The Duchess of Wrexe Part 54

Their eyes met. The sure steadiness of her gaze, the way that she sat there, her little body so sure and resolute, her very neat composure an argument against lightheaded reasoning, encouraged him beyond any help that he had yet found.

Their gaze seemed long and intimate; the colour rose and flushed his brown cheeks and into his eyes there crept that consciousness of a victory about to be won, although the odds were hard against him. The door opened behind him and he turned at the sound and saw that Rachel had come in.

Her entry gave him now, as it always did, a conviction that during her absence he hadn't had the least idea as to how splendid she really was.

She brought into that little stone hall a wild colour, a strong, fine challenge to anything small, or shackled or conventional.

Her walk had given her cheeks a flame, the black furs round her throat, the black coat falling below her knees, a red feather in her round black fur cap, all these things set off and accentuated the brilliant fire and energy of her eyes.

As she came towards them then so splendid was she that Lizzie was herself for an instant lost in admiration--She lit the hall, she lit the house, she lit the country and the evening sky.

To Roddy, as he looked at her, there stole the spirit of some pagan ancestor telling him that here was his capture, that this fine creature was his to bind, to burden, to chastise, as his lordly pleasure might be.

Rachel, meanwhile, had come in from her walk, unappeased, unsated; the exertion had only succeeded in stirring in her a deeper, more urgent uneasiness. During these last weeks she had known no moment of peace.

She had come down to Seddon determined to do her duty to Roddy; she had found that at every turn her duty to Roddy involved more than any determination could force her to give.

She had not known what that last interview with Breton would do to every situation that followed it. It seemed to her then that those last words with him would make her duty plain, they had only made her duty harder.

She could not now act, think, sleep, move but that last kiss, those last words of his, that last vision of him standing, struggling so finely for control--these things pursued her, caught her eyes and held them.

All her duty to Roddy could not hide from her now that she had, at one flaming instant, known what life at its most intense could be. She had felt the fire--how cold to her now these antechambers, these pa.s.sages so chill, so far from that inner room. Lizzie had then occurred to her as the strongest person she knew. She sent for Lizzie, found instantly that Lizzie disliked her, suspected then that Lizzie knew about Breton.

She knew Lizzie for her enemy.... During the last week also she had detected a new att.i.tude in Roddy; she had felt in him some active growing impatience that quite definitely threatened her safety. That wild lawlessness in Roddy that she had always known, that had produced the Nita episode and others, was now turning towards herself.

But most of all did she fear her thoughts of Breton. She drove him again and again and again from her mind, she called all her strength, mental, moral, and physical, to her aid--always, with a smile, with one glance from his eyes he defeated her.

Day and night he was with her, and yet at her heart she did not even now know whether it were Francis Breton whom she loved, or the life with Roddy, the whole Beaminster scheme of things that she hated. Every day it seemed to her that Lizzie was more watchful, Roddy more impatient, Breton more insistent--but afraid of them all as she was, fear of herself gave her the sharpest terror.

She rang for tea, reproached them because they had waited for her. Then they were--all three of them--silent.

One of the footmen brought in the five o'clock post with the tea and laid Rachel's letters on the table at her side.

Lizzie had leant across the table for something and saw, as though flashed to her by some special designing Providence, that the letter on the top of the pile was in Francis Breton's handwriting.

Rachel, busied with tea, had not looked down. Now she did so; the handwriting rose, as though she had at that instant heard his step beyond the room, and filled first her eyes, then her cheeks, then her heart.

Her eyes met Lizzie's and for the barest moment of time their challenges met. Rachel seemed to hesitate, then, gathering up her letters, looked round at Roddy and said, "I think I'll just go up and take my things off, this fire's hotter than I expected--I'll be back in a moment."

She walked slowly across the room and up the broad staircase.

III

She did not switch on the light. The evening dusk left the room cool and dim, but by the window, standing so that green shadows met the grey and through them both a pale light trembled before it vanished, she took the letter in her hand, allowing the others to drop and be scattered, white, on the floor at her feet.

She held the envelope; he had written and he had sworn to her that he would not do so--she should have been furious at his broken word, scornful of him for his weakness, indignant at his treating her so lightly.

But she could not think of that now, she could only think of the letter.

The envelope was so precious to her that it seemed to return the caress that his fingers gave it and to have of itself some especial individuality. She traced his hand on the address, treasured every line and mark, and then at last tore it open. It was not a very long letter.

He had written to her:

"You will despise me for breaking my word. Perhaps you won't read this--but I _can't_ help it, I _can't_ help it, and even if I could I don't think that I would. I know that my writing to you is just another of the rash, foolish, silly weak things that I've gone on doing all my life, but let it be so. I don't pretend to be fine or brave and I have tried all these weeks, tried harder than you can know. I've written to you every day letter after letter, and torn them up--torn them all up. I've fancied that perhaps you've forgotten by now and then I've known that you've not and then I've known that it were better if you did.

I love you so madly that--(here he had scratched some words out)--I must tell you that I love you so that _you_ can hear me and not only my walls and furniture and my own self. I'm trying not to be selfish. I know that I'm doing something now that is hard on you, but my silence is eating me, thrusting, killing--I shall be better soon--I will be sensible--soon--I will be----

But now, oh, my darling! for a moment at least I have caught you and held you throbbing against me, and put my hands in your hair and stroked your cheeks and kissed your eyes.

Don't write to me if you must not, don't be angry with me for this.

I will try not to break my word again."

As the letter ended so silence came back into the room that had been beating and throbbing with sound.

The pale light had gone, only the Downs were dim grey shapes against a darker sky--the ripple of some water slipping and falling came from the garden.

The letter fell from her hands and lay white with the others on the floor.

She tumbled on to her knees by the window and her heart was the strangest confusion of triumph and fear, exultation and shame.

For a little time she lay there and felt that she was in his arms and that his lips were on her mouth and that her hand pressed his cheek.

She got up, turned on the lights, took off her walking things, brushed her hair and washed her hands, picked up the other letters, but put his in the inside of her dress--then went down to the others.

IV

She found Lizzie sitting alone--"Where's Roddy?"

Lizzie looked up at her. "He had to go and see about a horse or something."

Rachel came down to the table and poured out some tea and then sat smiling at Lizzie; Lizzie smiled back.

"I hope you liked your walk."

"Yes, there's a storm coming up. You've no idea how deeply one gets to care for these Downs--their quiet and their size."

They were silent for a little and then Rachel said:

"Miss Rand--I do hope--that this really has been something of a holiday for you, being here, away from all your London work!"

Lizzie's eyes were sharp--"Yes--It's delightful for me. The first holiday I've had for years...."

"Don't think it impulsive of me--but I've asked you here hoping that we'd get to know one another better. I've wanted to know you, to have you for a friend--for a long time. I've always admired so immensely the way that you've helped Aunt Adela--done things that I could never possibly have done----"

She stopped, but Lizzie said nothing--Then she went on more uncertainly--

"You see, I hoped that perhaps you'd teach me a little order and method.

I've married so young--I've hoped...." Then almost desperately--"But you know, Miss Rand, I don't feel as though your coming here has helped us to know one another any better."

The storm had come up and the sky beyond the house was black. Lizzie's face, lighted by the fire, was white, sharp and set--there was no kindness in her eyes.