The Duchess of Wrexe Part 18

Mrs. Rand said: "What do you think of alligators, Miss Beaminster? Don't you agree with me that they must be most unpleasant to meet? I always dislike their sluggish ways when I see them in the Zoological Gardens."

Then upon them all broke the little maid with a husky "Miss Beaminster's carriage, please, mem."

Rachel, as she said good-bye, was aware of him again as "her scandalous cousin." He too was now awkward and embarra.s.sed. They said good-bye hurriedly and there was between them both a consciousness that no word of the family or their relations.h.i.+p had been mentioned.

"Well," said Mrs. Rand, when the door was closed, "no one in the world could have been pleasanter...."

III

They did not arrive at the opera that night until the beginning of the second act. It was Lady Carloes' box and she and Uncle John and Roddy Seddon were Rachel's companions.

All the way home in the carriage Rachel had been silent and Lord John, perceiving uneasily that some of the old Rachel was back again, had said very little.

Her mind was confused. At one moment she felt that she did not want to see him again, that he disturbed her peace and worried her with memories that were better forgotten. At another moment she could have returned, then and there, to ask him questions, to know whether he felt this or that: had he ever pictured such a place? Had he...?

And then sharply she dismissed such thoughts. She would think of him no more--and yet he did not look a villain. How delightful to persuade the family to take him back. Why should she not help towards a reconciliation? She was herself so happy now that she could not bear that anyone should feel outcast or lonely--they were all very hard upon him.

It was not until she heard the voices of the apprentices that thought of her cousin left her. As she groped her way in the dark box and heard Lady Carloes' stuffy whisper (she had the voice of a cracknel biscuit), "You sit there, my dear--Lord John here. That's right--I knew you'd be late because ..." she was gloriously aware that quite close to her the music that she loved best in all the world was transforming existence.

She touched Roddy's hand and then surrendered herself.

She had been to Covent Garden now on four or five occasions and from the first the shabby building with its old red and gold, its air of belonging to any period earlier than the one it was just then amusing, its att.i.tude, above all, of indifference to its aspect--all this had attracted her and won her affection. London, she discovered, was always best when it was shabbiest and one could not praise it more highly than by declaring, with perfect truth, that it was the shabbiest city in the world. Now, feeling instinctively that English apprentices (she had had already some taste of the Covent Garden chorus) would act too much or too little, she closed her eyes.

Now, as the music reached her, the old red and gold seemed a cage, swinging, swinging higher and ever higher with old Lady Carloes and Roddy Seddon and all the brilliant people in the stalls, and all the enthusiastic people in the gallery, swinging, swinging inside it. She could feel the lift of it, the rise and fall, and almost the clearer air about her as it rose into the stars.

Then there came to her the voice for which she had surely all her days been waiting. It enwrapped her round and comforted her, consoled her for all her sorrows, rea.s.sured her for all her fears. It filled the cage and the air beyond the cage, it was of earth and of heaven, and of all things good and beautiful in this world and the next.

For the second time to-day her early years came back to her; the voice had in it all those hours when someone's tenderness had made Life worth living. "Life is immortal," it cried. "And I am immortal, for I am Love and Charity, and, whatever the wise ones may tell you, I cannot die."

She felt again the s.p.a.ce and the silence and the snow, but now with no alarm, only utter rea.s.surance. And the cage swung up and up and there were now only the stars and the wind around and about them.

Then, in an instant of time, the cage, with a crash, was upon the ground. Across her world had cut Lady Carloes' voice--"Oh yes, and there's Lord Crewner--no, not in that row--the one behind--next that woman with the silver thing in her hair--four from the end----"

And Roddy Seddon's voice--"Yes, I see him. Who's he got with him?"

Lady Carloes again: "I can't quite see--Miss Mendle as likely as not.... You know, old Aggie Mendle's daughter...."

Rachel felt in that moment that murder was a.s.suredly no crime. Her hands shook on her lap and one of those pa.s.sions, that she had not known for many months, caught her so that she could have torn Lardy Carloes' hair from her head had the chairs been happily arranged.

Fortunately the interruption had been accompanied by Beckmesser's entrance: that other voice was, for the moment, still. Then, as Sachs caught up Beckmesser's serenade, there came again:

"Well, of course if you can't go that week-end I dare say she'll give you another. Only I know she's settling her dates now."

"Yes, but it's a bore havin' to fix up such a long way ahead and you don't know what old stumers you mayn't be boxed up with----"

Oh! It was abominable! She had been seeing a great deal of Roddy during these last weeks, and ever since that visit to Uncle Richard she had been conscious of an intimacy that she had certainly not resented.

But any favour that he may have had with her was certainly now forfeited. His voice was again superior to Beckmesser:

"And so of course I said that if they _would_ go to such shockin' rot I wasn't goin' to waste my evenin's----"

She pushed her chair back against his knees: "Beg pardon, Miss Beaminster, afraid I jolted you----"

"Oh! Keep quiet! Keep quiet!"

Her whisper was so urgent, so packed with irritation that instantly there was, in the box, the deepest of silences.

She sat forward again, anger choking her: she could not recover any illusion. She hated him, _hated_ him! The crowd came on with a whirl.

Then there was that last moment when the old watchman cries to the genial moon and the silvered roofs.

Then the curtain fell.

Without a word, her face white, her hands still trembling, she rose to leave the box. She pa.s.sed out into the pa.s.sage and found that Roddy was by her side.

"I say, Miss Beaminster, I am most awfully sorry, most awfully. I hadn't any idea, really, that I was kickin' up that row. I could have hit myself."

She walked down the pa.s.sage and he followed her. She was superb, she was indeed, with her head up, that neck, those hands, those flas.h.i.+ng eyes.

He had never seen anyone so fine. She ought always to be enraged. That instant decided him. She was the woman for a man to have for his own, someone who could look like someone at the head of your table, someone with the right blood in her veins, someone....

"I could _beat_ myself," he said again.

"How dared you----" she broke out at last. They were, by good luck, alone in the pa.s.sage. "How could you? What do you come for if you care nothing for music at all? If you can hear a voice like that and then talk about your own silly little affairs.... And the selfishness of it!

Of course you think of n.o.body but yourself!"

"Upon my word, Miss Beaminster!"

"No, I've no patience with you. Go to your musical comedy if you like, but leave music like this for people who can appreciate it!"

Oh! she was superb! Entirely superb! She ought to be like this every day of her life! To think that he should have the chance of winning such a prize!

Nevertheless she would not speak to him again and they went back to the box. She would not speak to Lady Carloes nor to her uncle.

Then as the loveliest music in all opera flooded the building her anger began to melt.

He had looked so charmingly repentant and, after all, the _Meistersinger_ was long for anyone who did not really care for music--and then they all did talk. It was only in the gallery that one found the proper reverence.

Her anger cooled and then descended upon her the quintet, and she was once again swept, in her cage, to the stars.

Now she and all live things seemed to be opening their hearts together to G.o.d--no shame now to speak of one's deepest and most sacred thoughts.

No fear now of G.o.d nor the Archangels nor all the long s.p.a.ces of Immortality. The cage had ascended to the highest of all the Heavens, and there, for a moment, one might stand, wors.h.i.+pping, with bowed head.

The quintet ceased and Rachel felt that she could never be angry with anyone again. She wished to tell him so.

At last, the revels were over, the "Prieslied" had won its praises, Sachs had been acclaimed by his world, and they were all in the lobby, waiting for carriages, talking, laughing, hurrying to the restaurants.

Her face was lighted now with happiness. She touched his arm.

"I didn't mean to be angry--like that. It was silly and rude of me.

Forgive me, please----"