know. There was nothing anyone mightn't have known. If anyone dares to breathe a syllable against one of the purest, n.o.blest ..."

"Yes, yes. I know all that," Christopher answered. "But the thing is simply this. I don't know--she doesn't know exactly what the truth is between you and Rachel. All that she does know is that Rachel went to see you and wrote to you. Now Roddy Seddon isn't--or wasn't aware that his wife had ever met you. He holds the more or less traditional family point of view about you. I believe that, two or three days ago, the d.u.c.h.ess told him about Rachel's visits. I am not sure of this. I hope that by now Rachel herself has told her husband. But of that also I'm not sure. All I know is that it's our duty--your duty and my duty to save Rachel all the unhappiness we can, and still more to save Roddy.

Remember the position he's in."

Breton sprang to his feet. "Look here, Chris, I should have told you of all this long ago. I didn't know that you had heard. I wish to G.o.d I had spoken to you. But as Heaven is my witness, Rachel is a saint. I'm a miserable cur--a misery to myself and a misery to everyone else. But she----"

"You've been fools, the couple of you," he answered sternly. "It's no use cursing now. I won't go and urge Rachel to tell Roddy--she must do that of her own free will--All our hands are tied. It depends upon the steps that Roddy takes, and after all the old lady may never have told him. But I've warned you, Frank. It's up to you to do the right thing."

"What do you want me to do?" asked Breton.

"I don't know what you can do. You must see for yourself--only, Frank,"

here Christopher's voice became softer, "by all our old friendship and by any affection that you may have left for me, I do conjure you to play fair by Rachel and her husband. Rachel is very, very young. Roddy is helpless----"

"That's enough," Breton cried. "My G.o.d, Christopher, of you could realize the weeks I've been having you wouldn't think, perhaps, so badly of me. It's been more, I swear, than any mortal flesh can endure. I'm driven, driven--I'm at the end.... But she's safe from me, safe now and safe forever. And that now that old woman should step in--now."

Christopher came and again put his arm on Breton's shoulder and held him up, it might seem, with more than physical strength.

His affection for Breton was an affection sprung from his very knowledge of the man's weaknesses. He had in him that British quality of ruthless condemnation for the sinner whom he did not know and sentimental weakness for the sinner whom he did. He had seen Francis Breton through a thousand sc.r.a.pes, he would see him, doubtless, through a thousand more.

"We'll say no more now, old boy--You look done up--I won't worry you, but if you want me here I am and I promise not to lecture. Only you owe me some confidence, you do indeed."

Breton got up and stood there, with his hand pressed to his forehead. "What you've told me," he said. "I must do something ... something ... it's all been my fault. If they should touch her----"

Then, turning to Christopher, he said: "You _are_ the only friend I've got, and I know it. I do value it--only lately I've been going to bits again. If it weren't for you and little Miss Rand I swear I'd have gone altogether. You _are_ a brick, Christopher. Another day I'll come to you and tell you everything. To-night I'm simply past talking."

A servant came in and gave Christopher a note. It was from Lord John saying that he was anxious about his mother and asking the doctor whether he could possibly come round and see her.