The Duchess of Wrexe Part 22

"It is a quarter of an hour, mother," said Lady Adela.

Lady Adela hated and dreaded these morning interviews. In the first place she disliked the decorations of her mother's bedroom, thought them almost indecent, and could never be comfortable in such surroundings.

She was also aware, by long experience, that her mother was always at her worst at this hour in the morning and many were the storms of temper that that absurd bed and those unpleasant black chairs had witnessed.

Thirdly she knew that she herself looked her worst and was her weakest amongst these eccentricities and shadowed by this dim light.

She waited now whilst her mother fumbled her letters.

"There's your chocolate, mother," she said at last. "It'll be cold."

The d.u.c.h.ess was looking at her letters, but was absorbing only a little of their contents. She was summoning all her will to her aid; she wanted to order the blind to be pulled down, to command her daughter to avoid her presence for at least a week, to scatter her correspondence to the four corners of the earth, and to see none of it again; at the same time she was driving into her brain the fact that before Adela, of all people in the world, she must be alert and wise and wonderful; Adela, the ugliest and most foolish of living women, must see no weakness.

"Shall I read your letters to you, mother?"

She did not answer; slowly, steadily at last, her will was flooding her brain. She could feel the warmth and the colour and the strength of it pervading again her body. The day did not now appear of so appalling a heat and the weight of the things to be done was less heavy upon her.

Lady Adela, meanwhile, watching her mother was struck once again by that chill dismay that had alarmed her first on that May evening, after the visit to the picture gallery. In that half-light her mother did seem very, very old and very, very feeble. Lady Adela had a dreadful temptation to say in a brusque sharp voice, "What do you let your chocolate get cold like that for? Why don't you get someone to read your letters sensibly to you instead of groping through them like that?" and at the mere horror of such a thought a shudder shook her and her heart began wildly to beat. Let once such words as those cross her lips and an edifice, a wonderful, towering temple raised by submissions and subduals and self-denials, would tumble to the ground.

For some moments the struggle in Lady Adela's breast was sharp, then by a tense dominion of her will she produced once again for herself the Ceremonial, the Terror, the agitated, humble Submission.

"Julia Ma.s.siter," the d.u.c.h.ess said, "has asked Rachel for the last week-end in July--She'll go of course----"

"Yes," said Lady Adela.

"Roddy Seddon is going----"

"Yes."

"Roddy is going to marry Rachel. He's coming to see me this afternoon."

Lady Adela was silent.

"A very suitable business. I'd intended it for a long time." Then, after a pause--

"You may tell Dorchester I will dress now."

Lady Adela, conscious, as she left the room, of the relief of her dismissal, joyfully yielded that relief as witness--

The Terror was still there, and she was glad.

II

Very different, however, at three in the afternoon. Now she sat in her high black chair waiting for Roddy Seddon. Very difficult now to imagine that early discourage of the morning. Magnificent now with her black dress and flas.h.i.+ng eyes and white hair, waiting for Roddy Seddon.

This that she had long planned was at length to come to pa.s.s. Roddy Seddon was to be united to the Beaminster family, never again to be separated from it.

Of Rachel she thought not at all. She had never liked Rachel; indeed it was a more positive feeling than that. Alone of all the family was Rachel still in rebellion; even the Duke, although he was so often abroad or in the country (he hated London), was submissive enough when he was with them. But Rachel the old woman knew that she had not touched.

Frightened--yes. The girl hated that evening half-hour and would give a great deal to avoid it, but the terror that she showed did not bring her any closer to her grandmother's power; she stood outside and away.

The d.u.c.h.ess had attempted to influence the girl's brain, to catch some trait, some preference, some dislike, that she could hold and use.

Still Rachel's soul was beyond her grasp, beyond even her guessing at.

But she knew Roddy Seddon--she knew Roddy Seddon as no one knew him. And Roddy Seddon knew her.

Even when he was a boy he had known her as no one else knew her. He had seen through all her embroideries and disguises, had known where she was theatrical and why she was so, had discovered her plots and prides, her defeats and victories--and together they two, Pagan to the very bone of them, had laughed at a credulous, superst.i.tious world.

The London that knew Roddy Seddon thought him a country b.u.mpkin with dissipated tastes and an amiable heart. But she knew him better than that. He was not clever--no. He was amazingly innocent of books, he had no intellectual attainments whatever--yet had he received any kind of education, she knew that he might have had one of the finest brains in the country.

He had preferred dogs and horses and the simple enjoyments of his sensations.

Bowing to the outward rules and laws of the modern world he was less modern than anyone she had ever known.

Pagan--root and branch Pagan. In his simplicities, in his complexities, in his moralities and immoralities, in his kindnesses and cruelties--Pagan.

When they were together it was astonis.h.i.+ng the number of trappings that they were able to discard. They were Pagan together.

But Rachel? Rachel?

Well, Rachel did not matter. It would be a rather good sight to see Rachel suffer, to watch her proud spirit up against something that she could not understand.

And meanwhile the Beaminster family was strengthened by a great addition and the campaign against this new generation, that refused to be led, that wished to lead, that thought itself so very, very brilliant, should go victoriously forward....

"Sir Roderick Seddon, your Grace."

As she looked at the healthy and red-faced Roddy sitting opposite to her, for an instant, some sharp warning, some foreordained consciousness of trouble to come, bade her pause. She knew that a word from her, now, would be enough to prevent the match. He would not prosecute it were she against it. After all, ought Roddy to marry anybody? Could a girl, as ignorant of the world as Rachel, put up any fight against Roddy's simple complexities?

What, after all, did Roddy think of the girl? Did he imagine that he was in love with her? Did he know her, understand her?

Then, looking at him, the affection that she had for him--the only affection that she had for anyone in the world--swept over her. This marriage would bind him to her, would give her another ally before the world--yes, it should go on.

She smiled at him.

"Well, Roddy, have you no news for me, now?"

He had been silent, gazing before him, his brows puckered.

Now he smiled back at her.

"Well, there's been the usual doin's the last week or two. I've been dancin' every night till I'm tired. 'Bout time for the country agen----"

"Have you been down to Seddon at all?"

"Yes. Two nights last week--all dried up--Place wants me a bit oftener down there----"

"What's this I hear about young Olive Ormond marrying Besset Crewe's daughter?"

"So they say--can't imagine it myself. The girl's about eighty-four and a half and he's the most awful kid. Saw them at the opera the other night----"