The Arbiter Part 30

What a solution it would have been, Rendel felt, if he had indeed been able to make up his mind to the step that Wentworth evidently thought he might be contemplating--what an answer to everything! and as again that burning recollection came over him he felt that, in spite of the courage required for suicide, it would have required less courage to put himself out of the world, beyond the possibility of its ever happening again, than to remain in it and face what other agony of humiliation Fate might have in store for him. But he was not alone, unfortunately; his own destiny was not the only one in question. And if his words, his intention, his faith in the future had meant anything at all when he told Rachel that there was no sacrifice he would not be ready to make for her, he was bound to go on doggedly and meet the worst. He walked aimlessly through the wood, higher and higher, until he reached a sort of clearing from which he could see, far below him, the white road winding back again to Schleppenheim, and presently as he looked he saw driving rapidly back in the direction of the town the open carriages containing the people he had just left. Stamfordham must be in one of them. What were they saying about him, those people? Or, if not saying, what were they thinking? Could he ever look one of them in the face again? Not one. And again he had a wild moment of thinking that it would be possible to put the thing right, to establish his innocence, to insist upon knowing how it was that Sir William Gore had given the information to the _Arbiter_, on knowing what the arrangement was with Pateley on which that _coup de theatre_ had depended, and he sprang to his feet with the determination that he would go straight back into Schleppenheim, seek out Pateley and insist upon knowing what had happened. Then, just as before, the revulsion came. The princ.i.p.al thing, he had no need to ask Pateley. He knew, and that was the thing other people might not know. In a little while, he was told, Rachel would be herself again, and perhaps able to remember: she must not come back to the knowledge of something that must be such a cruel blow to her faith in her father, her adoring love for him. And yet as he turned downwards and strode hurriedly back along the woodland paths, across the shafts of sunlight which were growing longer as the day wore on, he felt how absurdly, horribly unequal the two things were that were at stake. On the one hand his own future, his success, his whole life, all the possibilities he had dreamt of; on the other, reprobation falling on one who was beyond the reach of it, one who had no longer any possibilities, who had nothing to lose, whose hopes and fears of worldly success, whose agitations had been for ever stilled by the hand of death. And Rachel?

Would the suffering of knowing that her father's memory was attacked, of being rudely awakened from her illusions to find that in the eyes of the world he was not, and did not deserve to be, what he had been in hers, would that suffering be equal to that which he himself was encountering now? But even as he argued with himself, as he tried to prove that his own salvation was possible, he knew that when it came to the point he could do nothing. If it had been a question of another man, whom he himself could have saved by bringing the accusation home to the right quarter, he would have done it, he would have felt bound to do it: but as it was, he knew perfectly well that the thing was impossible. The fact is that, whether guided by supernatural standards or by those of instinct and tradition, there are very few of the contingencies in life in which the man accustomed to act honestly up to his own code is really in doubt as to what, by that code, he ought to do: and by the time that Rendel reached the little garden again which he had left in the company of Wentworth a few hours before, he knew quite well that he was going to do nothing, that he might do nothing, that he must simply again wait.

Wait for what? There was nothing to come.

CHAPTER XXIII

Two of the occupants of the carriages that Rendel had seen going rapidly along the road knew the meaning of the scene that had taken place under their eyes; the others were in a state of simmering curiosity.

"I should be glad," said Stamfordham, as they approached Schleppenheim, "if nothing could be said about what happened."

He was sitting opposite to Lady Chaloner and Lady Adela in a landau.

There was no need, of course, to explain to what he was referring.

"Of course, of course," said Lady Chaloner, not quite knowing what to say.

In the meantime Wentworth had got back, had been to see Rachel, and had told her that Rendel was going to extend his walk a little further and that he would be back without fail in time for dinner. He himself, he added, had been obliged to come back for an engagement. Rachel accepted quite placidly the fact that her husband would return later than she expected; she thanked Wentworth with the same sweet smile of old, asked where they had been, said the woods must have been delightful. Then, feeling that he could do nothing, Wentworth, with some misgiving, left her.

Rachel still felt the languor which succeeds illness,--not an unpleasant condition when there is no call for activity,--a physical languor which made her quite content to sit or lie out of doors most of the day, sometimes walk a little way, and then come back to rest again. She had accepted Rendel's unceasing solicitude for her with love and grat.i.tude, she clung to his presence more than ever now that both her parents being gone she felt herself entirely alone: but for the rest she was strangely content to let the days go by in a sort of luxury of sorrow, while she recalled the happy time pa.s.sed with those other two beloved ones who had made up her life. But there was no bitterness in the recollection; there was a sort of tender mystery over it still. At times she felt as if there were something more; she had some dim, confused recollection of her husband being connected with it all, and with Gore's illness; how, she could not remember. And she did not try. Deep down in her mind was the feeling that with a great effort it might all come back to her; but she shrank from making the effort.

After Wentworth left her, it had occurred to her that, since Rendel was not coming back again, she would venture outside the limits of their garden and go to where the band was playing. She did not at all realise what the surroundings of that band would be. The kind of life that she had led before, when they had come abroad with Lady Gore, had not been the sort of existence reigning at Schleppenheim. She strolled out, feeling that everything was very strange and new, in the direction of the music, following without knowing it a path which brought her into the very middle of the promenade into the centre of a gaily dressed throng of people, somewhat bewildering to one accustomed to pa.s.s all her days in solitude. Shrinking back a little she turned out of the stream, and, finding an unoccupied chair under a tree, sat down, looking timidly about her. Then finding that no one was paying any attention to her, or appeared to be conscious of the fact that she was venturing out alone, she gradually became amused at watching all that was going on round her.

Presently two well-dressed women she did not know, an older and a younger one, Lady Chaloner and Lady Adela Prestige in fact, on their way to their bazaar, came along deep in talk, the older one stopping to speak with some emphasis whenever the interest of the conversation demanded it. One of these halts was made close by Rachel.

"I should like to know what it was," Lady Adela was saying.

"You may depend upon it," said Lady Chaloner, "that it was something very bad. He is not the man to do that sort of thing for nothing."

"I am quite sure of it," Lady Adela replied, with a little tremor of excitement. "One can't help feeling that it's something really bad; that it was not only that he had run away with his neighbour's wife or something of that kind. He must have done something that can't be condoned."

"I am sure of it," Lady Chaloner said seriously. "There is no doubt about that."

"Poor creature!" said Lady Adela. "Didn't he look awful?"

"Perfectly fearful!" said Lady Chaloner. "He looked like the villain in a play, who is found out--the man who has cheated at cards, or something of that sort."

"Perhaps that was it."

"I daresay," said Lady Chaloner. "I wonder if he has been playing Bridge?"

"Dear me, I wish I knew!" said Lady Adela.

This sounded very interesting, Rachel thought--exactly the kind of thing that happened in books at smart watering-places.

"Ah, there is Maddy," said Lady Adela. "I do wonder what she thought."

"By the way," said Lady Chaloner, "we must tell her not to say anything about it."

But the Princess had driven back in the company of M. de Moricourt and Mr. Marchmont, and had, therefore, not heard the warning given by Stamfordham to his companions in the other landau.

"Well," said the Princess eagerly, coming up to the others, "what did you think of that? Wasn't it amazing?"

"Yes," said Lady Adela. "What do you think it was, Maddy?"

"Something awful, you may depend upon it," said the Princess; "and I am sure little Marchmont knows. We tried to make him tell us on the way back, but he wouldn't. But I gathered somehow that Lord Stamfordham couldn't have done anything else."

Lord Stamfordham! Did they say Stamfordham? Rachel thought to herself wonderingly. Was he here? And she had some kind of queer, puzzled feeling that he was connected in her mind with something that had happened lately. What was it?

"And Pateley doesn't know anything about it either," said the Princess.

"I met him just now and asked him."

"Did you?" said Lady Chaloner. "I don't think you ought to have done that. I was going to tell you that Stamfordham said it was not to be mentioned."

"Did he?" said the Princess, somewhat taken aback. "I asked Mr. Pateley because I thought he would be sure to know. But I made him promise not to tell anybody."

"I believe he did know, though," said Moricourt, who, though he spoke his own language, understood perfectly everything that was said in English. "I wonder what the quiet and charming wife that Wentworth admires so much thinks?"

"Poor thing!" said Lady Chaloner gravely.

"By the way," said Lady Adela with a sudden idea, "Wentworth was with him. Wentworth must know all about it, of course. He is sure to come to the bazaar. We'll ask him."

"Wentworth was with him?" said Rachel to herself with an involuntary movement, rising from her seat. Of whom were they speaking? What was it all about? She was unconscious that she was standing scrutinising the faces of the group near her as though trying to gather from them what their words might mean. They, deep in their conversation, did not notice her. Then, with a feeling of extraordinary relief--she hardly knew why--she saw a familiar, substantial person coming along the promenade with a sort of friendly swagger. She went forward to meet him, still feeling as though she were walking in her sleep.

"Mrs. Rendel!" said Pateley in his usual hearty tone, in which there was now an inflection of surprise and almost of anxiety.

Pateley had not met either of the Rendels since the day of his last interview with Sir William Gore, and he had carefully not investigated further the incident which had been of such great advantage to himself.

But in the last half-hour, since, under the seal of profound secrecy, it had been confided to him what had happened at the luncheon, and he had been anxiously asked what was the cloud hanging over Rendel, he had pieced things together in a way which brought him pretty near the truth.

It was beginning to be clear to him that Stamfordham had somehow visited upon Rendel the treachery into which he himself had practically led Gore. Stamfordham had asked Pateley at the time of the disclosure how the _Arbiter_ had become possessed of the information. Pateley had apologetically declined to give an explanation. But the ardent support given by the _Arbiter_ to Stamfordham's action in the matter and to all his subsequent policy had made it tolerably certain that Stamfordham would not bear him much malice. And, as a matter of fact, the whole affair had added to Stamfordham's reputation. The masterly way in which he had caught up the situation and dealt with it after the premature disclosure of the Agreement had added a fresh laurel to his crown.

As Pateley uttered the words, "Mrs. Rendel," the whole of the group who were standing near turned with a common impulse as if a thunderbolt had fallen into their midst, and he grasped at once that they had been talking within earshot of her of something she ought not to have heard.

Lady Adela was the first to recover her presence of mind.

"Come," she said; "we must go and take our places. I mean to have some tea if we can get it before the opening," and she made a move in which the others joined.

Pateley, remaining by Rachel, lifted his hat to them as they strolled away. "How long have you been at Schleppenheim?" he asked. "I had no idea you were here."

"We have been here," said Rachel--"let me see--about a week."

She looked anxious and disturbed.

"And where are you staying?" said Pateley.

"In the little pavilion behind the Hotel de Londres," and she pointed.

"Charming place," said Pateley. "And how is your husband?"

"He is very well, thank you," said Rachel. "He has been out for a long walk to-day; he went for an expedition to the woods with Mr. Wentworth."