The Duchess of Wrexe Part 80

But the smile that the d.u.c.h.ess flung to him had in it no fear. It said to him: "Oh, young man, _this_ is your little plot, is it? Oh, Roddy, my friend, _how_ young you are and _how_ little you know me if you think that I am in the least embarra.s.sed by this little gathering. I'm glad that you've given me a chance of showing what I can do."

She dominated the room; she was, from the minute of her appearance, mistress of the situation. They realized her power as they had never realized it before.

Sitting there, leaning forward upon her cane, she remarkably resembled Yale Ross's portrait. She was even wearing the green jade pendant, and her black dress, her bonnet, her fine white wrists, a gold chain with its jangling cl.u.s.ter of things--a gold pencil, a card case, a netted purse--these flung into fine relief the sharp white face lit now with an amused, an ironic vitality.

She was old, she was ill, she was being trodden down by generations hungrier than any that she had ever known, but she was as indomitable as she had ever been.

She looked about the room; her glance pa.s.sed, without any flash of recognition, without sign or signal that she had realized his presence, over the fierce figure of her grandson.

"Well, my dear," she said to Rachel, "I'm sure this is all very pleasant and most unexpected. Let's have some tea."

"I'm afraid," said Rachel, "that it's been standing some time. Let me ring for some fresh."

"No--I like it strong. It used always to be strong when I was younger.

This new generation likes things weak, I believe."

Rachel, looking at her grandmother, felt nothing of Roddy's compunction.

She did not, even now, grasp entirely Roddy's intention; she had no sure conviction of the climax that he intended; but she _did_ know that here, at last, was her chance; she should lift, once and for all, out from all the lies and confusion that had shrouded them, her attempts at courage and honesty, attempts that had wretchedly, most forlornly failed.

Breton should know, Roddy should know, the d.u.c.h.ess should know, and she herself should never again go back.

Breton did not move from the corner where he was sitting; he waited there, his hand pressing hard upon his knee.

Roddy said, "Most awfully good of you, d.u.c.h.ess, to come out again. I wouldn't have dared to ask you to come if Christopher hadn't said that last time did you no harm."

"Only for you, Roddy," she answered him almost gaily, "and Rachel of course. To-day's a nice day. All that thunder has cleared the air."

What her voice must have seemed to Francis Breton, coming back to him again after so vast a distance, bringing to him a thousand memories, scenes and faces that had been buried, a whole world of regrets, and disappointments.

Rachel gave her her tea; brought a little table to her side.

"Thank you, my dear. How _are_ you, Rachel? You're not looking very well. Richard, who came in to see me this morning, told me that you were ill at dinner last night. He seemed quite anxious."

"It was nothing, thank you, grandmamma. That thunder always upsets me. I was sorry to interfere with Lady Carloes' dinner-party."

"Not much of a party from what Richard told me. And she had in a harpist afterwards. Why a harpist? Poor Aggie Carloes! Always done the wrong thing ever since she was a child. Yes, her little drawing-room's so stuffy, they tell me--must have been intolerable last night."

It was for all three of them a quite unbearable situation. Roddy had never, even when he was a boy of sixteen, been afraid of her; now at last he understood what the power was that had kept her family at her feet for so many years, indeed, he seemed now to perceive in all of them--in Breton, in Rachel, as well as in the d.u.c.h.ess--a strain of some almost hysterical pa.s.sion, that, held in check though it was, for the moment, promised to flare into the frankest melodrama at the slightest pretext.

Anything better than this pause; he plunged.

"You won't forgive me, d.u.c.h.ess," he said abruptly. "I believe I've done a pretty rotten thing. I didn't intend it that way. I only meant just to clear everything up and make it all straight for everybody, but if I've been unpardonable just say so and give it me hot."

He paused and cleared his throat. "I wonder if you'd mind, Rachel," said the d.u.c.h.ess, "pa.s.sing me that little stool that I see over there--that little brown stool. Just put it under my feet, will you? Thank you."

Roddy desperately proceeded.

"It's only this. You said the last time you came that you had heard--that you knew--that you were afraid that Rachel and your grandson, Mr. Breton, were--had been--seein' too much of one another.

You just put it to me, you know--Well," he went on, trying to make his voice cheerful and ordinary and failing completely, "lyin' on one's back one gets thinkin' and broodin', specially a feller who hasn't been used to it, like me. I got worried--not because I didn't trust Rachel--and Mr. Breton, of course, all the way, because I do; but simply that, you know, it's rotten for a feller to be lyin' helpless on his back, thinkin' that people are talkin' about his wife--you know how malicious people are, d.u.c.h.ess--and I thought it jolly well must be stopped, don't you know, and I wanted it stopped quick and straight and clean, and I didn't see how it was goin' to be stopped unless I'd got us all friendly together here and just squashed it, all of us. And so--well, to speak--well, here we are.... And," he concluded, trying to smile upon everyone present, "I do hope it's all right. It didn't seem then a poor sort of thing to do, but somehow gettin' you all here as a surprise...."

He broke off, made noises in his throat, and felt that the room was of a burning heat.

He remembered, vaguely, that he had designed this meeting as a punishment to the old lady; he had only succeeded, however, in revealing his own cowardice; the first glimpse of her had made a poor creature of him. Oh! how he wished himself now well out of it! And yet, behind that thought was the knowledge of the little speech that he was soon to make and the way that, with it, he would win Rachel and hold her for ever!

After all, it came to that, absolutely: Rachel was the only thing in all the world that mattered.

The d.u.c.h.ess flung upon him a kindly satiric glance, then, turning from him, bent her sharp little eyes upon Rachel, leaning forward upon her cane so that it appeared that it was now only with Rachel that she had any concern.

"Had I known that my few careless words!"--She broke off with a little impatient gesture.

"Ah! Rachel, my dear, I'm truly sorry. My stupidity...."

But Rachel, her eyes upon Roddy, had got up, had moved across to Roddy's sofa, and stood there, above him. Her eyes moved, then, slowly to her grandmother.

"There was no need," she said, her voice low and trembling, "for this.

If I'd done, as I should, it couldn't have happened. I'm responsible for all of it and only I. Roddy _has_ got you here on false pretences, grandmamma. If you'd rather go now...."

"Thank you," the d.u.c.h.ess said, "I'd much rather stay. It amuses me to see you all together here."

"Then," said Rachel, "I'll say what I ought to have said before. Roddy," turning pa.s.sionately round to him, "you shall have everything--everything--from the very beginning. Mr.

Breton--Francis--will agree that that's what we should have done--long ago."

Breton made a movement as though he would rise, then stayed.

"Aren't we, my dear Rachel," said the d.u.c.h.ess, "making a great deal of a very small affair?"

But Rachel, speaking only to Roddy, sinking her voice and bending a little down to him, began, "Roddy, one thing you've got to know--it's been from the beginning only myself that was to blame. Francis"--she paused, for an instant, over the name--"Francis, please," as he moved again from his corner, "let _me_ tell Roddy...."

She went on then more firmly, turning a little round to her grandmother again: "Roddy, I don't want to defend myself--it's the very last thing I can try to do--I only want to tell you--all three of you--exactly the truth. You know, Roddy, that when I said I'd marry you it wasn't a question of love between us at all. We had that out quite straight from the beginning. I was awfully young: I wanted safety and protection and so I took you. You rather wanted me, and grandmother wanted you to marry me, and so there you were too. Then I met my cousin--I'd heard about him since I'd been a baby and he'd heard about me. We had a lot in common, tastes and dislikes--all kinds of things. We met and he stirred in me all those things that you, Roddy, had never touched. I had found marriage wasn't the freedom I had thought that it would be. I was fond of you, you were fond of me, but there was something always there jogging both of us--just putting us out of patience with one another.

Things got worse. You never could explain what you felt. I tried, but the whole trouble wouldn't go into words somehow.

"Francis and I wrote to one another a little and then one day--as grandmamma has so kindly told you--(here her voice was sharp for a moment)--I went to his rooms." Rachel stopped. She was looking straight in front of her, her hands clenched. She seemed to dive deep for courage, to remain for an instant struggling, then to rise with it in her hands. Her voice was strong and unfaltering. "We found that we loved one another. We told each other ... it seemed to Francis then that the only thing was for us to go away together. But I refused. Odd though it may seem, Roddy, I cared for you then more than I'd ever cared for you before, and I think it's gone on since then, getting stronger always. I wouldn't go and I wouldn't see Francis again and we weren't to write again--unless I found that our living together, Roddy--you and I--was hopeless. Then I said I'd go to him."

Her voice sank and faltered--"There did come a day when I thought that--we couldn't get on any longer. You know what finally ... Lizzie Rand found out. She knew that I intended to go away with Francis. She fought to prevent it--she was splendid about it, splendid! We quarrelled, and in the middle of it, came your accident.... I wrote afterwards to Francis and told him that it was all over--absolutely--for ever. Since then--only once...." She broke off, recovered: "Since then there's been nothing--no letter, no meeting--nothing. My whole life now is wrapped up in you, Roddy, and Francis knows that. I've told you the whole truth!" She turned from him, fiercely, round to her grandmother.

"I don't know what _you_ told Roddy, what you made him believe--you've wanted, always, to harm me with Roddy if you could. At least, now, you can't tell him more than I've done."

The d.u.c.h.ess stared first at Rachel, then at Roddy. She had behaved from the beginning as though Breton did not exist.

Some of her amiability had left her. Her lips were tightly drawn together as she listened and her rings tapped one against the other.

"This is all rather tiresome," she said sharply. "Very like you, Rachel, to do these things in public. You get that from your mother. But you're strangely lacking in humour. It all comes from my own very unfortunate remark the other day. Not like you, Roddy dear, to arrange this kind of thing. Stupid ... distinctly--I'm sure now, however, that you're satisfied. Rachel's certainly been very frank--and now perhaps we might leave it."

It was then that Francis Breton came forward into the middle of the room, his face grey with anger, something suddenly unrestrained and savage in his eyes so that the room was filled with a wind of angry agitation.

He stood in front of his grandmother, but turned his head, sharply, now and again, round to Roddy. So agitated was he that his words came in little gasps, flung out, in little bundles together, and strangely accented as though he were speaking in a language that was strange to him.

The sarcastic smile came back into the old lady's eyes and she leaned forward on her stick again, looking up into his eyes.

"I didn't know--I didn't know--that we were going to meet like this. You didn't know either or you wouldn't have come, but I've been waiting for years for this. It's been nice for me, hasn't it, to sit by whilst you've done everything to make things wretched for me, to ruin me, to push me back to where...."

Roddy's voice interrupted.