The Duchess of Wrexe Part 74

They talked for a little. Then Rachel got up and dressed.

"I'm all right now. Everything seems to have cleared. I'll tell Roddy everything to-morrow, Lizzie dear."

"Come and see me as soon as ever you can, won't you?"

"I will."

Rachel said good night. She held Lizzie's shoulders.

"Lizzie, you're wonderful. Don't think I don't know how wonderful you are. I'll never forget what you've been to-night. And if it's all right to-morrow. Oh! I _am_ going to be happy."

"That's all right," said Lizzie. "Don't go and get frightened again."

"I'll never be so frightened as I was to-night--never."

"I'm afraid you've got dreadfully wet," she said to the cabman.

"It don't matter, mum--but it _does_ come down."

Lizzie stood in the doorway and waved her hand.

The rain slashed the panes and whipped the s.h.i.+ning deserted streets.

Very far away the faint whisper of thunder bade the town farewell.

CHAPTER VI

MARCH 13th: RODDY TALKS TO THE DEVIL AND THE d.u.c.h.eSS DENIES G.o.d

"Que desirez-vous savoir plus precis.e.m.e.nt?'

Mais le porte-drapeau repondit: 'Non, pas maintenant ... apres ...'"

_A l'Extreme Limite._ ARTZYBACHEV.

I

That afternoon had been a difficult one for Roddy. He felt, lying so eternally on his back, the vagaries of the English weather. There were days when the wind was in the park, when suns.h.i.+ne flashed and flung shadows, when the water of the pond glittered and every duck and baby thrilled with life. Then it was very hard to lie still, and memories of days--riding days and swimming days and hunting days--would persecute him. But there were dark wet hours when his room seemed warm and cosy--then he was happy.

On a day of thunder, like this afternoon, his one desire was to get out; never had he felt the bars of his cage so sharply, with so intense an irritation as on to-day.

Ma.s.siter broke the chain of his thoughts and he was glad. Four days now and Rachel had said nothing; many times he had thought that she was going to speak, but the moments had pa.s.sed. He had not slept for two nights--over and over he turned the question as to what he was to do.

Had he been up and about, some solution would have naturally come, he thought, but, lying here, thinking so interminably with one's body tied to one like a stone, nothing seemed clear or easy.

This was the worst day in the world to make thinking simple. The leaden sky pressed one down and held one's brain.

"I'm goin' to have a jolly bad evenin'," said Roddy, "I know I am."

Ma.s.siter was a relief; there was no need to talk whilst Ma.s.siter was there and his fat cheerful body restored one's balance. The same, sensible world that had once been Roddy's own and had, of late, slipped away from him, was restored when Ma.s.siter was there. Nevertheless one hour of Ma.s.siter was enough. Roddy could detect in Ma.s.siter's att.i.tude that pity moved him to additional cheerfulness, and this was irritating; then Ma.s.siter's clumsy efforts to avoid topics that might be especially tactless--that also was tiresome.

Roddy was glad when Rachel and John Beaminster came down and relieved him, and then the moment arrived when he thought again that Rachel was going to speak, and perhaps if he had made a movement of affection he would have caught her, but always when some expression of feeling was especially demanded of him did he feel the least able to produce it.

The whole relations.h.i.+p between them depended on such slender incidents; one word from anybody and there would be no more confusion or doubt; the situation had the maddening tip-toe indecision of a dream.

"I'm going to have a bad time to-night," he thought. "It's no use giving in to the thing." He faced it deliberately; if only he could think clearly, but the d.a.m.ned weather.... Well, he and Jacob must face the night as best they could.

The dog lay flat near the window, moving restlessly under the close air, but p.r.i.c.king his ears at every movement that Roddy made, ready to come to him at any instant.

"That old dog cares for me more than anyone else does--and I only appreciated him after I was laid up--Rummy thing!" Roddy was conscious that high above him, somewhere near the ceiling, hovered a Creature, born of this d.a.m.nable evening, and that did he allow himself to relax for a moment, down that hovering Creature would come. Very faintly, as it were from a great distance, he could catch its whisper in his ear.

"What's the good of this?... What's the good of this? What did you always say? What would you have said about anyone placed as you are now?

Better for him to get out."

"d.a.m.n you, shut up...."

He was in great physical pain, the pain that always came to him when he was tired out, but that was nothing to the mental torture. Twisted figures--Rachel, Breton, himself, the d.u.c.h.ess--pa.s.sed before him, mingling, separating, sometimes coming to him as though they were there with him in the room. He had not, even on the day that had told him that he would never get up again, felt so near to utter defeat as he was now.

He had been proud of himself, proud of his resistance to what, with another man, might have appeared utter catastrophe, proud of his dogged determination. "To have the devil beat...." To-night this same devil was going to be too much for him, did he not fight his very hardest, and the cruelty of it was that this weather took all one's vitality out of one, drained one dry, left one a rag.

"Curse you, get out," he muttered, clenching his teeth, then whistled and brought Jacob instantly to his side. The dog jumped on to the long sofa, taking care not to touch his master's legs. Then he moved up into the hollow of Roddy's arm and lay there warm against Roddy's side.

"What's the use?" The Creature was close to him, his breath warm and damp like the night air. "She doesn't care for you. You can see that she doesn't. She's been in love with her cousin for ever so long, only you didn't know. Wouldn't she have told you that she was a friend of his if there had been nothing more than that in it? What a fool you are--lying here all broken up, simply in the way of her happiness, no good to yourself or anyone else."

"I wish the thunder would come and smash you up...." Then, more desperately, "What if that's right? if I were to clear out...."

"After all," said the Creature, "you've never before seen yourself as you really are. You thought that you were all right because you could use your legs and arms. Now you know what you are--You're nothing--only something that many people must trouble to keep alive--useless--useless!

Why not?"

Yes, Roddy did see himself to-night, sternly; as in the old days he might have looked upon someone and judged him unfit, so now he would confront himself. "It's quite true. You've got nothing--nothing to show, you've no intellect, you're selfish, you despise all kinds of people for all kinds of reasons. You've stood a little pain--so can any man. You'd better get out--no one will know."

"Yes," said the Creature, very close to him now. "You can do it so easily. That morphia that you've had once or twice--an overdose. No one would suppose.... She would never know, and you'd be rid for ever of all this wrong and you'd free so many people from so much trouble."

"Jacob, my son," he whispered, "do you hear what they're saying?"

He went right down, down to the depths of a pit that closed about his head, filled his eyes with darkness, was suffocating.

"Yes, he's beaten," he heard them say. "We've succeeded at last. We've succeeded...."

But they had not.

With an effort of will that was beyond any power that he had believed himself to possess, he pulled himself up.

"There's one thing you've forgotten." He gasped as he came struggling up.

He took the Creature in his hands, wrung its neck and flung it out of the window.

"There's one thing you've forgotten. There's my love for her. That's strong enough for anything. That's reason enough for living even though she doesn't want it. I'll beat you all with that ... go back to h.e.l.l, the lot of you."