III
After dinner, when the men had come into the drawing-room, they all went out into the gardens. It was such a night of stars as Rachel had never seen, so dense an army that all earth was conscious of them; the sky was sheeted silver, here fading into their clouded tracery, there, at fairy points drawing the dark woods and fields up to its splendour with lines of fire. The world throbbed with stars, was restless under the glory of them—God walked in all gardens that night.
At first Nita Raseley, Monty Carfax, Rachel and Roddy went together, then, turning up a little path into the little wood that rose above the garden, Rachel and Roddy were alone.
They found the trunk of a tree and sat down—Behind them the trees were thin enough to show the stars, below them in a dusk lit by that glimmering lustre that starlight flings—a glow that would be flame were it not dimmed by distance immeasurable—they could see the lawns and hedges of the garden and across the dark now and again some white figure showed for an instant and was gone. The house behind the shadows rose sharp and black.
Roddy looked big and solid sitting there. Rachel sat, even now uncertain that she did not see Francis Breton in front of her, looking down, as she did, into the shadowy garden.
"I hope," she said abruptly, "that you don't like Monty Carfax."
"I've never thought about him," he said. "He's certainly no pal of mine—why?"
"Because I hate him," she said fiercely. "What right has he got to exist on a night like this?"
"He's always supposed to be a very clever feller," Roddy said slowly. "But I think him a silly sort of ass—knows nothin' about dogs or horses, can't play any game, only talks clever to women——"
"I can't bear that sort of man and I don't like Mr. Garden either. He's so fat and he loves his food."
"So do I," said Roddy quite simply. "I love it too. It was a jolly good dinner to-night."
She said nothing and then, when he had waited a little, he said anxiously:
"I say, Miss Beaminster, we've been such jolly good friends—all these weeks. And yet—sometimes—I'm afraid you think me the most awful fool——"
She laughed. "I think you are about some things, but then—so am I about a good many things—most of your things——"
"Look here, Miss Beaminster—I wish you'd help me about things I'm an ass in. You can, you know—I'd be most awfully glad."
"What," she said, turning round and facing him, "are the things you really care about?"
"The things? ... care about?"
"Yes—really——"
"Well! Oh! animals and bein' out in the open and shootin' and ridin' and fishin'—any old exercise—and comin' up to town for a buck every now and again, and then goin' back and seein' no one, and my old place and—oh! I don't know," he ended.
"You wouldn't tell anyone a lie, would you, about things you liked and didn't like?"
"It wouldn't be much use if I did," he said, laughing. "They'd find me out in a minute——"
"No, but would you? If you were with a number of people who thought art the thing to care about and knew nothing about dogs and horses, would you say you cared about art more than anything?"
"No," he said slowly. "No—but sometimes, you see, pictures and music and such do please me—like anything—I can't put into words, but I might suddenly be in any old mood—for pictures, or your uncle's fans, or dogs or the Empire or these jolly old stars—Why, there, you see I just let it go on—the mood, I mean, till it's over——" Then he added with a great sigh, "But I am a dash fool at explainin'——"
"But I know you wouldn't be like Mr. Garden or Mr. Carfax—just pretending not to like the thing because it's the thing not to. Or like Aunt Adela, who picks up a phrase about a book or picture from some clever man and then uses it everywhere."
"I should never remember it—a phrase or anythin'—I never can remember what a feller says——"
"Oh! I know you'd always be honest about these things. I feel you would—about everything. It's all these lies that are so impossible: I think I've come to feel now after this first season that the only thing that matters is being straight. It is the only thing—if a person just gives you what they've got—what they've got, not what someone else is supposed to have. May Eversley used to say that people's minds are like soup—thick or clear—but they're only thick because they let them get thick with other people's opinions—you don't mind all this?" she said, suddenly pausing, afraid lest he should be bored.
"It's most awfully interestin'," he said from the bottom of his heart.
"There are some men and women—I've met one or two—who're just made up of Truth. You know it the minute you're with them. And they'll have pluck too, of course—Courage goes with it. Our family," she ended, "are of course the most terrible liars that have ever been—ever——"
"Oh! I say——" he began, protesting.
"Oh! but yes—they run everything on it. My uncle Richard ran through Parliament beautifully because he never said what he meant. And Aunt Adela—and Uncle John, although he's a dear. But then my grandmother brought them up to it. My grandmother would have about three clever people and then muddle all the rest so that the three clever ones can have everything in their hands——"
"Look here," he broke in, "I'm most awfully fond of your grandmother—we're tremendous pals——"
"You may be—I hate her. Oh! I don't hate her with melodrama, I don't want to strangle her or beat her face or burn her, but I'm frightened of her and she's always making me do things I'm ashamed of. That's the best reason for hating anyone there is."
"But she's such a sportsman. One of the old kind. One——."
"Oh! I know all that you can say. I've heard it so many times. But she's all wrong. There isn't any good in her. She's just remorseless and selfish and stubborn. She thinks she ran the world once and she wants to do it still."
"That's all rather fine, I think," said Roddy. "I agree with her a bit. I think most people have got to be run—they just can't run themselves, so you have to put things into them."
"Well, that's just where we differ," she said sharply. "It isn't so. That's where all the muddle comes in. If everyone were just himself without anything borrowed—Oh! the brave world it'd be——"
Then she laughed. "But I'm all wrong myself, you know. I'm as muddled as anyone. I've got all the true, real me there, but all the Beaminster part has slurred it over. But I've got a horrid fear that Truth gets tired of waiting too long. One day, when you're not expecting it, it comes up and says—'Now you choose—your only chance. Are you going to use me or not? If not, I'm going'—How awful if one didn't realize the moment was there, and missed it."
She was laughing, but in her heart that other woman in her was stirring. For a startled, trembling second the wood seemed to flame, the gardens to blaze with the challenge:
"Are you, for the sake of the comfort and safety of life, playing false? Which way are you going?"
She burst into laughter, she caught Roddy by the arm. "Oh! I've talked such nonsense—It's getting cold—we've got to go in. Don't think I talk like that generally, Sir Roderick, because I don't—I——"
She was nervous, frightened. The stars were so many and it was so dark and Roddy no longer seemed a protection.
"I know it's late—Look here, I'm going to run—Race me——"
She tore for her very life out of the little wood, felt him pounding behind her, seized, with a gasp of relief, the lights and the voices—
She knew, with joy, that Roddy was closing the door behind her and that the garden and the stars and the wood were shut into silence.
For a little while, in the drawing-room, she talked excitedly, laughed a great deal, even at Monty Carfax's jokes.
She knew that they were all thinking that she was pleased because she had been with Roddy. She did not care what their thoughts were.
At last in her room she cried to Lucy—"Pull the curtains tight—Tighter—Tighter—Those stars—they'll get through anything."
When at last Lucy was gone she lit her candle and lay there, hearing the clocks strike the hours, wondering when the day would come.