II
It seemed that, on this afternoon, he was unduly sensitive to impression. The house struck him with a chill, deserted air. There seemed to be no one about as Norris led him up to the Duchess's rooms, the old portraits grinned at him, as though they would have him to know that, very soon, the house would be once more in their possession and Beaminsters dead and gone be of more importance than Beaminsters alive.
At any rate it was a cold November day, and always now the streets seemed to echo with newsboys crying out editions.
Even through these stone walls, those cries could penetrate; he could hear one as he climbed the stairs.
The Duchess, looking peaked and shrivelled, received him with an eagerness that showed that she was longing for company. The room was close, but, in spite of that, now and again she shivered a little.
As he sat opposite her the glance that she flung him was almost pathetic—struggling to maintain her pride, but showing, too, that she might now, in his company, a little relax that great effort.
"I'm not so well," she said; "I've slept badly."
"I'm sorry for that," he said; "what's the trouble?"
"It's this war," she said, taking her eyes away from his face. "This war—I don't think I've ever felt anything before, but this—Oh! I'm old, old at last," she said almost savagely.
"Everybody's feeling it just now," Christopher answered her quietly. "I suppose I'm as level-headed as most people, but even I have been imagining things to-day—Nerves, simply nerves——"
"Nonsense," she answered him—"Don't tell me, Christopher. What have I ever had to do with nerves?"
"Wait a little. All we want is to get used to War: it's a new experience for all of us——"
She laughed sharply—
"It's ludicrous, but really you'd think if you studied my family that I was responsible for the whole thing. It's positively as though I'd made some huge blunder which they would do their best to excuse. Adela, John—I'm now to them an old sick woman who's got to be kept quiet and away from worry. They wouldn't have dared let me see that six months ago—"
Her voice was trembling.
She went on again, more quietly. "Every hour now one hears some horrible thing. This morning that young Dick Staveling dead, shot in some skirmish or another—Fine boy he was. They're all going out, one after the other—Not useless idiots who aren't wanted here like John or Vincent—but boys, boys like—like Roddy."
Again her voice trembled.
For the first time in his knowledge of her some pity for her stirred in him, for the first time in her knowledge of him she definitely looked to him with some appeal.
"Roddy came to see me yesterday," she said.
"Yes?" said Christopher.
"He had not been so often as he used—I told him so; he made some feeble apology, but I can see that he will not come again so often——"
He would have interrupted her, but she went on—"He's not happy, but he loves her madly—madly. He did not tell me so, but I could see that. That was something I had never reckoned on."
"You prefer," Christopher said sharply, "to imagine that he is not happy. I know, unfortunately, what your feeling is about Rachel. Fond of him though you are you'd prefer that he was unhappy with her."
"I know that he is unhappy. He would not care for her so much if she returned it. I know Roddy. But she's clever enough——" She broke off.
"If Roddy were to go out to South Africa," she said, "I think I would kill Rachel—then die happy——"
"Forgive me," Christopher said, "but this is sheer melodrama. Rachel is devoted to Roddy and Roddy to Rachel. I've the best means for knowing——"
Even as he spoke he saw her mouth curve with that smile that was always the wickedest thing about her. He had seen it on many occasions and it always meant that, then, in her heart there was something cruel or remorseless.
It gave her now an elfin look so that, amongst the absurd furniture of the room, she took her place as some old witch might take hers amongst the paraphernalia of her incantations—her cauldron, her bones, her noxious herbs.
"That shows, Christopher my friend, that you know very little. I've a piece of news that will surprise you."
He said nothing, but, in his heart, made ready for some blow.
"What would you say if our Rachel—your Rachel and my Rachel—had found a new friend in my worthy, most admirable nephew, Francis?"
"Rachel—Rachel and Breton?"
The Duchess watched him with amusement. "Exactly. I have the surest information——"
"What does your—information—say?"
He hated her at that moment as he had never hated her before.
"It says—and I know that it is true—that for more than a year now they have been meeting and corresponding—The other day Rachel went to tea with him—alone. Was with him alone for some time—I'm sure that Roddy knows nothing of this——"
"It's impossible—impossible! Rachel is the soul of honour——"
"I know that you have always thought so. But what more likely? Their feeling about myself would, alone, be enough...."
But he would not let her see how hardly he was taking it. He deprived her of her triumph, did not even question her as to what she would do with it, turned the conversation into other channels, and left her at last—seeming there, amongst her candles, with her nose and thin hands, like some old bird of most evil omen.