II
Many eyes were upon her as she moved across to Lord John. This girl, with the foreign colour and bearing, having, apparently, so little of the Beaminster about her and making so quickly so conventional a marriage ("One hadn't expected her to care about a man like Seddon"), stirred their curiosity.
Monty Carfax, licensed transmitter of public opinion, reported her unpopular. "Met her one week-end at the Massiters'—that very time when Seddon proposed. Didn't like her and, really, can't find anyone who does. Conceited, farouche. It's my opinion Roddy Seddon finds her difficult." "Yes, but she's interesting," someone would reply, "unusual. Dissatisfied-looking—not at all happy, I should say."
Lady Adela, stiff, awkward but important, in an ugly grey dress found Lord Crewner the only helpful person in the room. He seemed to understand the way that worries accumulated about one and yet refused to be defined.... He stayed near her throughout the afternoon. She saw Rachel moving across to her brother and the sight of her stirred all her discomfort.
"Why need she look as though she hated everyone?" she thought.
Rachel came at length to Uncle John and found him talking to Maurice Garden. That large and prosperous gentleman hastily proclaimed his delight in meeting Rachel again, but she had very little to say to him.
He left them, secretly determined that he would never speak to the girl again if he could help it.
Uncle John regarded her with an air of supplicating nervousness.
"Come along, my dear," he said. "We haven't had a talk for weeks. Let's find a corner somewhere——"
They found a corner and then were both of them uncomfortable. The girl whom Uncle John had known and loved had had her tempers and intolerances, but she had also had her wonderful spontaneous affections and tendernesses.
Now she sat there looking straight before her and replying only in monosyllables to his questions.
She was saying to herself: "Shall I go? Shall I go?"
At last he said timidly:
"You'll see mother before you leave?"
"Yes," Rachel said.
"I'm afraid she's not very well."
"Not very well?" Rachel looked up at him sharply, Lord John stared away from her. No one had ever said that publicly before, Lord John himself wondered at his words when he had spoken them.
"Of course she doesn't admit it," he said hurriedly. "No one says anything about it—even Christopher. I oughtn't perhaps to have said anything myself—but I thought——" He broke off. Rachel knew that he meant that she should be kind and considerate on this visit.
Before she could say anything the Duke came up and joined them.
It always amused Rachel to see her two uncles together. The Duke was a little dried-up wasp of a man, absolutely selfish, with a satirical tongue and a self-conceit that nothing could pierce. He wore high white collars, over which his brown sharp face searched for compliments. He walked on his toes, his hands were most wonderfully manicured and his trousers were so stiff and rigid over his thin little legs that they looked like iron. The one soft spot in him was a strangely tender affection for his sister Adela which was in no way returned; for her, and for her alone, he would forget his selfishness. Richard and John he despised.
"Well, John," he said. "Well, Rachel?"
"Well, Uncle Vincent," she said. The Duke was afraid of Rachel because her tongue was as sharp as his, but he respected her for that.
"Going up to see mother?"
"Yes," said Rachel. Should she go? Should she go?
Suddenly, arising, as it seemed, out of that crowd of moving figures and coming and standing there in front of her, was her answer.
Yes, she would go. All these months of indetermination should be ended. She should know, once and for all, what this Francis Breton meant to her, what that other life of hers meant to her, and so, in opposition, what Roddy meant to her. She would, as Christopher would have put it, grapple with her Tiger....
Instantly, the relief, the glad, happy relief showed her how wretched life had been.
"What about this war, Uncle Vincent?" she said.
"Well—hem—well—no need to worry—I assure you—no need to worry!"
"It seems a pity," said Lord John, still looking furtively at Rachel and wishing that he could carry her off into some other corner and just ask her whether she were really happy or no.
"Why, John," said the Duke, cackling. "You'll have to go out, 'pon my word, you will—fight 'em, by Jove—Ha! ha! You'd make a fine soldier, old boy."
Rachel got up, hating Uncle Vincent very much. She put her hand on Uncle John's fat arm.
"You may go, Uncle Vincent," she said. "We all give you leave—Uncle John we love too much: if it's a question of bravery he'd be quite certainly the first of this family." She gave his arm a squeeze.
Uncle Vincent looked at her, smiling—
"Well," he said. "None of us would dream of going ... we're all much too comfortable."
"I'll see you before I go, uncle dear," she whispered to Lord John. Then she moved away.
Slowly making her path through the room she left it and climbed the great stone staircase.