II
Then those few hurried words with Christopher on the afternoon of the Duchess's visit flung, at an instant, her whole life into crisis. Even as the words left him she knew that it was up to this that all her days had been leading, that at last she was, in very truth, face to face with her grandmother, that the battle between the two of them had commenced.
She knew, in those few minutes whilst she stood there, motionless, in that room, other things. She knew—and this was the first sharp conviction that struck her heart—that, at all costs, whatever else might come to her, she must not now lose Roddy's love. Strangely, as she stood there facing her danger, some warm glow heightened her colour as she felt from this what Roddy really meant to her. She thought then of Francis Breton, of his danger if her family understood how implicated he was with her. It was true that she had, not very long ago, contemplated running away with him, and surely nothing could have implicated him more than that, but now that he should suffer and yet not have her, secured, as his reward for his suffering—that, at all pain to herself, she must prevent.
Her first impulse after Christopher had left her was to go down instantly to Roddy and confess everything. Then she paused.
Perhaps, after all, her grandmother had not spoken? In that case how cruel to make Roddy miserable with something that was dead and already remote. In her heart too was terror lest she should precipitate Breton into some peril. On every side it seemed to her better that she should wait and discover, perhaps through Christopher, perhaps by her own intelligence, what exactly had occurred.
Four days afterwards, on the afternoon of that day that brought Breton to dine with Christopher, she had not yet spoken. She had taken no steps at all; despising herself, afraid for Breton, feeling at one instant that Roddy knew everything, at another that he knew nothing, ill with this same lassitude that had hung about her now for so many weeks, determining at one moment that she would confront her grandmother, at another that she would go instantly and confess to Roddy.
Yet Rachel hesitated and did nothing.
On this close and heavy afternoon Rachel sat up in her little drawing-room, wondering whether she would wait there for possible callers, or go down to Roddy, who was being entertained at the moment by Lord Massiter, or, complete confession of surrender to nerves and general catastrophe, go up to her bedroom, pull down the blinds and lie there, hunting sleep.
The day was intolerably heavy. The windows of the little room had all been flung open and, through the park, figures wearily dragged themselves and the waters of the lake lay as though they had fallen, because of this leaden heaviness, from the grey sky.
She sat there, listening for every sound, starting at every opening or closing of a door, thinking that were Lord Massiter not there she would go down now and tell everything to Roddy, yet knowing in her heart that if Peters were to come now and tell her that his master was alone she would not move.
Peters did come, but it was to tell her that Lord John would like to see her. Uncle John! She scarcely knew whether she hailed him as a relief or no.
"Oh! ask him to come up, Peters, at once. Bring tea here. Lord Massiter will have his downstairs, I expect."
Had her grandmother told Uncle John anything? Was his visit in connection with anything that he had heard? Of all the changes that her marriage had brought her, that she should have slipped away from Uncle John was one of the saddest. She loved him as dearly as ever, but restraint had been there between them, struggle against it though they might. He was, like Roddy, so ineloquent that anything like a situation was real agony to him; he could never explain his feelings about anything and he would eagerly agree with you that it was a great pity that he had any. What had made this trouble between them? Rachel only knew that now there were so many things in her life which Uncle John could not understand. At her heart her love for him was as clear and simple as it had ever been.
But oh! Uncle John was glad to see her! His picture of her, as she sat there, her cheeks flushed, in a rose-coloured dress, with the room as soft and delicate as a shell around her, filled him with delight: changes had come to him even since their last meeting. The lines in his forehead seemed to her a little deeper, his eyes were anxious and his smile less sure and genial. He wore a beautiful white waistcoat and sat there, with his chest out, his white hair rising into a crest, looking exactly like a pouter pigeon.
"Dear Uncle John! I'm so glad!"
"Well, my dear, I was just passing. Been to some woman who's got a party in Harley House. War party, of course, there were characters of the names of different generals and if you won you paid a guinea to the War Fund—quite a reversal of the ordinary proceedings. I'm sure, my dear, I don't know why I went. Well, it was so close that I felt I couldn't walk back, even to 104, without a cup of tea from you. How's Roddy?"
"All right. Lord Massiter's been down there chatting to him ever since three o'clock. Would you like us to go down and have our tea with them, or shall we stay cosily up here by ourselves?"
"Why, stay up here of course! You're not looking very well, my dear. You've not been the thing lately, have you? This business with Roddy?..." (he took her hand and held it)—"Don't you think it would be a good thing if you went away for a week or two and had a change?"
"No, Uncle John dear, thank you. I am tired and I will go away later on, but just now it would only make me anxious and I should worry about Roddy."
Tea was brought. She looked at Uncle John and thought that he had heard nothing. His guileless eyes smiled back at her; all that she could discern in him was apprehension lest he should say something to displease her, to make her angry. Bless his heart, he need not be afraid of that now!
As she gave him his sugar she felt that some of the old intimate relationship between them was creeping back.
"Of course you heard of grandmother's wonderful visit to us the other day," Rachel said. "Wasn't it amazing? and Christopher says that she was none the worse—rather the better."
"Amazing," said Uncle John very solemnly. "Perfectly astonishing. Your grandmother, Rachel, is an astounding woman. Just when we were all of us thinking that she was really not quite so well, quite so fit as she used to be, she comes along and does something that she hasn't done for thirty years. I confess I was nervous when I first heard of it, but Christopher reassured me—said it would do her no harm, and it hasn't."
"It shows what her affection for Roddy is," Rachel said slowly.
"And for you, dear," Uncle John said timidly. "I know that you haven't—well, haven't—that is, weren't always very friendly, but I hope that now you've come to understand her a little more. She's a difficult woman. She wouldn't be so splendid if she weren't so difficult."
He saw those hard lines that he knew of old strike into Rachel's face. He shrank back himself, afraid that he had, by one ruthless sentence, lost all the happy intimacy that had returned to them.
She had risen and walked to the window. "Dear Uncle John," she said, "I know you'd like us to be friends, bless you. But you may as well give that idea up, once and for ever. Grandmother and I—the old and the new generation, you know. There's never been anything but war and never will be. Besides, she's never forgiven me for marrying Roddy, although she arranged it all."
"Oh! my dear!" said Uncle John.
"No, it is so. I shouldn't be astonished," she continued bitterly, "if I were to hear that she thinks that I flung Roddy from his horse and trampled on him. It would be quite likely."
Then, suddenly, she came back from the window to the sofa where Uncle John, looking greatly distressed, was sitting. She leaned down, put her arms round his neck and her cheek next to his.
"Uncle John dear. Don't you worry about grandmother and me. That's an old, old story and it can't alter. The case of us two, you and me, is much more important. I've been a beast, for a long time, Uncle John. We've got away from one another somehow and it's all been my fault. I've been a prig and all sorts of horrid things, and I've let things come between us. Nothing shall ever come between us again—never."
He kissed her and his fat body thrilled with happiness. Amongst all the distressing things that this last year had brought him, nothing had been more distressing than his separation from Rachel; now the old Rachel had come back to him again.
They sat on the sofa there and he talked of a number of things in his old happy, disconnected way. Some of her apprehension lifted from Rachel, she forgot the closeness of the day and sat there, happier than she had been for many weeks. Six o'clock struck and he got up to go.
"Taking your aunt out to dinner. You going anywhere to-night, my dear?"
"Yes. It's such a nuisance, but Roddy insists on my going. I'd so much rather stay with him. It's only a silly little dinner at Lady Carloes'. She's asked a harpist in afterwards! Fancy, harpist!"
But Uncle John liked Lady Carloes. She was an old friend of his. "Don't laugh at Lady Carloes, dear. She's a kind creature, and been a friend of the family's for ever so long—a devoted friend."
He stopped suddenly. "By the way, something I meant to have told you." He dropped his voice. "You needn't say anything about it and I don't want to worry your grandmother. I'm afraid she wouldn't like it. But the black sheep is to be restored to the fold."
"The black sheep?" said Rachel, wondering.
"Yes," said Uncle John. "Your Cousin Frank Breton, my dear. Your Uncle Vincent and your aunt and I thought that he'd behaved so well, been so quiet and steady all this time, that really something ought to be done about him. It's been on my conscience, I can assure you, for a long time past. Well, I've written to him. I'm going to see him. Of course it's better to be quiet about it whilst your grandmother feels as she does—but in time——"
Rachel's voice was sharp and rather harsh as she said, "Dear Uncle John, that is kind of you. I'm so glad. Poor Cousin Frank! I always felt it unfair."
John looked at her with one of his supplicating, "Please-don't-be-hard-on-me" glances.
Rachel really was strange. She seemed to dislike the idea of Breton's redemption. He had thought that she would have been delighted.
She kissed him. "Nothing's ever to come between us again," she whispered. He pressed her hand.
"I must just look in upon Roddy," he said, and they went down together.